Dr. Swati Chawla
October 20, 2023 2024-10-01 6:23Dr. Swati Chawla
Dr. Swati Chawla
Associate Professor
B.A., M.A., M.Phil. (University of Delhi);
Ph.D. (University of Virginia)
Dr. Swati Chawla is a historian of modern South Asia and the Himalaya. She has a Ph.D. in history from the University of Virginia, and B.A., M.A., and M.Phil. degrees in English from the University of Delhi, where she also taught as an assistant professor before starting her doctoral work.
Swati has held fellowships with the USAID, the American Institute of Indian Studies, the Taraknath Das Foundation at Columbia University, the Sacred Writes program at Northeastern University, the Institute for Humane Studies, the Institute for the Humanities and Global Cultures, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Koch Foundation, and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
She has mentored undergraduate and graduate students across three continents for the past 15 years, in formal university contexts as well as through her work with think tanks and the development sector such as the Royal Commonwealth Society, the Glocal Youth Parliament, and the British Council.
Swati is the assistant director of the Centre for Learning and Innovative Pedagogies at JGU. She is committed to a learner-based, reflective, and constantly improvising pedagogy, and has received extensive formal training in designing university courses. She has advised faculty across disciplines in designing effective and inclusive syllabi, classroom environments, and assessment tools.
She was awarded the University of Virginia’s highest teaching honor in 2018. At the JSLH, Swati teaches courses on Tibetans in India, migration and citizenship, language movements, research methods, and digital humanities. In addition to courses in South Asian history and the global studies, Swati has previously taught courses on academic writing, building cross-cultural competence, and engaging difference. Through month-long research internships over summer and winter breaks, she has trained over a hundred students in archival methods and working with collections on Tibet and the eastern Himalaya.
Swati is trained as a digital humanist, and has incorporated DH tools in her research and teaching. She was one of the developers of Ivanhoe—a digital platform for collaborative textual interpretation, and she also worked as a pedagogy specialist for the University of Virginia’s Digital Humanities Curriculum. She has supervised student projects employing geospatial DH tools such as ArcGIS and Google Earth. She is currently working on her first book on Sikkimese nationalism in the decades leading up to Sikkim’s incorporation as the 22nd state of the Indian Union in 1975.
Swati has published articles in peer-reviewed journals and chapters in edited volumes, and co-authored an inter-disciplinary working paper under the USAID and IIE’s Research and Innovation Series titled “Increasing the Civic and Political Participation of Women in the Global South: Understanding the Risk of Strong Resistance.” A link to her public-facing work is here. She was interviewed about her research and pedagogy at Tibet TV and the Lights | Camera | Azadi podcast (bilingual). She runs the X (formerly Twitter) hashtag #himalayanhistories, and also hosts a monthly book club on pedagogical practice in Delhi-NCR.
Peer-Reviewed Articles and Chapters 2024
- “A Tibetan Window into the Twentieth Century Himalayan World,” European Bulletin for Himalayan Research, vol. 62. 2024
- “Transnational Buddhism and Ecological Awareness: The Case of Tibetan Nuns in Exile,” in Tatjana Kochetkova, ed, Fostering an Ecological Shift Through Effective Environmental Education (Beijing: IGI Global, pp. 54-64) 2023
- “Fashioning a Buddhist Himalayan Cartography: Sikkim Darbar and the Cabinet Mission Plan,
- “India Quarterly, vol. 79, issue 1, pp. 29-44. 2023
- “Nothing in Common with ‘Indian’ India: Bhutan and the Cabinet Mission Plan,” in Berenice Guyot-Rechard and Elisabeth Leake, eds, Global Connections: Routes and Roots (Leiden: Leiden University Press, pp. 61-81).
Book Chapters 2018
- “A Long Look Homeward: Ideas of Time and Space in the Tibet Museum,” in Nandini C. Sen, ed, Through the Diasporic Lens (New Delhi: Authorspress, pp. 267-283).
Book Reviews
- 2017 Review of Richard P. Tucker, A Forest History of India, Himalaya: The Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies (Vol. 37, No. 2).
- 2016 Review of Uther E. Charlton-Stevens, Decolonising Anglo-Indians: Strategies for a Mixed-Race Community in Late Colonial India during the First Half of the Twentieth Century, Dissertation Reviews.
Working Papers and Issue Briefs 2024
- “Centring ‘Tibetan’ in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies in India,” Centre of Excellence for Himalayan Studies, Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, Issue no. 7. 2017
- “Increasing the Civic and Political Participation of Women in the Global South: Understanding the Risk of Strong Resistance,” USAID and IIE Research and Innovation Series.
- Co-authored with Denise Walsh, Vanessa Ochs, Dannah Dennis, Paromita Sen, and Catalina Vallejo. Op-eds and Public Scholarship 2023
- “What India Owes Tibetans in Exile,” The Times of India, 6 July 2023. 2023
- “We Must Confer a Bharat Ratna upon the Dalai Lama,” (co-authored with Madhura Balasubramaniam), The Mint, 6 July 2023.
- 2023 Book Review of Mystics and Sceptics: In Search of Himalayan Masters, India Today, 27 March 2023.
- 2022 “Geleck Palsang’s Amala: Chronicling a Life of Service,” Tibetscapes, 27 December 2022.
- 2022 “Thich Nhat Hanh, the Monk Who Stood Against the Vietnam War, Also Led Me Home”, The Quint, 24 January 2022.
- Republished in News Trail. 30 January 2022.
