Publications and Conference Papers

Books (authored & edited):

(Co-edited) Carey A. Watt and Michael Mann (eds.), Civilizing Missions in Colonial and Postcolonial South Asia: From Improvement to Development. London & NY: Anthem Press, 2011. vi, 337 pp.

• Anthem Press India version in paperback released October 2012.

Serving the Nation: cultures of service, association and citizenship in colonial India. New Delhi, Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005. xxi, 255 pp.

Journal Articles & Chapters in Edited Volumes:

Forthcoming: “A Strongman Takes on the Circus: Eugen Sandow's 1904 - 1905 Tour of Asia”, in Circus History & Theory, edited by Dr. Nisha Poyyaprath Rayaroth & Dilip Menon for Oxford University Press (India).

“Physical Culture and the Body in Colonial India c. 1800 – 1947”, in Routledge Handbook of the History of Colonialism in South Asia, edited by Harald Fischer-Tiné and Maria Framke (London & New York: Routledge, 2022), pp. 345-58.

(With Dr. Samira Farhoud) “‘Encounters’ of Frustration and Hope in the Writing of Maïssa Bey” in Algeria Revisited: History, Culture and Identity, edited by Rabah Aissaoui and Claire Eldridge. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017, pp. 135-54.

“Cultural Exchange, Appropriation and Physical Culture: Strongman Eugen Sandow in Colonial India, 1904-1905”, International Journal of the History of Sport, 33,16 (2016), pp. 1921-42.

“Physical Culture as ‘Natural Healing’: Eugen Sandow's Campaign Against the Vices of Civilization c. 1890-1920”, in Global Anti-Vice Activism, 1890-1950: Fighting Drinks, Drugs, and “Immorality”, edited by Jessica Pliley, Harald Fischer-Tiné & Robert Kramm-Masaoka, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016, pp. 74-99. 

“‘A World of History in Your Cup’: Teaching Coffee as Global Commodity c. 1400 – 2000”, World History Bulletin, XXVIII, 2 (Fall 2012), Special Issue on “Commodities in World History”, pp. 16-19.

“World History, Liberal Arts, and Global Citizenship”, The Journal of General Education, 61,3 (2012), pp. 211-28.

"Introduction: The Relevance and Complexity of Civilizing Missions c. 1800–2010", in Carey A. Watt and Michael Mann (eds.), Civilizing Missions in Colonial and Postcolonial South Asia: From Improvement to Development. London & NY: Anthem Press, 2011, pp. 1-34.

"Philanthropy and Civilizing Missions in India c. 1820–1960: States, NGOs and Development", in Carey A. Watt and Michael Mann (eds.), Civilizing Missions in Colonial and Postcolonial South Asia: From Improvement to Development. London & NY: Anthem Press, 2011, pp. 271-316.

(With Dr. Samira Farhoud) “Punk Beur: Popular music, itinerancy and identity in Sakinna Boukhedenna’s Journal ‘Nationalité: immigré(e)’”,  French Cultural Studies, 21,1 (February 2010), pp. 1-16.

“‘No showy muscles’: the Boy Scouts and the global dimensions of physical culture and bodily health in Britain and colonial India”, chapter nine in N. R. Block and T. M. Proctor (eds.), Scouting Frontiers: Youth in the Scout Movement’s First Century. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009, pp. 121-42.

“The promise of ‘character’ and the spectre of sedition: the boy scout movement and colonial consternation in India, 1908-1921”, South Asia, New Series, 22, 2 (December 1999), pp. 37-62.

 “Education for National Efficiency: Constructive Nationalism in North India, 1909-1916”, Modern Asian Studies, 31, 2 (May 1997), pp. 339-74.

Miscellanea:

“Envisioning ‘Seva’”, a review essay of Gwilym Beckerlegge, Swami Vivekananda's Legacy of Service: A Study of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006) in Economic and Political Weekly, XLI,48 (December 2-8, 2006), pp. 4958-61.

“The Voluntary Sector, Civil Society and the State in Colonial and Post-colonial India, c. 1820-1955”, Canadian Council of Area Studies Learned Societies (CCASLS) Occasional Paper Series, 2004.

