
Professor
hanifism@jmu.edu
Contact Info
Curriculum Vitae
Education
B.A., University of Wisconsin-Madison
Ph.D., University of Michigan
Fields and Specialties
Middle East, South Asia and Central Asia, principally since 1500;
economic and social history,
and cultural and historical anthropology
Teaching Areas
Modern Middle East, Global South Asia,
Afghanistan, colonialism,
and world history
Research Interests
Afghanistan, the Persianate World, Pashto,
colonialism, nationalism, tribal history, nomadic societies,
Islamic urbanism, historical linguistics, migration, diasporas,
identity formation, cartography, photography,
animal and environmental studies
Grants
Social Science Research Council,
Council of American Overseas Research Centers,
American Historical Association,
American Institute of Afghanistan Studies,
Asian Development Bank,
Carnegie Corporation of New York
Select Publications and Presentations
Books
Connecting Histories in Afghanistan ( Gutenberg-e 2008, Stanford 2011)
Mountstuart Elphinstone in South Asia (Oxford/Hurst 2019)
Journal Articles
Deciphering the History of Modern Afghanistan (Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History, 2022)
"The Battle for Minds in Cold War Afghanistan" (Iran and the Caucasus, 2021)
"Roundtable Papers" in the journal Afghanistan(Afghanistan, 2021)
The Pashtun Counter Narrative (Middle East Critique, 2016)
Shah Shuja’s Hidden History (South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, 2012)
Impoverishing a Colonial Frontier (Iranian Studies, 2004)
Book Chapters (Printed)
" A Book History of An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul ” (Hurst, 2019)
“ A Genealogy of Orientalism in Afghanistan: The Colonial Image Lineage” (Brill, 2018)
“ A History of Linguistic Boundary Crossing within and around Pashto” in Beyond Swat (Hurst & Columbia, 2013)
“ Quandaries of the Afghan Nation” in Under the Drones (Harvard, 2012)
“ Henry George Raverty and the Colonial Marketing of Pashto,” in Knowing India (Yoda [New Delhi], 2011.
Online Essays
Environmental War Crimes in Afghanistan, South Asia Avant-Garde: A Dissident Literary Anthology
What Next for Afghanistan, Royal Society of the Arts Journal
Elephants in Afghanistan: Surveying the History of a Pachyderm Frontier
Photography and Orientalism in Morocco
Camels in Nineteenth-Century Afghanistan and Australia
History of Pashto Printing and Resistance to Print
The Hawala System and the Afghan Diaspora
Shi’ism in Contemporary Afghanistan in AHA Perspectives
Orientalism in Contemporary Afghanistan in E-International Relations
Colonial Knowledge in Contemporary Afghanistan at the Middle East Institute
Presentations
Keynote Address, Reflections on Longue Duree Borderland History, “The Importance of Regional Connectivity in the Pakistan-Afghanistan Border Region,” University of Peshawar Department of Political Science & Hanns Seidel Foundation International Conference #10, Baragali, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, December 2021
Comparing Empires in Afghanistan, Duke University, December 2021
A Deep History of Water in Afghanistan, Michigan State University Muslim Studies Conference, 2020
CONSALD lecture in March 2020 "A Source-Based Research Biography in Afghanistan Studies,"
Postcards from Afghanistan, JMU Libraries 2019
Climate Change in Afghanistan, JMU Libraries 2019
Cartographic History of Afghanistan: The Early Modern and Colonial Periods, Library of Congress, June 2019.
Imperial Iconography in Afghanistan: A Comparative Survey of American, British and Soviet Images, Duke University, February 2019.
Connecting Histories in and Beyond Afghanistan: Necessities, Possibilities, Limitations, Yale University, February 2019.
Keynote Address at the Afghanistan in Academia: Knowledge and Representation Workshop , SOAS, 2018.
Early Twentieth Century Photography in Afghanistan: Reflections on the Chronologies, Geographies and Technologies of Orientalism and Nationalism, Shanghai University, 2018.
Service
Founding Coordinator, Middle Eastern Communities and Migrations Interdisciplinary Minor
Faculty Initiator, South Asian Studies Minor-in-Formation
Member, South Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies (2017-2020)
Member, Board of Trustees of the American Institute of Indian Studies (2017-2020)
Additional Scholarly Activities Interviews, Profiles, and Podcasts
American Institute of Indian Studies Mughal Persian Workshop Co-Organizer, Lucknow, India, August 2019.
The Mountstuart Elphinstone Project(2015-2017)
Dr. Hanifi was interviewed by Madison Magazine, Be the Change, and Democracy Matters at JMU, the American Institute of Indian Studies, the History Channel, the Council of American Overseas Research Centers and the New Arab, The Peel News, The East is a Podcast, and Association for Asian Studies