Brian Cannon

Biography:

Brian T. Cannon is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Historical Studies and the Centre for South Asian Critical Humanities at the University of Toronto Mississauga.  He holds a joint Ph.D. in History and South Asia Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.  His current book project, entitled “Claiming Caste: Land, Water and Hierarchy in North India, c. 1660-1950,” offers a revisionist history of arid-zone South Asia read through the lens of land grants in Marwar (Jodhpur) state.  The work demonstrates how ownership of and access to sources of land and water persistently shaped claims to and contests over hierarchical status in the course of three long centuries.  Brian’s wider research interests include the institutional intersections of ecology and political economy across the Indo-Pakistan border; histories of caste and social organization in early modern and colonial north India; and histories of land and labor reform in the Thar Desert. Among other fellowships, Brian has been awarded research and development grants from the Fulbright-Hays program, the American Institute of Indian Studies, and the American Institute of Pakistan Studies.  In the classroom, Brian offers a range of courses on South Asian and world history, including seminars on the economic history of modern South Asia, on commodity histories across the modern world, and on citizenship and rights-making in Pakistan and India.