“Social service, voluntarism and associational activities in late colonial India: a case for seeing today's NGOs and ‘civil society’ in historical perspective?”, CISAR Occasional Paper Series (2002), UBC.

“Professor Ramamurti Naidu: Hindu Strongman as a Symbol of ‘National Efficiency’ in North India, 1910”, History in the Making II Conference Proceedings, Keith Lowther (ed.), Montreal: CUHSA, 1995, pp. 161-70.

Various book reviews, 2001-2014, in Pacific Affairs, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, The International Journal of the History of Sport, and Historical Studies in Education, the CAUT Bulletin, and World History Connected.

Academic Presentations:  (since 2008)

“The circus as a global institution: from three rings to circuits, networks and globalization”, Global Studies Seminar (STU), Oct. 15, 2019.

“Sandow and the Circus: Strongmen, Physical Culture & Demimonde Globalization c. 1905” to Tri-Campus Colloquium (TCC, featuring historians from STU, UNBF & UNBSJ), Fredericton, Feb. 26, 2019.

“The Strongman and the Apple: a local & global history of the Sandow Apple and Sandow Farm in Keswick Ridge, N.B.”, STU Public Lecture, Oct. 4, 2018.

“Searching for Meaning in Strongman Eugen Sandow's Afro-Asian Tour of 1904-1905”, Asia Research Institute (ARI), National University of Singapore, November 23, 2016.

“The Conundrum(s) & Promise of Researching Eugen Sandow’s Visit to India in 1904-05”, ​​School of Cultural Records and Texts, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, August 29, 2016. 

“Physical Culture, Sport and Cross-cultural Engagement: Eugen Sandow's Tour of India, the Straits Settlements and China in 1904-1905” in panel International Strength, 44th annual convention of the North American Society for Sport History, The Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, from May 27‐30, 2016.

“Eugen Sandow in Colonial Asia: A Strongman Weakening His Message of Physical Culture and European Masculinity?” in the panel “Globalising Fitness: Transnational Histories of Sports and Physical Culture” at the European Network in Universal and Global History (ENIUGH) conference in Paris, September 6, 2014.

“Sando’s Genji: Strongman Eugen Sandow’s Tour of India, 1904-1905” at Presidency University, Kolkata, India, Feb. 19, 2014 & “The Meaning and Legacy of Physical Culturist Eugen Sandow’s Visit to India in 1904-05” at Physical Cultures: Bengal and Beyond, at Jadavpur University (School of Cultural Texts & Records), Kolkata, India, Feb. 22, 2014.

“Liminal Strongman: Eugen Sandow’s Tour of Asia in 1904-05”, Canadian Historical Association (CHA) meetings at Congress 2013 (Victoria, BC), June 3-5, 2013.

Poster presentation, “Wrestling Matches as Sites of Cross-cultural Engagement: Eugen Sandow's Tour of India, the Straits Settlements and China in 1905”, CHA at Congress 2013 (Victoria, BC), June 3-5, 2013.

“Physical Culture as ‘Natural Cure’: Eugen Sandow's Global Campaign Against the Diseases of Civilization c. 1900-1910”, at the conference Fighting Drink, Drugs and Venereal Disease: Global Anti-vice Activism c. 1870-1940 at Monte Verità, Ascona, Switzerland, April 1-4, 2012, organized by Harald Fischer-Tiné & Jana Tschurenev, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich.

“The Complexities of Citizenship in India c. 1900 to 1960”, an invited presentation at the annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association, May 30, 2011, within Congress 2011 at STU & UNB.

“World History, the Liberal Arts and Globalization” at International Conference on the Liberal Arts Looking Back and Moving Forward: The Next 100 Years of Liberal Arts – Confronting the Challenge, September 30-October 2, 2010, St. Thomas University, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.

“Healthy, Efficient and Supple Bodies: The Appeal of the Boy Scouts in Colonial India” at Scouting: A Centennial History Symposium, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, February 15 & 16, 2008.