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Maneesha Lal

Assistant Professor
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania
Modern South Asia; Comparative History of Medicine; Women, Gender, and Feminism;
Colonial/Postcolonial Studies and Historiography

Office: LT 702  
Phone: (607) 777-4414 E-mail: mlal@binghamton.edu
My research analyzes how shifting conceptions of gender, race, class, culture, and nation shape the institutionalization of medicine and the conduct of medical research. I am interested in the production and translation of medical knowledge in colonial and postcolonial settings, the transnational circulation of health care workers, and the ways in which discourses of health and hygiene crucially inform projects of imperialism and nationalism.

My book manuscript, “Purdah and Pathology: Women Physicians in Colonial India, 1869-1947,” explores the multifaceted impact of Western medicine in India by focusing on female physicians and women’s health care institutions. The first colonized country to provide women with substantial educational and employment opportunities in Western medicine, India had by 1947 the world’s largest network of women’s hospitals and women’s medical schools, staffed by hundreds of British, American, and Indian women doctors. I argue that India’s unique position emerged out of a remarkable conjuncture of British, American, and colonial Indian systems of gender segregation and subordination in medicine which were themselves shaped by British imperialism, American and British evangelical expansion, and Indian nationalism.

A new research project investigates how liberalization and globalization are affecting health care provision in contemporary India, from the rise of private specialty hospital networks to the promotion of India as a site for medical tourism.

Recent or current undergraduate courses:

  • Modern South Asian History
  • Health, Disease, and Medicine in South Asia
  • Disease, Medicine, and Empire
  • Comparative History of Disease
  • Women, Health, and Medicine: Comparative Perspectives
  • Women and Gender in South Asia
  • Health and Medicine in Asia and Asian America (Asian and Asian American Studies Program majors seminar)

Current and future graduate courses:

  • Women, Health, and Medicine: Comparative Perspectives
  • Science, Medicine, and Empire
  • Comparative History of Disease

Significant Publications

Books:

  • “Purdah and Pathology: Women Physicians in Colonial India, 1869-1947.” Book manuscript.

Recent Articles and Book Chapters:

  • “De la postcolonie et des femmes : apports théoriques du postcolonialisme anglophone aux études féministes” [On Postcolonialism and Women: Theoretical Contributions of Anglophone Postcolonial Studies to Feminist Studies], Nouvelles Questions Féministes 25:3 (2006): 32-55. With Danielle Haase-Dubosc.
  • “Purdah as Pathology: Gender and the Circulation of Medical Knowledge in Late Colonial India,” in Reproductive Health in India: History, Politics, Controversies, ed. Sarah Hodges (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2006), 85-114.
  • “Sexe, genre et historiographie féministe contemporaine : l’exemple de l’Inde coloniale” [Sex, Gender, and Contemporary Feminist Historiography: The Case of Colonial India], Cahiers du Genre 34 (2003): 149-169.
  • “‘The Ignorance of Women is the House of Illness’: Gender, Nationalism and Health Reform in Colonial North India,” in Medicine and Colonial Identity, ed. Mary P. Sutphen and Bridie Andrews (London: Routledge, 2003), 14-40.
  • “The Politics of Gender and Medicine in Colonial India: The Countess of Dufferin’s Fund, 1885-1888,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 68 (Spring 1994): 29-66.
    Condensed and translated version published as “Politiques médicales et politiques du genre dans l’Inde coloniale : le Fonds de la comtesse de Dufferin, 1885-1888,” trans. Oristelle Bonis, Cahiers du Genre 38 (2005): 87-126.

Recent Honors and Fellowships

  • Dean's Research Semester Award, Harpur College, Binghamton University, Fall 2006
  • Visiting Professor (Maître de conférences), Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (France), May-June 2006
  • Individual Development Award, State of New York/United University Professions, 2005
  • Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship (U.K.), 2001-2002
  • Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship, Ministère de l’Education Nationale, de la Recherche et de la Technologie (France), 1999-2000
  • Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania, 1993-1994
  • Junior Research Fellowship, American Institute of Indian Studies, 1992-1993
  • Travel Grant, Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania, 1992
  • Jacob K. Javits Graduate Fellowship, U.S. Department of Education, 1987-1989, 1990-1992
  • Rotary International Foundation Graduate Fellowship, 1989-1990
  • Foreign Language and Area Studies (Title IV) Fellowship, 1988