My Publications

I have research interests in a number of fields, including:

(1) South Asian Legal History:

• “The Marital Patchwork of Colonial South Asia: Forum Shopping from Britain to Baroda,” Law and History Review 28:4 (2010), 979-1009 (part of Law and History Review “Forum: Maneuvering the Personal Law System in Colonial India”) (© Law and History Review 2010)

• “The Semi-Autonomous Judge in Colonial India: Chivalric Imperialism meets Anglo-Islamic Dower and Divorce Law,” Indian Economic and Social History Review 46:1 (2009): 57-81

(2) History of the Legal Profession:

• “A New History of Colonial Lawyering: Likhovski and Legal Identities in the British Empire” Law and Social Inquiry 32:4 (fall 2007), 1059-94

(3) Parsi & Zoroastrian Legal Studies:

• “Law in Modern Zoroastrianism,” in Michael Stausberg and Yuhan Vevaina, eds., The Blackwell Companion to the Study of Zoroastrianism (forthcoming in 2012)
• Colonial Parsis and Law: A Cultural History. Government Research Fellowship Lectures 2009-2010 (Mumbai: K. R. Cama Oriental Institute, 2010)
• “Judging Conversion to Zoroastrianism: Behind the Scenes of the Parsi Panchayat Case (1908)” In John R. Hinnells and Alan Williams, ed. Parsis in India and the Diaspora (London: Routledge Curzon, 2007), 159-80
• “Bella’s Case: Parsi Identity and the Law in Colonial Rangoon, Bombay and London, 1887-1925,” PhD dissertation, Dept. of History, Princeton University (2006)

(4) Legal Pluralism:

• “Justice in Many Rooms since Galanter: De-romanticizing Legal Pluralism through the Cultural Defense,” Law & Contemporary Problems 71 (spring 2008), 139-46

(5) Slavery:

• “The Slaves and Slavery of Marie Claire Chabert: Familial Black Slaveholding in Antebellum Louisiana,” Journal of Civil Law Studies 4:1 (May 2011), 187-215
• “Insurance” (750 words) and “The Nancy” (500 words), Toyin Falola and Amanda Warnock, eds., Encyclopedia of the Middle Passage (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007), 230-1, 286-7 (respectively)
• “The Slave Ship Manuscripts of Capt. Joseph B. Cook: A Narrative Reconstruction of the Brig Nancy’s Voyage of 1793,” Slavery & Abolition 24: 1 (April 2003), 71-100

I have an academia.edu page here.

Current research: I am completing a book project provisionally entitled, “Parsi Legal Culture in British India.” I am also beginning work on a study of medical jurisprudence in colonial India (focusing on poisoning) and a history of colonial non-European law students at the Inns of Court.