McGill Faculty Affiliate: Jon Soske

Jon Soske is assistant Professor of History and Classical Studies. He received a MA in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley and a PhD in History from the University of Toronto. From 2009-11, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa and the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER) at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. His first book project, Boundaries of Diaspora: African Nationalism and the Indian Diaspora in 20th century South Africa, rewrites the history of the antiapartheid struggle by examining the interlacing histories of South Africa and India, especially the circulation and reconfiguration of ideas concerning race, nation, caste, and diaspora. His other research and teaching interests include 20th century African intellectual history, Africa’s place in the modern Indian Ocean, Indian Ocean visual cultures, South Asian diasporas in Africa and the Caribbean, Marxism and postcolonial theory, the politics of biographical writing, and the Indian Dalit leader Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. He has also worked on a number of curatorial, film, and public history projects, including the exhibition South-South: Interruptions and Encounters (JMB Gallery 2009) and the film African-Indian Odyssey (Ochre Media 2010).

Forthcoming "The Other Prince: Ambedkar, Constitutional Democracy, and the Agency of the Law," in Gramsci and Ambedkar on Subalterns and Dalits, ed. Cosimo Zene.

Forthcoming "Trafficking in Secrets, Trading in Trust: The Complicities of a Biographer," Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques, special issue on Writing History for a Variety of Publics edited by Antoinette Burton.

Forthcoming Review of David Everatt, The Origins of Non-Racialism: White Opposition to Apartheid in the 1950s (Wits University Press, 2009), Transformation.

2011 "The Life and Death of Dr. Abu Baker ‘Hurley’ Asvat, February 23, 1942 – January 27, 1989," African Studies, 70 (2011).

2010 "Navigating Difference: Gender, Miscegenation, and Indian Domestic Space in 20th Century Natal," in Eyes Across the Water: Navigating the Indian Ocean, eds. Pamila Gupta, Isabel Hofmeyer, and Michael Pearson (Pretoria: UNISA University Press and Penguin India).

2009 Review of Zulu Identities: Being Zulu, Past and Present, eds. Benedict Carton, John Laband, and Jabulani Sithole (University of Kwa-Zulu Natal Press, 2008), Transformation 71.