Participant Info

First Name
Joanna
Last Name
Simonow (she/her)
Country
Germany
State
Affiliation
South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University
Website URL
https://www.sai.uni-heidelberg.de/history/mitarbeiter/simonow_en.php
Keywords
History of Modern South Asia, Colonialism, Anticolonialism, Global and Transnational History, Women's and Gender History, History of Sexuality, Histories of Famine, Humanitarianism and Development
Availability
Media Contact
Additional Contact Information
PhD
PhD

Personal Info

Photo
About Me

I am a historian of modern South Asia, and my research focusses on the histories of anticolonialism and decolonization, the histories of social and political movements, women’s history and gender studies.

A first area of expertise relates to my longstanding research in famine relief, food aid and nutritional development. My  monograph Ending Famine in India. A Transnational History of Food Aid and Famine Relief, c. 1890-1950 was published by Leiden University Press in 2023 and Manohar India in 2024.  The book shifts the conventional Western-centric paradigm of aid history, and explores the role of South Asia in the production of knowledge and practices of famine relief. Relatedly, I have written on the history of the Bengal Famine of 1943 and in this context have contributed to the popular BBC Radio 4 broadcast series “Three Million” and spoken at events that commemorated the famine in India and Britain.

To feed my long-standing interest in the history of anticolonial movements, I am currently working on my second book on the intimate history of transnational Indian anticolonialism. Using untapped family archives, I bring to light the many exclusions in the history of decolonization and Indian nation-building that have obscured the intimate, personal and sexual nature of these historical and political undertakings.

Apart from my research, I have been teaching seminars on the history of women’s movements, feminism, sexuality and colonialism, the history of Indo-German Entanglement, Development and Humanitarianism.

Recent Publications

2024: “Sexing the history of India anti-colonial internationalism: White women, Indian men and the politics of the personal,” Gender & History.

2023: Ending Famine in India. A Transnational History of Food Aid and Development, ca. 1890-1950 (Leiden University Press, 2023). https://www.lup.nl/publications/asian-studies/ending-famine-in-india/

2022: “American Humanitarianism in Colonial South Asia: The Famine Relief of the American Marathi Mission in Bombay, 1896–1900” in Harald Fischer-Tiné and Nico Slate (eds), The United States and South Asia from the Age of Empire to Decolonization: A History of Entanglements (Leiden University Press, 2022), 85-106.

2021: “Famine relief in colonial South Asia, 1858–1947: Regional and global perspectives” in Maria Framke and Harald Fischer-Tiné (eds), Routledge Handbook of the History of Colonialism in South Asia (Routledge, 2021), 497-509.

2021: “The Rise and Demise of Multi-Purpose Food in India: Food Technology, Population Control and Nutritional Development in the Post-War Era, c. 1944–66,” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 44,1 (2021), 167-84.

2020: “The Great Bengal Famine in Britain: Metropolitan Campaigning for Food Relief and the End of Empire, 1943–44.” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 48,1 (2020), 168-197.

Media Coverage
Country Focus
South Asia, North America, Europe
Expertise by Geography
Asia, Germany, India, North America, South Asia, United Kingdom, Western Europe
Expertise by Chronology
19th century, Modern, 20th century
Expertise by Topic
Colonialism, Emancipation, Family, Food History, Gender, Politics, Public History, Race, Rebellion & Revolution, Science, Sexuality, Women