Dr. Mark E. Balmforth
Curriculum Vitae
1265 Military Trail, 2nd Floor MW Building, Toronto ON M1C 1A4 Canada
m.balmforth@utoronto.ca | markebalmforth.com
CITIZENSHIP: United States; United Kingdom; Canada (Permanent Resident)
RESEARCH INTERESTS: South Asian Modern History; South Asian Religions; Tamil Social History; Transnational History; Critical Caste Studies; Slavery; History of Education
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2021–Present Postdoctoral Fellow, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
Supervisor: Bhavani Raman, Department of Historical and Cultural Studies, University of Toronto Scarborough
2020–2021 Postdoctoral Fellow, Faculty of Arts & Science, University of Toronto
Supervisor: Srilata Raman, Department for the Study of Religion
EDUCATION
2020 Ph.D. in Religion (South Asian Religions), Columbia University
Dissertation: “Schooling the Master: Caste Supremacy and American Education in British Ceylon, 1795–1855”
Supervisor: Rachel McDermott, Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures
2016 M.Phil. in Religion, Columbia University
2015 M.A. in Religion, Columbia University
2015 M.A. in South Asian Studies, Columbia University
2010 B.A. in Comparative History of Ideas, University of Washington
PUBLICATIONS
Peer-Reviewed Articles (4)
“A Tamil Pietist in Ceylon: The Educational Experiments of Christian David.” International Journal of Asian Christianity 3, no. 1 (2020): 44–68.
“In Nāki’s Wake: Slavery and Caste Supremacy in the American Ceylon Mission.” CASTE: A Global Journal on Social Exclusion 1, no. 1 (2020): 155–174. Honorable Mention, 2019 Bluestone Rising Scholar Prize.
“A Nation of Ink and Paint: Map Drawing and Geographic Pedagogy in the American Ceylon Mission.” History of Education Quarterly 59, no. 4 (2019): 468–500. Winner, 2019 Henry Barnard Prize (History of Education Society).
“Riotous Needlework: Gendered Pedagogy and a Negotiated Christian Aesthetic in the American Ceylon Mission.” Review of Development & Change XXIII, no. 2 (2018): 60–88.
Chapters in an Edited Volume (2)
“Blood Red: Slavery, Chintz, and the Dye-Root Diggers of Colonial Ceylon” in T. Sanathanan and Ayesha Abdur-Rahman (eds.), Tradition or Trans/formation? Craft, Practice and Discourse. Jaffna: University of Jaffna, 2021, pp. 91–103.
“kalakattaṉamāṉa taiyal: amerikka cilōṉ miṣaṉil pālnilaiyākkappc pōtaṉā muṟaiyum pēccuvārttai ceyyappaṭṭa kiristava aḻakiyalum” in T. Sanathanan and Ayesha Abdur-Rahman (eds.), Tradition or Trans/formation? Craft, Practice and Discourse. Jaffna: University of Jaffna, 2021, pp. 60–76. [Tamil translation of “Riotous Needlework: Gendered Pedagogy and a Negotiated Christian Aesthetic in the American Ceylon Mission” by T. Sanathanan.]
Non-Refereed Contributions (2)
“South Asian Film.” In Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception. Berlin: De Gruyter. Forthcoming 2021.
“Nyla Ali Khan’s Islam, Women & Violence in Kashmir: Between India and Pakistan.” Book Review for Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 13, no. 2 (2011).
SCHOLARSHIPS, GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS, AND AWARDS
2021–2023 Social Science and Humanities Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship
2021 Claude A. Eggertsen Dissertation Prize, History of Education Society
2021 AISLS Language Instruction Grant
2020–2021 University of Toronto Faculty of Arts & Science Postdoctoral Fellowship
2020 American Institute for Sri Lanka Studies (AISLS) Fellowship
2019 Henry Barnard Prize, History of Education Society
2019 Honorable Mention, Bluestone Rising Scholar Prize
2019 American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting Travel Grant
2019 AISLS Ira Unamboowe Graduate Student Travel Grant
2017 British Library Endangered Archives Programme Major Grant 971
2016 Fulbright U.S. Student Award, Sri Lanka
2016 Houghton Library Visiting Fellowship, Harvard University
2015 British Library Endangered Archives Programme Pilot Grant 835
2015 Summer Foreign Language and Area Studies Scholarship (FLAS), Sinhala
2015 Hart Fellowship for Tamil Studies, UC Berkeley, Research Travel Award
2013 Academic Year Foreign Language and Area Studies Scholarship (FLAS), Tamil
2012–2019 Dean’s Fellowship, Columbia University
2011 Summer Foreign Language and Area Studies Scholarship (FLAS), Tamil
OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS
Refereed Conference Presentations (23)
“Anticolonial Pedagogies for the Teaching of Religion.” Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, San Antonio, Texas. 24 November, 2021.
