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Biography
Ranjana Saha is currently a MSCA COFUND TIAS TIES Fellow (September 2023-August 2026) at the Department of European and World History, University of Turku, Finland. She was a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow and Faculty Member at Manipal Centre for Humanities, Manipal (July 2020-July 2023) and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Mohali, India (May 2018-April 2020). She completed her MPhil and PhD from the Department of History, University of Delhi, Delhi, India. She has a MA degree in History from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, and a BA Hons in History from Lancaster University, U.K. Her papers have been published in The Indian Economic and Social History Review (IESHR), South Asia Research, and Women’s Studies International Forum. She is the author of Modern Maternities (London & New York: Routledge, 2023).
Select Invited Lectures and Podcasts:
- 2023: Invited two-hour lecture on my forthcoming book Modern Maternities at the Global Health Symposium 2023 - Bridging Different Worlds at Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) on 21 April 2023 jointly organised by Prasanna School of Public Health (MAHE), Manipal; Maastricht University, The Netherlands and McMaster University, Canada.
- 2023: Invited international podcast episode of ‘Becoming Modern: Healthcare and History in India’ with Dr. Kiran Kumbhar (Yale University) in collaboration with Suno India and funded by Thakur Family Foundation.
- 2022: Invited online lecture at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS, Kalyani) in August for occasion of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav (for Indian Independence Day Celebration).
Teaching
I am interested in designing lectures, teaching and supervising thesis students primarily related to Social History of Medicine; Colonialism, Decoloniality, Nationalism, Motherhood Studies; Childhood Studies; Cultural History, among many others. In India, I was a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow and Faculty Member at Manipal Centre of Humanities (MCH) from 15 July 2020 - 31 July 2023. I have designed and taught twelve courses (BA and MA) over six semesters along with BA and MA thesis supervision. I was also a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Humanities and Social Sciences Department, IISER, Mohali, from 1 May, 2018 – 30 April, 2020. I conducted a few lectures alongside evaluation duties in Modern Indian History course titled ‘From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India.’
Research
My research aims to decolonise the colonising cult of ‘scientific’ motherhood and the recurring stereotypes of ‘Indian mothers’ from mothercraft literature in colonial India. Regular habits of mother and baby were considered indispensable to the rejuvenation of community, ‘racial’ and national health and virility. I am interested in the cross-cultural tensions between 'scientific' motherhood and childcare, colonialism and nationalism. It draws on various textual and visual sources as well as historical and multidisciplinary approaches and transnational comparisons to explore the material culture of ‘scientific’ motherhood from modern clocks and baby foods to national and international baby weeks to comprehend the intersections of ‘race’, medicine, modernity, nation and empire between the porous boundaries of the private and the public.
Select Research Fellowships & Travel Grants:
- 2024: Awarded travel grant by The Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters for conducting research during Visiting Fellowship (July-August 2024) at The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
- 2023-26 Awarded the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) COFUND Turku Institute of Advanced Studies (TIAS) Turku Intersectoral Excellence Scheme (TIES) Fellowship (September 2023-August 2026), Department of European and World History, University of Turku, Finland.
- 2023: Awarded a Visiting Fellowship (July-August 2024) at The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, U.K.
- 2019: Travel and maintenance from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft German Research Foundation to present paper at the Workshop “Cultures of Archival Research in Germany and India”, jointly organised by the Indian Council Historical Research and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft German Research Foundation (New Delhi, India), in Marburg and Berlin from 15 to 21 May.
- 2018: Travel Grant from the University of Warwick to present paper Doctoral and Early Career Workshop, ‘Between & Beyond: Transnational Networks & the British Empire C. 18 – 20th Centuries’, at University of Warwick, U.K., 23-24 June.
- 2018: Contingency Grant from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Mohali, for postdoctoral research and to present paper at the Workshop at the University of Warwick and postdoctoral research in London, (June-July).
- 2016 – 2017: PhD Fellowship from the CSDS (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies), Delhi.
- 2013 – 2015:Junior Research Fellowship/JRF from Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi.
- 2015: Short-term Grant from Charles Wallace India Trust UK (July-August).
- 2015: Foreign Travel Grant from the Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi (July-August).
- 2014: 2014: Awarded national level prizes: the Professor Partha Sarthi Gupta Prize and Professor J. C. Jha Memorial Prize for my paper ‘Infant Feeding: Child Marriage and “Immature Maternity” in Colonial Bengal, 1890s-1920s’ at the 75th Indian History Congress, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 28th-30th December, 2014.
- 2013: Conference travel and maintenance to participate in 8th International Congress on Traditional Asian Medicine (ICTAM VIII) Sancheong, South Korea (September).