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The Department of
Asian Studies

Eric Gurevitch

National Endowment for the Humanities Collaborative Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow

I am a National Endowment for the Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow at Vanderbilt University. At Vanderbilt, I teach Environmental Humanities and am affiliated with the Asian Studies Program. My research aims to tell a more global history of science in which unexpected voices, practices and events come to stand alongside more standard narratives.

In 2022, I received a PhD from the University of Chicago conferred jointly by the Department of South Asian Languages & Civilizations and the Committee on the Conceptual & Historical Studies of Science . My dissertation was awarded the Dissertation Award on the Formation of Knowledge from the University of Chicago and the Mohini Jain Presidential Chair in Jain Studies Best Dissertation Award from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Davis.

I am currently working on a monograph titled Everyday Sciences: Making Knowledge Local in South Asia, which builds on my dissertation research.

Specializations

  • South Asia
  • Southwest India
  • Environmental Humanities
  • Sanskrit
  • Kannada

Representative Publications

Peer Reviewed Articles and Chapters

  • “Practices of Translation in Medieval Kannada Sciences,” in Narratives on Translation across Eurasia and Africa: From Babylonia to Colonial India, edited by Sonja Brentjes with Jens Høyrup and Bruce O’Brien (Brepols Publishers, Forthcoming).
  • “The uses of useful knowledge and the languages of vernacular science: Perspectives from southwest India,” History of Science 59, no. 3 (2021): 256–86. Access

Scholarly Book Reviews

  • Review of Science and Religion in India: Beyond Disenchantment, by Renny Thomas. Physics Today.
  • Review of Words of Destiny: Practicing Astrology in North India, by Caterina Guenzi. Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society.     
  • Review of History and Theory of Knowledge Production: An Introductory Outline, by Rajan Gurukkal. Indian Economic & Social History Review 57 (3): 421–23. Access
  • Review of Empires of Knowledge: Scientific Networks in the Early Modern World, Edited by Paula Findlen (Review No. 2355). Reviews in History. Access