Shubhanga Pandey

My name is Shubhanga Pandey, and I’m a writer, editor and historian-in-training. I’m currently doing my PhD in History at University of California, Los Angeles, focusing on histories of information, knowledge and social technologies. I am interested in how and why different historical actors pursue activities like surveying, data collecting, reporting, mapping, archiving, compiling and chronicling. The actors I usually come across are rulers, diplomats, soldiers, bureaucrats, scribes, merchants, spies, the literati, and postal runners, among others. My area of focus is South Asia, in particular the states and societies that inhabited the Himalaya and the adjoining plains during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Before starting the graduate program, I was the chief editor at Himal Southasian, the regional magazine of politics and culture. In recent years, I have written on Nepal’s Hindu nationalist politics, Delhi-Kathmandu diplomatic tensions, Indian media’s reception in Nepal, and Sri Lanka’s political and financial crises, among others.

You can also read my blog Daftar: Notes from the Past and the Present, where I post reflections, stray observations and occasional commentary on matters historical and contemporary.