After completing his education in Sydney and Canberra, Sanjay held positions at Sydney University and La Trobe University (Melbourne), as well as a Fellowship at Tokyo University. He moved to Goldsmiths in 2007, to take up the Chair in Politics.
Sanjay has published in the fields of modern Indian history, political and social theory, postcolonial theory and international relations. He is particularly interested in how modern European ideologies, and modern Western knowledge more generally, ‘travelled’ to the non-Western world- and what effects this had both on the non-Western world, and on modern, Western knowledge. His current work is focused on whether the presumptions that inform our modern knowledge are ‘universal’, meaning adequate to all times and places- as is usually supposed- or whether they are in fact parochial, presumptions that are specifically modern and Western but that illegitimately pass themselves off as universal. He often uses his Indian archive to raise and pursue these broad social, cultural and epistemological questions.
Sanjay has been invited to give keynote talks in the US, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Bulgaria, Brazil, Greece, India, Pakistan, Australia, Ireland, Italy, Japan and Taiwan. Some of his publications have been translated into Spanish, Portuguese and Slovenian
Academic qualifications
BA Honours (4 years) 1st Class (with University Medal), University of Sydney (Department of Government), 1983.
PhD, Australian National University (History of Ideas Unit), 1990.
Teaching
Sanjay has held teaching or research positions at the University of Sydney and La Trobe University (Melbourne), before joining Goldsmiths in 2007 to take up the Chair in Politics, and the position of Director of the Centre for Postcolonial Studies. He has been JSPS Research Fellow at Tokyo University (2003), Visiting Professorial Research Fellow at Kyoto University (2013) and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Technology, Sydney (2014 to present). He currently teaches an MA subject, ‘The Politics of Knowledge: Debates in the Human Sciences”, and teach ‘Liberalism and its Critics’, ‘Colonialism and non-Western Political Thought’, and (co-teach) ‘Politics of Other Cultures’ at undergraduate level.
Areas of supervision
Sanjay welcomes enquiries concerning supervision in the areas of social and political theory, Indian history and politics, non-Western thought and politics, Marxism and liberalism, postcolonial theory.
Featured publications
Books
Marxist Theory and Nationalist Politics: The Case of Colonial India, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1995.
Subject Lessons: The Western Education of Colonial India, Duke University Press, 2007 (Indian edition with Oxford University Press, India, 2008) for the International Convention of Asian Scholars (ICAS) 2009 book prize in social sciences
Edited Book
Postcolonial Theory and International Relations: A Critical Introduction, London and NY: Routledge, 2013.
Articles
“Nationalism, Modernity and the ‘Woman Question’ in India and China”, Journal of Asian Studies, 72:2 (May 2013), pp. 273-97.
“Reason or Reasoning? Clio or Siva?”, Social Text, No. 78 (2004), pp. 85-101 [translated into Portuguese as “Razão ou Raciocínio? Clio ou Shiva?”, História da Historiografia, No. 11 (April 2013), pp. 173-90].
Seth, Sanjay. 2000. A Postcolonial World? In: Greg Fry and Jacinta O'Hagan, eds. Contending Images of World Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 214-226. ISBN 978-0333913765
Professor Sanjay Seth has published in the fields of modern Indian history, political and social theory, postcolonial theory and international relations. He is particularly interested in how modern European ideologies, and modern Western knowledge more generally, ‘travelled’ to the non-Western world- and what effects this had both on the non-Western world, and on modern, Western knowledge. Relatedly, my recent and current work is focused on whether the presumptions that inform our modern knowledge are ‘universal’, meaning adequate to all times and places- as is usually supposed- or whether they are in fact parochial, presumptions that are specifically modern and Western but that illegitimately pass themselves off as universal. He usually uses his Indian archive to raise and pursue these broad social, cultural and epistemological questions.
