Associate Professor
PhD, MIT
narendra [dot] subramanian [at] mcgill [dot] ca Telephone: (514) 398-4400 x094400
For more information on Prof. Subramanian's work, see his Home Page.
Research interests
- Comparative Politics
- Identity Politics (Nationalism, Ethnicity, Religion, Gender, Race)
- State-Formation, Citizenship and Law
- Political Parties and Social Movements
- Institutions, Public Culture and Democracy
- Political Rights and Socio-Economic Inequality
- South Asian Politics
Recent and Forthcoming Publications
"Making Family and Nation: Hindu Marriage Law in Early Postcolonial India", Journal of Asian Studies (forthcoming)
"Ethnicity and Secession: Dravidianism, Kashmiri Nationalism and the Sikh Movement" in Sanjib Baruah, ed., Ethnonationalism in India (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009)
"Normative Vision, Cultural Accommodation, and Muslim Law Reform in India" in Akhil Gupta and Kalyanakrishnan Sivaramakrishnan, eds., The State in India After Liberalization: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Routledge, 2009)
"Legal Change and Gender Inequality: Changes in Muslim Family Law in India", Law and Social Inquiry 33.3 (Summer 2008): 631-672.
"Populism in India", SAIS Review of International Affairs, 27.1 (Winter-Spring 2007): 81-91.
"Inavazhi Iyakkangalum, Kalachchara Mattrangalum" (Ethnic Movements and Cultural Change), Kanaiyaazhi (journal of humanities and the social sciences) (December 2005): 1-15.
"The Political Formation of Cultures: South Asian Experiences", Economic and Political Weekly, XL: 35 (August 27-September 2): 3821-47
"The Political Formation of Cultures: South Asian and Other Experiences" International Centre for Ethnic Studies (Colombo, Sri Lanka: 2005) (published text of Sixth Annual Neelan Tiruchelvam Memorial Millennium Lecture, delivered at Colombo, Sri Lanka, July 2005) (republished in Himal: South Asia, 18:4 (January-February 2006))
`Identity Politics and Social Pluralism: Political Sociology and Political Change in Tamil Nadu', Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 40.3 (November 2002): 125-139 (Republished in A.K.J. Wyatt and John Zavos, eds., Decentering the Nation, Frank Cass Publishers, 2003)
(Book) Ethnicity and Populist Mobilization: Political Parties, Citizens and Democracy in South India (Oxford University Press, 1999). (See description below)
Current book projects
Nation and Family: Cultural Pluralism, Gender Inequality and Personal Law in India
Heretics, Heroes and Citizens: Ethnicity and Populism in Tamil Nadu (South India), 2nd edition
Political Rights and Durable Inequality: Caste in India and Race in the United States since Enfranchisement
Ethnicity and Populist Mobilization:
Political Parties, Citizens and Democracy in South India
Narendra Subramanian, McGill University
Oxford University Press, 1999
REVIEWS:
"Subramanian's analysis of regional patterns of political mobilization is path breaking and sets a new standard for social science research. It presents political organization in geographical detail and brings to light for the first time generative political subcultures ... It supplements new scholarship in other disciplines and puts cultural studies in particular in new light. At a time when global media soak the public with essentialist images of collective identity and when cultural studies continues to hold fast to nationality as it travels transnationally, this book shows how sharp political analysis can put nationality aside to reveal critical histories that national histories hide ... Addressing political science, it begins and ends with eloquent arguments about how the study of Tamil Nadu might inflect theory and method in the discipline ... It challenges theory and method in area studies by treating Tamil Nadu as distinct from the Indian national system and by using political organization to explain social and cultural outcomes." - The Journal of Asian Studies
"A dazzling piece of scholarship ... certainly the most important work to date on the politics of Dravidianism and an original contribution to the study of Indian politics." - American Political Science Review
"An outstanding study of Dravidian politics, the first to do full justice to the complexities and nuances of the subject, and the standard reference work for years to come. Pioneers new approaches to the study of Indian politics and contributes valuable new insights into the comparative study of ethnicity, populism, pluralism and democracy. In its light, many conventional understandings of India's recent political history will have to be revised and dark forebodings about the future of Indian democracy rethought." - David Washbrook, Oxford University