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Maya R. Jasanoff is an American academic. She serves as Coolidge Professor of History at Harvard University, where she focuses on the history of Britain and the
British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
.


Early life

Jasanoff grew up in Ithaca, New York and comes from a family of academics. Her parents,
Sheila Sheila (alternatively spelled Shelagh and Sheelagh) is a common feminine given name, derived from the Irish name ''Síle'', which is believed to be a Gaelic form of the Latin name Caelia, the feminine form of the Roman clan name Caelius, meani ...
and
Jay Jasanoff Jay Harold Jasanoff ( or ) is an American linguist and Indo-Europeanist, best known for his ''h2e''-conjugation theory of the Proto-Indo-European verbal system. He teaches Indo-European linguistics and historical linguistics at Harvard Univers ...
, are both Harvard professors, and her brother Alan is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was educated at Harvard College before studying for a master's degree at
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge becam ...
, where she worked with
Christopher Bayly Sir Christopher Alan Bayly, FBA, FRSL (18 May 1945 – 18 April 2015) was a British historian specialising in British Imperial, Indian and global history. From 1992 to 2013, he was Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at ...
. She earned her PhD at
Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the worl ...
with Linda Colley, completing the thesis "French and British imperial collecting in Egypt and India, 1780–1820" (Yale, 2002).


Career

Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard, Jasanoff was a fellow at the University of Michigan, through its Society of Fellows, after which she taught at the University of Virginia. Jasanoff has been announced as chair of the 2021
Booker Prize The Booker Prize, formerly known as the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. ...
jury, the other judges being writer and editor Horatia Harrod, actor
Natascha McElhone Natascha McElhone (; born Natascha Abigail Taylor, 14 December 1971) is a British actress. She is a graduate of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. In film, she is best known for her roles in '' Ronin'' (1998), ''The Truman Show'' (19 ...
, novelist and professor
Chigozie Obioma Chigozie Obioma (born 1986) is a Nigerian writer. He is best known for writing the novels ''The Fishermen'' (2015) and '' An Orchestra of Minorities'' (2019), both of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize in their respective years of publi ...
, and writer and former Archbishop Rowan Williams. In February 2022, Jasanoff was one of 38 Harvard faculty to sign a letter to the '' Harvard Crimson'' defending Professor John Comaroff, who had been found to have violated the university's sexual and professional conduct policies. After students filed a lawsuit with detailed allegations of Comaroff's actions and the university's failure to respond, Jasanoff was one of several signatories to say that she wished to retract her signature. In an e-mail, Jasanoff wrote, "I signed the letter without properly considering its impact on students and, obviously, without fuller information. This was a serious lapse in judgment and I apologize unreservedly for my mistake." Her guest essay in '' The New York Times'' on the day of the death of Elizabeth II in which she wrote that the Queen had "helped obscure a bloody history of decolonisation" prompted a backlash on social media, including from the paper's readers.


Books


''Edge of Empire''

Jasanoff published her first book, ''Edge of Empire: Lives, Culture, and Conquest in the East, 1750–1850'', with Alfred A. Knopf in 2005 and received mostly favorable reviews. In the '' London Review of Books'',
UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
history and political science professor Anthony Pagden called the work a "brilliant contribution" to the historical investigation of the complexities of empire; in '' The Guardian'',
Richard Gott Richard Willoughby Gott (born 28 October 1938),Winchester College: A Register. Edited by P.S.W.K. McClure and R.P. Stevens, on behalf of the Wardens and Fellows of Winchester College. 7th edition, 2014. pp. 271 (Short Half 1952 list heading) & ...
called it "a riveting and original book." However, in ''
The American Historical Review ''The American Historical Review'' is a quarterly academic history journal and the official publication of the American Historical Association. It targets readers interested in all periods and facets of history and has often been described as the ...
'', University of Pennsylvania English professor Suvir Kaul said Jasanoff's history of "objects and individuals, no matter how lovingly recollected, do not add up to an argument that historians should think of empire as instantiating 'the essential humanity of successful international relationships'," and underestimate the "concerns of those peoples who were at the receiving end of imperial power, whether that power was exerted by Europeans or by the native elites who functioned increasingly at their command." In '' The New York Times'', Columbia University history professor
Mark Mazower Mark Mazower (; born 20 February 1958) is a British historian. His expertise are Greece, the Balkans and, more generally, 20th-century Europe. He is Ira D. Wallach Professor of History at Columbia University in New York City Early life Mazo ...
found "a high degree of wishful thinking" in Jasanoff's casting 18th- and early 19th-century empire as less asymmetrical domination and more "the kind of happy cross-cultural fusion that we dream about today".


''Liberty's Exiles''

Jasanoff published ''Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World'' in 2011, also with Alfred A. Knopf''.'' The book describes the trajectories of the approximately 60,000
American Loyalists Loyalists were colonists in the Thirteen Colonies who remained loyal to the British Crown during the American Revolutionary War, often referred to as Tories, Royalists or King's Men at the time. They were opposed by the Patriots, who supporte ...
who fled the
Thirteen Colonies The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Founded in the 17th and 18th centuri ...
to relocate to other parts of the
British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
; some 8,000 of those who elected to relocate were free black people, but 15,000 enslaved African-Americans were also forcibly moved when their Loyalist owners chose to go. ''Liberty's Exiles'' was widely and favorably reviewed. In ''The New York Times'', Thomas Bender called it a "richly informative account", "smart, deeply researched and elegantly written".


