Audrey Truschke
@audreytruschke
Professor of South Asian history Rutgers-Newark | Anti-fascist | pro-education
Fancy spending part of your Saturday discussing how the Mughals built India in many ways? Yep, me too. Do join us -- #Mughal #history #academiclife
I have spent the last 3 days binge-reading Emily Wilson's Odyssey. After two decades with my mind occupied by the Indian epics, I have a lot of reactions (including, damn, the Odyssey is short). I'm enamored with the translation though.
Current reading. Such a short epic, by my standards anyways. #iykyk
I have read 16 novels this year, so far (most recent was Ghosh's Ghost-Eye). That's in addition to magazines, news, and the non-fiction I read for work. I honestly don't get what non-readers are doing with their lives and brains. You all are seriously missing out.
Indian ship honoring America’s 250th, NYC boat parade. May both nations live up to their higher values, rejecting intolerance and majoritarianism.
Sher Shah had many dreams. An afterlife on the side of my beer can was not one of them. Still, rock on. 😎
For the #Mughal scholars -- New journal with call for submissions.
As New York State considers anti-caste legislation, I offer my support as a U.S.-based scholar of South Asian history. #caste #castediscrimination #NewYork #equality
To give them their due -- Hindu nationalists cry foul. They highlight: Trump and Bondi's DOJ dismissed the criminal charges of human trafficking... I'll repeat that -- The Hindutva defense of abusing Dalits is that a racist administration that defends Epstein says it's all good.
One of our leaders got the Easter morning message right. It is clearer every day -- decency, rationality, and religiosity are the domain of the American left now, versus the cesspool of hate and destruction on the right.
2025 Rutgers Hindutva report -- Sanction violent Hindu nationalists and bar them from entering the U.S. 2026 U.S. government religious freedom group -- Sanction violent Hindu nationalists and bar them from entering the U.S. csrr.rutgers.edu/issues/hindu... www.uscirf.gov/annual-repor...
Perfect end to #AAS2026 — Perusing the collection of Emily Carr paintings at Vancouver’s Art Gallery.
I'll be at #AAS2026 in Vancouver this weekend, talking about biography and history!
Images I'm sharing with students this week as we read Khirbet Khizeh, a historical novella about the Nakba (expulsion of Palestinians in 1948). The class is titled "Us vs. Them," and this case study looks at the formation of Israeli, Zionist, and Palestinian identities.
A lot of images that invite comment in recent days in my corner of the universe. Here are two --
This is the American far-right’s vision of pluralism — Call yourself what you like (Gabbard is Hindu) but you must look and behave as an evangelical Christian. To my mind, it is an oppressive erasure of religious difference, especially its visibility in public life.
Me for the last 5 weeks: "2026 is the 500th anniversary of the founding of the Mughal Empire." Everybody else: [blank stare] So far, there are few markings of this date in South Asia. Ask yourself -- Why do people talk about the Mughals if they don't want to remember them?
An unexpected delight of visiting Lahore was discovering an Urdu edition of my Aurangzeb book exists in Pakistan. I knew we had one in India, but the Pakistani edition was very welcome news! #Aurangzeb #Urdu #history #Mughal #Pakistan
What a delight to have the South Asia launch of my recent book in Lahore, one of the subcontinent’s cultural centers. My friends, South Asian history is amazing. Taking pride in that long, diverse past means being honest about it, even and especially when it challenges us today.
Lahore pilgrimage to the grave of Alfred Woolner, a Sanskritist who contributed richly to the city’s intellectual life.