Prachi Deshpande
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prarochana.bsky.social
Prachi Deshpande
@prarochana.bsky.social
1.1K followers 220 following 100 posts
Historian @CSSSC. Author, Creative Pasts(2007); Scripts of Power(2023). Infosys Prize for Humanities 2020. Current obsessions spinning, weaving, growing food.
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prarochana.bsky.social
Prachi Deshpande @prarochana.bsky.social · Sep 10
Feels good to be on a podcast I listen to regularly! Thanks to Niharika Yadav for insightful questions. newbooksnetwork.com/prachi-deshp...
Podcast | Prachi Deshpande, "Scripts of Power: Writing, Language…
Subscribe for free. Prachi Deshpande, "Scripts of Power: Writing, Language Practices, and Cultural History in Western India" (Permanent Black, 2023)
newbooksnetwork.com
prarochana.bsky.social
Absolutely thrilled to read Rosalind O'Hanlon's review of Scripts of Power :-) scroll.in/article/1085...
‘Scripts of Power’: An extraordinarily rich study of the inescapable materiality of scribal labour
At the heart of Prachi Deshpande’s book is an understanding of written language as an infinitely adaptable medium for human expression.
scroll.in
August 20, 2025 at 1:42 PM
prarochana.bsky.social
Thank you @farinamir.bsky.social for a generous and perceptive review of Scripts of Power!
June 10, 2025 at 1:24 PM
prarochana.bsky.social
Applications for the year-long RTP Certificate Course for 2025-26 at the CSSSC now open. For all details and queries about the programme, please check: www.cssscal.org/academic_pro...
(Please share widely. And if you do, please share it with the above link)
Research Training Programme 2025-26. Would you like a taste of what it means to do research? Do you wish to deepen and widen your knowledge across the social sciences? Are you interested in pursuing a PhD but want to be more prepared? If so, the multidisciplinary RTP at CSSSC is for you! Duration is 10 months (August 2025-June 2026). Eligibility criteria is Masters or equivalent, minimum 50% marks. Programme content is two compulsory courses, three optional courses which students can choose from a variety of disciplinary and multidisciplinary options, and a final research project. Certificates will be issued on successful completion of the programme. Last date for application is 3rd June 2025. For further details, see the RTP prospectus and application form on the CSSSC website: https://www.cssscal.org/academic_programmes.php
May 8, 2025 at 6:37 AM
prarochana.bsky.social
My book *Scripts of Power* is now available on Kindle!
If you have been longing to read the book but haven't been able to procure the paperback, esp. outside India, now's your chance 🙂https://amzn.in/d/6gJULj4
Scripts of Power: Writing, Language Practices, and Cultural History in Western India eBook : Prachi Deshpande: Amazon.in: Kindle Store
Scripts of Power: Writing, Language Practices, and Cultural History in Western India eBook : Prachi Deshpande: Amazon.in: Kindle Store
amzn.in
May 5, 2025 at 8:47 AM
Reposted by Prachi Deshpande
aniketalam.bsky.social
What have these barbarians done to Hinduism and to our country!!! 💔😢

