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{{Short description|Indian historian}}
{{notability|1=Academics|date=January 2023}}

{{Infobox academic
| name = Bhavani Raman
| citizenship = Indian
| occupation = Associate professor, [[University of Toronto]], [[Canada]]
| alma_mater = University of Michigan, Jawaharlal Nehru University
| notable_works = Document Raj: Writing and Scribes in Early Colonial South India (2012)
}}
'''Bhavani Raman''' is an Indian historian. She is an associate professor and associate chair (teaching) at the Historical and Cultural Studies Department at the University of Toronto. Her research lie at the intersections of law, culture and intellectual histories of South Asia.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Bhavani Raman {{!}} Department of Historical and Cultural Studies |url=https://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/hcs/bhavani-raman |access-date=2022-12-31 |website=www.utsc.utoronto.ca}}</ref> She is the Chair of the Tamil Worlds Initiative, a tri-campus program on Tamil history, culture, and politics at the Scarborough campus of the University of Toronto. <ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=JHI-UTSC Digital Humanities Faculty Fellow, 2022-2023 {{!}} Jackman Humanities Institute |url=https://www.humanities.utoronto.ca/news/jhi-utsc-digital-humanities-faculty-fellow-2022-2023 |access-date=2022-12-31 |website=www.humanities.utoronto.ca}}</ref>

== Education and family ==
Raman attended St Stephen's College, Delhi University where she graduated with honors in history. She obtained an M.Phil. for her thesis titled "The Emergence of the Public in Nineteenth Century Tamil Nadu" under the guidance of Prof. [[K. N. Panikkar|K.N. Panikkar]] at the Centre for Historical Studies, [[Jawaharlal Nehru University]], Delhi.

== Career ==

=== Notable academic contribution ===
'''Document Raj'''

Raman’s PhD thesis was later published as her first book titled ''Document Raj: Writing and Scribes in Early Colonial South India'' (2012),<ref>{{cite journal |last=Bellenoit |first=Hayden J. |year=2013 |title=Bhavani Raman. Document Raj: Writing and Scribes in Early Colonial India |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=118 |issue=3 |pages=834–835 |doi=10.1093/ahr/118.3.834}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Patel |first=Geeta |year=2014 |title=Document raj: writing and scribes in early colonial south India, by Bhavani Raman |journal=South Asian History and Culture |volume=5 |issue=3 |pages=398–401 |doi=10.1080/19472498.2014.905331|s2cid=144991259 }}</ref> a work on company rule in South Asia. Raman’s granular research on colonial bureaucratic writing practices renders the book a near-ethnography of the time, as the 18th century colonial cutcherry comes to life. Her method calls for close attention to media and practices of infrastructure, charting a new path in South Asian historiography. ''Document Raj'' demonstrates how regimes of legal and bureaucratic document production, writing practices and their effects on language pedagogy enabled new forms of power in colonial India. Document Raj studies the political, linguistic, and pedagogic connotations of written accountability by attending to its colonial career.<ref name=":0" />

According to [[Dipesh Chakrabarty]], “''Document Raj'' breaks new ground in South Asian history. Raman’s imaginative investigations into the workings of the East India Company’s district offices in colonial Madras provide a powerful analysis of the critical role that scribal cultures played in enabling the Raj to operate as a vast writing machine. Original in its approach, this book will reinvigorate debates about the nature and consequences of colonial rule in the subcontinent.”<ref>{{Cite book |last=Raman |first=Bhavani |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7208/9780226703299/html |title=Document Raj |date=2012-11-14 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-70329-9 |language=en |doi=10.7208/chicago/9780226703299.001.0001 }}</ref> Her works are highly relevant in Tamil historiography.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=ஆ.சிவசுப்பிரமணியன் |title=ஆவண அரசாங்கம் - பவானி இராமன் |url=http://www.keetru.com/index.php/2010-06-24-04-31-11/ungal-noolagam-jan17/32316-2017-01-25-06-03-27 |access-date=2022-12-31 |website=www.keetru.com |language=ta-in}}</ref>

She has also edited two volumes With Prof. Daniel T. Rodgers and Prof. Helmut Reimitz, ''Cultures in Motion'' (2014)<ref>{{cite journal |last=Prange |first=Sebastian R. |year=2015 |title=Cultures in Motion ed. by Daniel T. Rodgers, Bhavani Raman, Helmut Reimitz (review) |journal=Journal of World History |volume=25 |issue=4 |pages=660–662 |doi=10.1353/jwh.2015.0009|s2cid=162091913 }}</ref> and with Dr Aparna Balachandran and Dr Rashmi Pant, ''Iterations of Law: Legal Histories from India'' (2018).<ref>{{cite journal |last=Gauba |first=Kanika |year=2019 |title=Iterations of law: legal histories from India, edited by Aparna Balachandran, Rashmi Pant and Bhavani Raman, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2018, viii + 302pp., INR 950 (hardback), ISBN 9780199477791 |journal=Indian Law Review |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=290–298 |doi=10.1080/24730580.2019.1694467|s2cid=214494540 }}</ref> The latter volume draws on Robert Cover’s claim to broaden the idea of law and legal meaning to include the normative universe that is built on custom, ethical and interpretative commitments. It urges historians to look for “the myriad appropriations of law to construct meaning” so that a “web of understanding that contests or aligns with the letter and spirit of the law” can be arrived at. She has also published more than a dozen of journal articles and public writings.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Bhavani Raman |url=https://www.epw.in/author/bhavani-raman |access-date=2022-12-31 |website=Economic and Political Weekly |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=The Curious Disappearance of the Ennore Creek |url=https://thewire.in/environment/curious-disappearance-ennore-creek |access-date=2022-12-31 |website=The Wire}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=An Indian History of Identity Infrastructure |url=https://thewire.in/books/identity-proof-and-paper-infrastructure-an-indian-history |access-date=2022-12-31 |website=The Wire}}</ref>

She is also the Digital Humanities Faculty Fellow 2022–2023, at the Jackman Humanities Institute, [[University of Toronto]], where Raman is engaged in a research project on Chennai’s water archives.<ref name=":1" /> This project demonstrates the potential of lexicon-based research in Tamil to annotate hydrological geospatial data visualizations culled from colonial historical maps through research collaboration, self-learning, and skill sharing between researchers and community members. 

== Awards ==

* Her doctoral dissertation at the [[University of Michigan]] under advisor Sumathy Ramaswamy was selected the best doctoral dissertation by University of California Los Angeles and awarded the prestigious Sardar Patel Award in 2007. <ref>{{Cite web |title=Sardar Patel Award Page Main Content |url=https://international.ucla.edu/institute/article/149542 |access-date=2022-12-31 |website=international.ucla.edu}}</ref>
* International Dissertation Research Fellowship 2001 for ''Social Communication and the Emergence of Modern Publics in Colonial South India, 1790–1850.''<ref>{{Cite web |title=Bhavani Raman |url=https://www.ssrc.org/fellows/26c61d27-2233-dd11-bef0-001cc477ec70/ |access-date=2022-12-31 |website=Social Science Research Council (SSRC) |language=en-US}}</ref>

== References ==
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{{Authority control}}
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[[Category:Indian non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the University of Toronto Scarborough]]
[[Category:Year of birth missing (living people)]]

Bhavani Raman - Revision history

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