Aparajita Das

PhD Candidate

South Asia

I am a historian of the Indian Ocean World and South Asia. I specialize in the environmental and material history of commodity circulation in the early modern period. My research deploys commercial records of maritime empires like the Dutch, English and Portuguese, as well as Indo-Persian court records and Sufi poetry from Mughal and sultanate India. Through my research, I explore the entanglements of labor and ecological extractions in moments of heightened global connections. 

I earned an M.Phil. in History at the Department of History, University of Delhi in 2016. 

I am involved in public history projects including public lectures, heritage walk design and exhibition curation in India and the US.

Research Interests

Indian Ocean world

Environmental history

Labor and social history

Islam in South Asia

Global history

Awards and Grants

2025 Summer Dissertation Writing Fellowship, UC Berkeley

2023 American Institute of Indian Studies, Junior Research Fellowship

2023 Simpson ABD Grant, Global, International and Area Studies, UC Berkeley

2022 Maharaj Kaul Grant

2019 Berkeley Graduate Division Fellowship

Teaching

Fall 2025 (DS 104): Human Contexts and Ethics of Data

Fall 2024 (History 1): Global History

Spring 2022 (History 190): Soccer: A Global History

Fall 2021 (History 139C): Defiant Women: Gender, Power and Violence in American History

Spring 2021 (History 7B): Introduction to the History of the United States: Civil War to Present

Fall 2020 (History 11A): The Wonder That was India: Politics, Culture and Philosophy in Premodern South Asia