Avash Bhandari
Graduate Student
History
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Email:
Office Hours
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| Friday | 10:00am – 11:50am | |
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About
Avash Bhandari is a PhD candidate in South Asian History working with Mark Liechty and Rama Mantena. His dissertation project titled “Nature Between Two Rajs: Environmental Encounters in Terai in the Long Nineteenth Century” examines ecological consequences of Nepali state building and Anglo-Nepali relations in the age of empire. He is a recipient of UIC Pipeline to an Inclusive Faculty Fellowship. Avash is currently in South Asia doing archival work for his dissertation at archives in Kathmandu and New Delhi.
Course Taught (TA):
- Fall 2022 Teaching Assistant, HIST 100 Western Civ To 1648
- Summer 2020 Teaching Assistant, Middle Eastern Civilization
- Fall 2019 Teaching Assistant, The World since 1400: Converging Worlds, New Circulations
- Spring 2020 Teaching Assistant, The World since 1400: Converging Worlds, New Circulations
Selected Publications
Peer/Editor reviewed
2019 “Remembering and Remaking Nepal’s Founder: A Visual History of Prithvinarayan Shah,” Tasveer Ghar: A Digital Network of South Asian Visual Culture, edited by Sumathi Ramaswamy, Christiane Brosius, and Yusuf Saeed. Co-authored with Dannah Dennis. http://www.tasveergharindia.net/essay/nepal-visual-prithvinarayan.html
2018 “Dharma Nirapekhsya Rajya ma Hindu Vidyalaya: Nepal Ved Vidyashramma Dharmanirapekshyata to Nirupan,” Samaj Adhyayan 12: 1-30. [In Nepali]
2016 “Hindu School in a Secular State: Interpreting Secularism in Nepal Ved Vidyashram,” Studies in Nepali History and Society 21(1): 85-112.
Reviews
2020 “Toward and Anthropology of Nepali Secularism,” Studies in Nepali History and Society 25(2): 475-484. Book reviews
2019 Review of Reciting the Goddess: Narratives of Place and the Making of Hinduism in Nepal by Jessica Vantine Birkenholtz. Samaj Adhyayan 14: 318-323. [In Nepali]
2018 Review of Making New Nepal: From Student Activism to Mainstream Politics by Amanda Therese Snellinger. Asian Ethnology 77: 467-470.
2017 Review of Signing and Belonging in Nepal by Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway. Studies in Nepali History and Society 22(1).
2016 Review of Lost in Transition: Rebuilding Nepal from the Maoist Mayhem and Mega Earthquake by Kul Chandra Gautam. Studies in Nepali History and Society 21(2): 401-404.
Notable Honors
2021, Provost's Graduate Research Award, University of Illinois at Chicago
2021, Provost’s Graduate Internship Award, University of Illinois at Chicago
2018, Student Presenter Award, University of Illinois at Chicago
2017, Pipeline to an Inclusive Faculty Fellowship, University of Illinois at Chicago
2017-2018, “Manly Matters: Representation of Maleness in South Asian Popular Visual Practice” Fellow, Tasveer Ghar: A Digital Network of South Asian Popular Visual Culture
2017, Gopal Singh Nepali Memorial Research Award for MA thesis, Tribhuvan University
Education
2012-2016, MA, Sociology, Central Department of Sociology, Tribhuvan University
Thesis: Hindu School in a Secular State: Interpreting Secularism in Nepal Ved Vidyashram
2008-2011, BA, English and Social Work, St. Xavier’s College, Kathmandu
Selected Presentations
- November 2020 “Possibilities for Environmental History of Nepal,” Presented in Martin Chautari Research Seminar Series.
- July 2018 “Divya Upadesh and the Making of a Nationalist Gospel,” Presented at The Annual Kathmandu Conference on Nepal and the Himalaya.
- March 2017 “Scope and Ramifications of the Proposed Social Welfare and Development Act, 2073” Presented in Martin Chautari Research Seminar Series.
- December 2016 Invited panelist in a discussion of Religion, Secularism, and Ethnicity in Contemporary Nepal edited by David N. Gellner, Sondra L. Hausner, and Chiara Letizia. Organized by Social Science Baha and Oxford University Press at Yalamaya Kendra, Patan Dhoka, Lalitpur
- February 2016 “Hindu School in a Secular State: Interpreting Secularism in Nepal Ved Vidyashram.” Presented in “Secularism and The Formations of Religions in Asia: Pluralism, Globalization and Modernities” at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Research Currently in Progress
Dissertation/Research currently in progress: Nature between Two Rajs: Environmental Encounters in Terai in the Long Nineteenth Century
General Research Interests: South Asian and Nepali History, Environmental History, Labor History, World History