Subir Dey
Areas of Interest & Expertise
- South Asian History
- Southeast Asian History
- Economic History
- Agrarian History
- Environmental History
- Climate History
- Global History
- History of Migration and Tourism
Biography
Subir joined the University in 2021. Before that, he taught at Indraprastha College for Women as an Assistant Professor in the Department of History from July 2017 to May 2019. He completed his MA, MPhil and PhD degrees in Modern Indian History from the Centre for Historical Studies (CHS), Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
His research specialisation is in the economic and demographic history of colonial Assam. He has worked on farm settlers’ migration from East Bengal to Assam taking into account archival and oral sources across repositories in Delhi, Assam and London. His research interests lie in resource politics, environmental history and climate history of modern times.
He has been a research consultant in a consortium project titled ‘Uncertainty, Transformation and Climate Change,’ led by Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Norway in collaboration with University of Sussex, UK since September 2015. He is also a research associate with the Centre for World Environmental History, University of Sussex, UK.
He loves cooking, playing badminton and aspires to trek and cruise across historical sites.
Courses
Environmental History: Concepts and Concerns
Understanding the key issues of environmental history
The Intellectual and Cultural Aspects of Modernity
How did modernity come to be in India and what shaped it as it is?
Empires and Imperialism
Explores the historical forces that led, in the 18th-19th centuries, to the creation of European imperial colonies all around the globe.
Colonial India: Polity, Economy and Culture
How was the course of Indian history shaped by colonial governance? How did the East India Company slowly become the colonial state?
Publications
Chapters in Edited Books
- Damodaran, V., D’Souza, R., & Dey, S. (2022). Uncertainty and Environmental Change: Kutch and Sundarbans as Environmental Histories of Climate Change. In L. Mehta, H.N. Adam & S. Srivastava (Eds.), The Politics of Climate Change and Uncertainty in India, pp 55 – 82. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/The-Politics-of-Climate-Change-and-Uncertainty-in-India/Mehta-Adam-Srivastava/p/book/9781032190785
- Dey, S. (2018). Wanted in Market but Unwanted in Society: Perceptions of East Bengali Settlers in Public Sphere and Market during Early Twentieth Century. In Nag, S., & Alam, I. (Eds.), Blending Nation and Region: Essays in honour of Late Professor Amalendu Guha (pp. 440 — 468). Primus Books. https://primusbooks.com/blending-nation-region/
- Dey, S. (2013). Growth of Indian Nationalism: Initial Phase. In Indian National Movement Bachelor of Arts History, 202, 79 – 126. Uttarakhand Open University, Haldwani.
Journal Articles
- Dey, S. (2018). Rains in Chennai, 2017: A historic view. India accelerates in building resilience,166, 07 — 08. http://www.aidmi.org/sub-images/publication/166%20Snet%20India%20Accelerates%20Building%20Resilience.pdf
- Dey, S. (2017). Pairing spare demography with spare Geographies: Some historical reflections on discourses of settlement in late 19th century Assam. Studies in Social Sciences and Humanities. XXIV(1), 36 — 57. http://14.139.58.199:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/4637/1/SHSS%20Article%2024.3.pdf
- Dey, S. (2016). Welcoming the Miyan: A case study of settlement practices of East Bengali cultivators in Nowgong, Assam,1920 — 1938. Vidyasagar University Journal of History, 4, 41 — 53. http://inet.vidyasagar.ac.in:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/1853/1/4%20Welcoming%20the%20Miyan.pdf
Online Article
- Dey, S. (2017, June 16). Civilisation at the edge of nature: Mousuni Island in the Sundarbans. Institute of Development Studies. http://www.ids.ac.uk/opinion/civilisation— at— the— edge— of— nature— mousuni— island— in— the— sundarbans
Conference Presentations
- Dey, S. (2017, August 20 – 23). Floods, Earthquakes and Famines: Normalising “uncertain” environments in the long nineteenth century in Colonial India. [Conference Presentation]. Globalisation at the Crossroads-Rethinking Inequalities and Boundaries, Bergen, Norway.
- Dey, S. (2017, April 9). Floods, Earthquakes and Famines: Normalising “uncertain” environments in the long nineteenth century in Colonial India. [Conference Presentation]. Annual Meeting, Association of American Geographers, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
- Dey, S. (2016, October 1). Botanical Survey of India: Archives and Collections. [Conference Presentation]. Joseph Dalton Hooker: Botanical Trailblazer and the Botanical Heritage of India, Botanical Survey of India, Indian Museum, Kolkata.
- Dey, S. (2016, October 7). Moving Lives on Moving Lands: The Case of Land Reclamation in Lower Brahmaputra in Colonial Assam, 1900s-1950s. [Conference Presentation]. Empire and Environmental Heritage of India, Regional Museum of Natural History, Mysuru.
- Dey, S. (2014, December 3). Interrogating Colonial Constructs of Migrants and Host Communities in Assam. [Conference Presentation]. Centre for Historical Studies, JNU-King’s College London, at SSS-III, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
- Dey, S. (2012, April 7). ‘Advanced’ East Bengali Peasant and ‘Indolent’ Assamese Cultivator — A historical study of the role of colonial perceptions in shaping identities of peasants in the province of Assam, 1870 – 1940. [Conference Presentation]. International Young Researchers Meet, Histories of Power and Contestation, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
- Dey, S. (2012, March 16). The Coming of the Miyan: A case study of the settlement practices of East Bengali cultivators in Nowgong district, Assam, 1920 – 1938. [Conference Presentation]. Understanding Agrarian History of North East India, Indian Council of Historical Research and Department of History, Dibrugarh University, Assam.
- Dey, S. (2012, January 28). The Idea of Economic Nationalism in India: Reading Prof. Bipan Chandra’s Historiographical Engagements. [Conference Presentation]. Historiographical Engagements in India: Symposium in Honour of Professor R S Sharma, Indian Council of Historical Research and Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
Video
- Azim Premji University. (2021, 4 September). Nature Writing For Children: Talk with Pankaj Sekhsaria & Subir Dey [Video]. YouTube.