''The Dawn Watch''

Jasanoff's 2017 book, ''The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World'', published by Penguin Press and in the UK by William Collins centers on the life and times of novelist Joseph Conrad. '' The Times'' lauded the book as the "Conrad for our time", and ''
The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''Th ...
'' called her an "enviably gifted writer...her historian's eye can untie knots that might baffle the pure critic", noting that she "steers us securely and stylishly through those latitudes where Conrad witnessed the future scupper the past". In the judgment of the '' Financial Times'': "This is an unobtrusively skilful, subtle, clear-eyed book, beautifully narrated", while the '' Literary Review'' observes: "Written with a novelist's flair for vivid detail and a scholar's attention to texts, ''The Dawn Watch'' is by any standard a major contribution to our understanding of Conrad and his time." Reviewing the book in '' The Guardian'',
Patrick French Patrick French (born 1966) is a British writer, historian and academician. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh where he studied English and American literature, and received a PhD in South Asian Studies. He was appointed as the inau ...
began: "''The Dawn Watch'' will win prizes, and if it doesn't, there is something wrong with the prizes." In '' The Hindu'', Sudipta Datta wrote that Jasanoff's approach to Conrad makes for a "remarkable retelling of Joseph Conrad's life and work and its resonance with the present dysfunctional world". In '' The Guardian'',
William Dalrymple William Dalrymple may refer to: * William Dalrymple (1678–1744), Scottish Member of Parliament * William Dalrymple (moderator) (1723–1814), Scottish minister and religious writer * William Dalrymple (British Army officer) (1736–1807), Scott ...
named the book to his list of best holiday reads of 2017. According to the '' Wall Street Journal''s reviewer, "''The Dawn Watch'' is the most vivid and suggestive biography of Conrad ever written." In '' The New York Times'',
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (; born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938) is a Kenyan author and academic who writes primarily in Gikuyu and who formerly wrote in English. He has been described as having been "considered East Africa’s leading novelist". His w ...
applauded the book as "masterful". Thiong'o wrote that Jasanoff succeeded where "An Image of Africa: Racism in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness",
Chinua Achebe Chinua Achebe (; 16 November 1930 – 21 March 2013) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic who is regarded as the dominant figure of modern African literature. His first novel and ''magnum opus'', ''Things Fall Apart'' (1958), occupies a ...
's classic Conrad essay, had failed, specifically in bringing into clear relief "Conrad's ability to capture the hypocrisy of the 'civilizing mission' and the material interests that drove capitalist empires, crushing the human spirit". "''The Dawn Watch''", Thiong'o wrote, "will become a creative companion to all students of his work. It has made me want to re-establish connections with the Conrad whose written sentences once inspired in me the same joy as a musical phrase." As part of the project, Jasanoff blogged
journey on a cargo ship
sailing from China to Europe. She also published an essay in '' The New York Times'' describing the portion of her journey in the Democratic Republic of Congo; the piece drew criticism. In a letter to the editor,
Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with ...
professor Timothy Longman said the essay "reeks of condescension" and "continues the widespread practice of ignoring the voices of Congolese intellectuals, many of whom write about their homeland with nuance." ''The Dawn Watch'' was discussed on Andrew Marr's ''
Start the Week ''Start the Week'' is a discussion programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4 which began in April 1970. The current presenter is the former BBC political editor and the BBC's former political Sunday morning presenter Andrew Marr. The previous regular ...
'' program on November 6, 2017. It was BBC Radio Four's Book of the Week.


Awards

In 2005, Jasanoff won the
Duff Cooper Prize The Duff Cooper Prize is a literary prize awarded annually for the best work of history, biography, political science or occasionally poetry, published in English or French. The prize was established in honour of Duff Cooper, a British diplomat, C ...
for ''Edge of Empire''. She won both the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award for Non-Fiction and 2012
George Washington Book Prize The George Washington Book Prize was instituted in 2005 and is awarded annually to the best book on the founding era of the United States; especially ones that have the potential to advance broad public understanding of American history. It is admi ...
for ''Liberty's Exiles.'' She won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2013 and in 2017, she was awarded the Windham–Campbell Literature Prize, valued at $165,000. Jasanoff won the 2018
Cundill History Prize The Cundill History Prize (formerly the Cundill Prize in Historical Literature) was founded in 2008 by Peter Cundill to recognize and promote literary and academic achievement in history. The prize is presented annually to an author who has publish ...
valued at $75,000 for ''The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World''.


Bibliography


Books

* * ''Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World''. * ''The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World''.


Essays and reporting

* Online version is titled "Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and the art of ambivalence".


Critical studies and reviews of Jasanoff's work

;''The Dawn Watch'' *


References


External links


Harvard faculty page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jasanoff, Maya Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century American historians 21st-century American women writers Alumni of the University of Cambridge American women historians Harvard College alumni Harvard University faculty Historians from New York (state) Historians of the American Revolution MacDowell Colony fellows The New Yorker people University of Virginia faculty Writers from Ithaca, New York Yale University alumni