Daud Ali (born 1964) is an American historian of Indian descent, born in

Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. He is currently Associate Professor of

South Asian history South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and ethnic-cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's population. As commonly conceptualised, the ...

at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

and the editor of the

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society The ''Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society'' is an academic journal which publishes articles on the history, archaeology, literature, language, religion and art of South Asia, the Middle East (together with North Africa and Ethiopia), Central Asia ...

. He is a scholar focusing on Pre-Mughal South Asia. Ali obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in

English literature English literature is literature written in the English language from the English-speaking world. The English language has developed over more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian languages, Anglo-Frisian d ...

and

Religious studies Religious studies, also known as religiology or the study of religion, is the study of religion from a historical or scientific perspective. There is no consensus on what qualifies as ''religion'' and definition of religion, its definition is h ...

at the

College of William & Mary The College of William & Mary (abbreviated as W&M) is a public university, public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. Founded in 1693 under a royal charter issued by King William III of England, William III and Queen ...

and then a Master of Arts degree in the history of religions at the

University of Chicago Divinity School The University of Chicago Divinity School is a graduate professional school at the University of Chicago dedicated to the training of academics and clergy across religious boundaries. Formed under Baptist auspices, the school today is without ...

. At Chicago he was a student of Ronald Inden. After his receiving his Ph.D. from the Department of History at the University of Chicago, he taught history for fourteen years at the

School of Oriental and African Studies The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS University of London; ) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury area ...

in London. Since 2009, he has been at the

. Ali's interests range widely over the history South Asia as a whole, covering themes such as courtly protocol, gardens, gastronomy, war and violence. His analysis of feudalism and the historiography of the medieval, in particular his critique of B. D. Chattopadhyaya, have been particularly influential.Daud Ali, "The Idea of the Medieval in the Writing of Indian History: Contexts, Methods, Politics," ''Social History'' 39, no. 3 (2014): 382-407; see Kennet, Derek, Hawkes, Jason and Willis, Michael. "Chapter 15 Paithan Excavation: Historical, Archaeological, Geographical and Epigraphical Contexts," ''Excavations at Paithan, Maharashtra: Transformations in Early Historic and Early Medieval India'', (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2020), p. 325. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110653540-015.

Scholarly works

Books

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Articles

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References

External links

*Royal Asiatic Societ

*ORCI

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ali, Daud 1964 births Living people 20th-century Bengalis Writers from Kolkata College of William & Mary alumni University of Chicago Divinity School alumni University of Pennsylvania faculty Academics of SOAS University of London Indian emigrants to the United States American male writers of Indian descent 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers American male non-fiction writers University of Pennsylvania historians