- 2021 “Writing more of India into Tibetology” (co-authored with Madhura Balasubramaniam), The Hindu. 24 February 2021.
- 2020 “Chinese Cultural Politics in Tibet: A Perspective from India,” National Commentary for The Asan Forum (Vol. 8, No. 25). 23 October 2020.
- 2020 “Who Counts as a Citizen in Contemporary India?”, Epicenter. Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University. Co-authored with Jessica Namakkal, Duke University; Kalyani Ramnath, Harvard University; and Lydia Walker, University of London. 11 February 2020.
- 2020 “Citizenship and Provisional Belonging in South Asia,” Micro-syllabus for The Abusable Past: Radical History Review. Co-authored with Jessica Namakkal, Duke University; Kalyani Ramnath, Harvard University; and Lydia Walker, University of London. 9 January 2020.
- 2019 “Digitised manuscripts change the way we learn,” Firstpost Print (Vol. I, No. 28). 1 June 2019.
- “Learning changes, one byte at a time,” Long version published in Firstpost web edition. 31 May 2019.
- 2019 “In the Fond Memory of a Consummate Doodler,” Firstpost Print (Vol. I, No. 25). 11 May 2019.
- “Remembering the Genius of Leonardo da Vinci,” Long version published in Firstpost web edition. 10 May 2019.
- 2019 “Through the Rose Garden,” Firstpost Print (Vol. I, No. 19). 30 March 2019. “The garden that celebrates the many shades of love,” Long version published in Firstpost web edition. 29 March 2019.
- 2019 “Dalai Lama came to India on a path many had treaded before,” The Quint. 17 March 2019.
- “On Historic Trails: India and Tibet have always shared a special bond,” Republished in Darjeeling Chronicle. 19 March 2019.
- 2019 “The polit
Tibet and the eastern Himalaya, migration, citizenship, contemporary Buddhisms, language movements in modern South Asia, geospatial digital humanities
- Tibetans in India
- Language Movements in Modern South Asia
- Migration and Citizenship: A South Asian History
- Advanced Research Methods
- History Foundation
- Interdisciplinary Seminar I
- Thesis Seminar I
Major Fellowships
2020 Sacred Writes Program, Luce Foundation-funded training and year-long mentorship on public-facing scholarship, Northeastern University
2019-20 Humane Studies Fellowship, Institute for Humane Studies (also awarded in 2016-17, 2018-19)
2018-19 American Institute of Indian Studies, Junior Research Fellowship
2018-19 Public Humanities Fellowship, South Atlantic Humanities Center, Virginia Foundation for Humanities
2018-19 Dean’s Dissertation Completion Fellowship, Office of the Vice President for Research, University of Virginia
2018-19 Buckner W. Clay Fellowship for the Humanities, Institute of the Humanities and Global Cultures (also awarded in 2016-17, 2015-16)
2018 Summer Research Fellowship, Institute for Humane Studies
2017-18 Dan Searle Fellow, Humane Studies Fellowship, Institute for Humane Studies
2017-18 Adam Smith Fellowship Research Sequence, Mercatus Center at George Mason University
2016-17 Taraknath Das Foundation Grant, South Asia Institute, Columbia University
2016-17 International Doctoral Degree Fellowship, American Institute for University Women (alternate)
2016-17 Dumas Malone Graduate Research Fellowship, Office of the Vice President for Research, University of Virginia
2016-17 Adam Smith Fellowship, Mercatus Center at George Mason University
2016 Democracy, Human Rights and Governance Research and Innovation Grant, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Institute of International Education (IIE) (Co-Principal Investigator)
2014-15 Praxis Fellowship in the Digital Humanities, Scholars’ Lab, University of Virginia
2014 OpenCon Graduate Fellowship, Right to Research Coalition 2004 Gurukul Fellowship, Foundation for Universal Responsibility of His Holiness the Dalai Lama (FURHHDL) and Society for Promotion of Indian Classical Music and Culture Amongst Youth (SPIC MACAY)
Small Fellowships and Grants
2020 Professional Development Grant, Hayek Fund for Scholars, Institute for Humane Studies
2019 Student Research Collaboration Grant, The Religion, Race, and Democracy Lab, University of Virginia
2018-19 Hayek Research Grant, Institute for Humane Studies
2018-19 Conference Travel Bursary, Corcoran Department of History, University of Virginia (also awarded in 2017-18, 2016-17, 2015-16, 2014-15, 2013-14)
2018 Jerry Bentley World History Grant, American Historical Association (declined)
2018 Archival Research Grant, Mercatus Center at George Mason University (also awarded in 2016)
2018 Graduate Research Grant, Charles G. Koch Foundation
2018 Summer Research Grant, Corcoran Department of History, University of Virginia (also awarded in 2017, 2016, 2014)
2018 Foreign Language Study Grant, Corcoran Department of History, University of Virginia (also awarded in 2017, 2016, 2015)
2017-18 Global Center Grant, Center for Global Inquiry and Innovation, University of Virginia (also awarded in 2016-17, 2015-16)
2017-18 Conference Travel Grant, Mercatus Center at George Mason University
2017 Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Summer Research Award, Office of the Vice President for Research, University of Virginia (also awarded in 2015)
2016 Conference Travel Grant, Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies (declined)
2016 Ellen Bayard Weedon Travel Grant, East Asia Center, University of Virginia (also awarded in 2015)
2016 Conference Travel Bursary, South Asia Center, University of Virginia
2015 Conference Travel Bursary, Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (declined)