Vikram Visana

Dr Vikram Visana joined the history team as Lecturer in World History in September 2018. He has taught at the University of Cambridge and the University of Edinburgh and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Global History, Freie Universität Berlin.

Vikram currently teaches on the first-year module 'Britons Abroad, 1500-2000' and the second-year modules 'Modern India: From Raj to Independence' and 'Historical Research Skills'. From January 2020 he will offer a new third-year module called 'India's "Tryst with Destiny": the Making and Remaking of the World's Largest Democracy', which will allow students to explore the uniqueness of the democratic revolution in India between 1947 and 2000. Using tracts of Indian political thought alongside Bollywood movies and an array of other written and visual sources, this module will approach the topic from the perspective of Indian elites but also that of the average Indian citizen. 

• South Asia from c. 1780 to present
• Global Political Thought from c. 1780 to present
• Imperial History
• World/Global History

Vikram is happy to supervise undergraduate dissertations, masters theses, and PhD theses on topics which fall under the themes listed above.

Vikram's research has centred on the global intellectual history of liberalism in Britain's colonies during and after empire. His PhD thesis on the political thought of Dadabhai Naoroji offers a new account of the foundational nature of political economy to Indian ideas of liberty in their most universal form. This thesis is currently being expanded and adapted for publication as a monorgraph. A new project extends the study of Indian liberalism and political economy into the post-colonial era by examing the political thought of members and supporters of India's Swatantra Party from the 1950s to 1970s. Vikram has also conducted research on Indian ideas of sovereignty and populism which are forthcoming in a journal article and book chapter.