aje.io/qebprg
‘I didn’t go’: The last Muslim man in Indian town hit by religious strife
The 15 Muslim families in Nanda Nagar fled after they were attacked by neighbours. Ahamad Hasan decided to return.
aje.io
April 14, 2025 at 3:56 PM
prarochana.bsky.social
Seminar this Friday at the CSSSC, at Jadunath Bhavan, open to all
March 3, 2025 at 1:33 PM
prarochana.bsky.social
Grateful for this detailed review of /Scripts of Power/ in the latest South Asian Studies. doi.org/10.1080/0266...
February 9, 2025 at 5:14 AM
Reposted by Prachi Deshpande
mitrasharafi.bsky.social
Thrilled to receive gorgeous new book by @moubanerjee28.bsky.social in the mail! For legal historians: I recommend ch.3 on the great Tagore will case. #SouthAsianHistory Congratulations, Mou!!
December 27, 2024 at 8:02 PM
prarochana.bsky.social
Surprised and pleased to find //Scripts of Power// in this list! www.saaganthology.com/vol-2-issue-...
SAAG’s 2024 In Reading
These reflections do not aim to present a neat list of 2024’s "best" books or "essential reads." Instead, they are fragments of what stayed with us; works that lingered and called us back.
www.saaganthology.com
December 28, 2024 at 9:05 AM
prarochana.bsky.social
Meeting Amiya Bagchi at the Centre in recent years went some way in mitigating the trauma of encountering his formidable book "Private Investment in India" as a clueless MA student in the Cap-Col class at CHS/JNU. www.thehindu.com/news/nationa...
Economic historian Amiya Kumar Bagchi passes away
Professor Amiya Kumar Bagchi, an exceptional economist and scholar, left a lasting impact on economic history and development theory.
www.thehindu.com
November 29, 2024 at 5:25 AM
prarochana.bsky.social
In an earlier life, I blogged earnestly about knitting and other crafty things at desiknitter.wordpress.com. I still knit (not so earnestly) but now I record all the action at Ravelry, the big fibre crafts site, and occasionally post pics to @grass_hamlet on Insta/FB,
November 28, 2024 at 6:34 AM
prarochana.bsky.social
Nagraj Adve lucidly spells out the implications of the failed COP29 discussions and the climate challenges looming before us, particularly in India, in the "In Focus podcast" of the Hindu with G. Sampath. Listen!! megaphone.link/THGU9916067771
COP29: Why are developing countries so disappointed? | In Focus podcast by In Focus by The Hindu
Nagraj Adve speaks to us about how we can understand the outcomes of COP29 with regard to carbon markets, and how we can assess the same in terms of progress on climate finance.
megaphone.link
November 28, 2024 at 6:23 AM
Reposted by Prachi Deshpande
aparnabala.bsky.social
www.thehindu.com/podcast/cop2...

please listen to this detailed and illuminating interview with Nagraj Adve on the disappointing outcomes of COP29 for developing countries.
COP29: Why are developing countries so disappointed? | In Focus podcast
In this episode, Nagraj Adve speaks to us about how we can understand the outcomes of COP29 with regard to carbon markets, and how we can assess the same in terms of progress on climate finance.
www.thehindu.com
November 27, 2024 at 12:24 PM
Reposted by Prachi Deshpande
itihaasnaama.bsky.social
Call for Papers for the Yale Modern South Asia Workshop, to be held June 7-8, 2025. Travel, accommodation, and meals will be provided to all selected candidates for the duration of the Workshop in South Asia.

macmillan.yale.edu/southasia/mo...
Modern South Asia Workshop
macmillan.yale.edu
November 28, 2024 at 1:04 AM
prarochana.bsky.social
The time of year when you upload letter after letter after reference letter for PhD applications, agonize about getting in enough superlatives and exclamation marks and every last detail that could help, and then wonder about the whole point of this process.
November 27, 2024 at 11:27 PM
Reposted by Prachi Deshpande
debssutton.bsky.social
Huge thanks to the excellent Chitralekha Zutshi for choosing Ruling Devotion as a book of the year in #HistoryToday 🥰
November 22, 2024 at 1:53 PM
Reposted by Prachi Deshpande
himalmag.bsky.social
An investigation into cardamom cultivation in Kerala exposes how India is failing abjectly to regulate pesticide overuse and contamination in its spice production and trade.

By @jeffjosephpaul.bsky.social
www.himalmag.com/politics/car...
India’s massive failure to control pesticide overuse in cardamom and its spice trade
An investigation into cardamom cultivation in Kerala exposes how India is failing abjectly to regulate pesticide overuse and contamination in its spice production and trade
www.himalmag.com
November 22, 2024 at 3:04 AM
Reposted by Prachi Deshpande
amritaiq.bsky.social
Delhi malls are advertising their good AQI as an escape for Delhiites who’re struggling to breathe. What in the dystopia.
November 21, 2024 at 3:49 AM
Reposted by Prachi Deshpande
zigzackly.bsky.social
You can see or listen to all episodes (barring a couple of off-the-record sessions) at youtube.com/playlist?lis...

