Education:
Ph.D., Temple University - 1998 (History)
Areas of Expertise:
Professor Banerjee's area of research is colonial India with special focus on gender, class and family history in the region of Bengal. She is particularly interested in inter-class relationships in construction of identity and closely examines the history of lower social groups such as servants and children.
Books and Publications
Review of Mohua Sarkar's Visible Histories, Disappearing Women: Producing Muslim Womanhood in Late Colonial Bengal (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008) in Women's History Review. (Books and Publications: Forthcoming Publications) 2011
"Blurring Boundaries, Distant Companions: Non-kin Female Caregivers for Children in Colonial India." Paedagogica Historica 46.6, December: 777-790. (Special issue edited by V. Pache and V. Dasen, Politics and History of Childcare. From the World of Wet Nurses to the Networks of Family Childcare Providers.) (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2010
"Debates on Domesticity and Position of Women in Late Colonial India" History Compass Journal August 6: 455-73. Oxford, United Kingdom: Blackwell Publishing. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2010
Review of Rochona Majumdar's Marriage and Modernity: Family Values in Colonial Bengal (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009). American Historical Review 115.4, October: 1135-36. (Books and Publications: Book Review) 2010
"Domestic Service as Paid Work for Women" and biographical profiles of four Bengali women (Basanti Devi, Bina Das, Santi Ghose, and Rashsundari Debi). Oxford Encylcopedia of Women in Global History. Ed. Bonnie Smith. New York: Oxford Univeristy Press. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 2008
"Children's Literature in Nineteenth Century India: Some Reflections and Thoughts?" GRAAT (Groupe de Recherches Anglo-Américaines de Tours), a refereed journal from Université Francois Rabelais, Tours. France. 337-51. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2007
"Child, Mother, and Servant: The Discourse of Motherhood and Domestic Ideology in Colonial Bengal." Rhetoric and Reality: Gender and Colonial Experience in South Asia. Eds. Avril Powell and Siobhan Lambert-Hurley. 17-50.
"Subverting the Moral Universe: 'Narratives of Transgression' in the Construction of Middle-Class Identity in Colonial Bengal." Beyond Representations: Colonial and Postcolonial Constructions of Indian Identity. Ed. Crispin Bates. 77-99. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 2005
"Down Memory Lane: Representations of Domestic Workers in Middle-Class Writings of Colonial Bengal." Journal of Social History 37.3: 681-708. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2004
Men, Women, and Domestics: Articulating Middle-Class Identity in Colonial India. Delhi/New York: Oxford University Press. Reviewed in The Journal of Asian Studies 66.2, May 2007: 564-66; The American Historical Review 111.5, January 2007; Indian Economic and Social History Review, 2007; Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 34, 2006: 632-33; The Statesman (daily newspaper in India), September 2006; and Desh (biweekly periodical in Bengali), October 2006. (Books and Publications: Book) 2004
"Domestic Manuals on Mistress-Servant Relationships: Constructing Bengali Middle Class Identity through "Appropriate" Codes of Conduct." Modern Historical Studies 2, June-July 2001. Rabindrabharati University, Calcutta, India. 7-36. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2002
Awards, Honors and Fellowships
RF-CUNY Grant, 2010-11. (Grants and Fellowships) 2010
RF-CUNY Grant. (Grants and Fellowships) 2007
Whiting Fellowship for excellence in teaching, awarded by Brooklyn College. (Awards and Honors) 2007
Humanities Scholarship Award from Humanities Scholarship Enhancement Fund Committee of the University of Florida - Gainesville. (Grants and Fellowships) 2003
NEH-funded American Institute of Indian Studies Senior Research Fellowship. (Awards and Honors) 2002
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums
"Cautioning the Future Generation: Health and Hygiene in the Scientific Discourse of Fathers of Late Nineteenth Century India." Berkshires Conference on Women's History. University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Upcoming.
(Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2011
"Reversing the Gaze: The Question of Fathers and Fatherhood in Colonial Bengal." School of Women's Studies, Jadavpur University. Kolkata, India. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2010
"Children At-Risk? Disciplining and Fatherhood in Colonial India." Annual conference of the Society for the History of Children and Youth. University of California, Berkeley. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2009
Commentator, "Translated Feminisms: China and Elsewhere" workshop. Columbia University. New York. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2009
"A Life Less Ordinary and Uneven Developments in the Life of Women Domestics in India." Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association. Washington, D.C. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2008
"A Life Less Ordinary--Reading the Life of Baby Halder and Tracing the Trajectory of Domestic Service in India." Waged Domestic Work and Making of the Modern World Conference. University of Warwick, England; and "Where Have the Mothers Gone? The Changing History of Children and Childcare in India?" From the World of Wet Nurses to the Networks of Family Day Care Providers: Childcare Provided by Non-Relatives Working in the Domestic Sphere International Conferece. University of Fribourg, Switzerland. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2008
"The Father and the Child: Fatherhood as a Vector of Masculinity in Colonial India?" European Social Science and History Conference. Lisbon, Portugal; and "A Life Less Ordinary and Uneven Developments in the Life of Women Domestics in India." Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association. Washington, D.C. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2008
"Where Have the Mothers Gone? The Changing History of Children and Childcare in India" From the World of Wet Nurses to the Networks of Family Day Care Providers: Childcare Provided by Non-relatives Working in the Domestic Sphere International Conference. University of Fribourg. Switzerland. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2008
Professional Leadership
Chair and organizer, "Childcare in Global and Comparative Perspective" panel, European Social Science and History Conference, Ghent, Belgium. (Professional Leadership: Public Service) 2010