One discussion I really wanted to have was about caste and food. But first issue was where to begin! In India,vwe are brilliant at finding different ways to discriminate!
2/x
Table Talk - YouTube
Table Talk was a fortnightly chat, each time with a different guest, about some aspect of food, but not about recipes (though those may have popped up too), ...
youtube.com
November 21, 2024 at 6:10 AM
Reposted by Prachi Deshpande
zigzackly.bsky.social
In lockdown, thanks to a Facebook group I run, I began to think about food and its intersections with every aspect of our lives. One result was a series of long public conversations on food, called Table Talk. (Link in replies.) It was too expensive to sustain, so I stopped at 20 episodes.

1/x
zigzackly.bsky.social Peter Griffin @zigzackly.bsky.social · Nov 21
Now reading.
Photograph of a book cover. The book is Dalit Kitchens of Marathwada: Anna He Apoorna Brahma, by Shahu Patole, translated from the original Marathi by Bhushan Korgaonkar. The pictorial elements scattered around the cover are a woman sitting on the floor next to a mud stove, preparing ingredients, another woman laying a rolled-out dough sheet on another stove, two children sitting on the floor eating, onions, garlic, some spices.
November 21, 2024 at 6:03 AM
prarochana.bsky.social
This week's reading - a new biography, a diwali ank, and a new "aperiodical" focused on genre fiction.
Three books - Iru, a biography of the anthropologist Irawati Karve, the diwali special issue of a Marathi periodical called Bhavatal (environment, lit surroundings), and Bhas, a beautifully produced new little magazine in Marathi devoted to genre fiction.
November 21, 2024 at 6:30 AM
Reposted by Prachi Deshpande
zigzackly.bsky.social
It’s voting day in Maharashtra tomorrow. We have split parties contesting against each other, and some folks may still be confused about which button to press at the EVMs.
Here are some images friends and I made before the national elections. (Three more in the replies.)
November 19, 2024 at 3:02 AM
Reposted by Prachi Deshpande
weirdlyhungry.bsky.social
I really thought no other state could top the circus that is Andhra politics but Maharashtra is so miles ahead
romaticize.bsky.social Roma @romaticize.bsky.social · Nov 19
MAHA elections PSA 📢🚨‼️

Be careful with your symbols guys! Make sure you vote for the right alliances
Maha Yuti [edit] Party Flag Symbols Leader _ Maha Vikas Aghadi [edit] Party Flag Symbol Parivartan Mahashakti [edit] Party Flag Symbol Bahujan Samaj Party Sunil Dongre 237 Vanchit| Bahujan Aaghadi Prakash| Ambedkar(13) 200(14) Maharashtra Navnirman Sena Raj Thackeray 135 Rashtriya Samaj] Paksha Mahadev Jankar 93(15) Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) Chandrashekhar Azad 40 All India Majlis-e- Ittehadul Muslimeen
November 19, 2024 at 7:44 AM
prarochana.bsky.social
Is there an easy way to bookmark the starter packs you have joined on a separate tab on the menu?
November 19, 2024 at 5:31 AM
Reposted by Prachi Deshpande
debssutton.bsky.social
A two-year, full-time Research Associate position in Cultural and Material History, working on a wonderful AHRC project on the Victorian Hand! Please share widely 😊😊😊 hr-jobs.lancs.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...
Job Opportunity at Lancaster University: Research Associate in Victorian Cultural and Material History
The Department of History at Lancaster University are seeking to appoint a Research Associate in Victorian Cultural and Material History. We are looking for a talented scholar of Victorian culture to ...
hr-jobs.lancs.ac.uk
November 18, 2024 at 12:57 PM