“The Aesthetics of Slavery: Religion, Textiles, and Caste in the Indian Ocean, 1660–1960.” Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, San Diego, California. 24 November, 2019.
“Tobacco Rāṇi: Addiction, Caste, and Slavery in the Indian Ocean.” Presentation at the Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin, Madison. 19 October, 2019.
“Postcolonial Challenges of a Minority Religious Archive in South Asia” with Henria Aton. Presentation at the Archival Education and Research Institute (AERI). Liverpool University, Liverpool, UK. 12 July, 2019.
“Palm-Leaf Methods at the Inception of Print: Tamil Reading Practices in the American Ceylon Mission.” Presentation at “Beyond the Printing Press: Alternative Means of Production in the Global History of Print.” Royal Asiatic Society, London, UK. 26 June, 2019
“Nāki’s Death: Breaking Caste and Negotiating Accommodation in the American Ceylon Mission.” Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Denver, Colorado, 17 November, 2018.
“Printing Tamil Modernity: Pedagogy and Publishing in the American Ceylon Mission.” Tamil Studies Symposium 2018, York University, Toronto. 16 November, 2018.
“Trusteeship without Trust?: Postcolonialism and Memory in a South Asian Christian Archive” with Henria Aton. Tamil Studies Symposium 2018. York University, Toronto. 16 November, 2018.
“Kūlaṅkai Tampirāṉ’s tiṇṇai paḷḷikkūṭam: A Dialogue Between Texts and Bodies, Memory and Domination.” Sri Lanka Graduate Student Conference: “Borders: Real and Imagined.” Cornell University. November 10, 2018.
“Riotous Needlework: Gendered Pedagogy and a Negotiated Christian Aesthetic in the American Ceylon Mission.” Tradition or Trans/formation? Craft, Practice and Discourse Conference. University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka. 12 May, 2018.
“Surveying Lankan Chintz: Slavery, Aesthetics, and Textile Production in Colonial Jaffna.” Tradition or Trans/formation? Craft, Practice and Discourse Conference, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka. 11 May, 2018.
“A Nation of Ink and Paint: Cartography, Pedagogy, and Evangelism in 19th Century Ceylon.” Mapping Asia: Cartographic Encounters between East and West, Leiden University, Netherlands, 15 September, 2017. Also, delivered at the South and Central Asia Fulbright Conference, Kolkata, India, 6 March, 2017, and Religion Graduate Student Symposium: “Divine Maps, Sacred Stories: Cartography and History in Religious Imaginations.” University of Toronto. 17 April, 2015.
“Creating a Slave Caste: Collapsing Tamil Agrestic Servitude and Codifying Lanka’s Aṭimaikaḷ.” International Conference on Caste, Social Justice and Democracy in Sri Lanka, International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Colombo, Sri Lanka. 19 November, 2016.
“Sāyavēr Red and Slavery in Jaffna: A Social History of Commodity, Caste and Colonialism.” Tamil Studies Symposium: “Beyond Refuge: Shaping Tamil Studies in the Present.” York University, York, Canada. 1 May, 2015.
“Sri Lanka is Not an Island: Notes on John C. Holt’s The Sri Lanka Reader” with Mariyahl Hoole. Sri Lanka Graduate Student Conference: “Sri Lanka Otherwise? Resituating Topography and Temporality.” Stanford University. 11 November, 2014.
“Between Tiṇṇai Paḷḷikkūṭam and Boarding School: Rev. Christian David and the Transmission of Syncretic Tamil Education to Early Nineteenth-Century Jaffna.” The Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin, Madison. 17 October, 2014.
“Christian David’s Boarding School and the Origins of Education in Ceylon.” Sri Lanka Graduate Student Conference: “Intersections.” Stanford University, California. 9 November, 2012.
“The Myth of Exile: Samuel Newell and the Origins of the American Ceylon Mission, 1813-1814.” Tamil Studies Conference: “Traces of the Past.” University of Toronto, Canada. 11 May, 2012.
“Façades of Pluralism: Use and Misuse of Myth vis-à-vis “Realism” Surrounding Chandrasiri’s Dutugemunu.” South Asian Literary Association Conference: “The Transnational Realisms and Post Realisms in South Asian Literature and Culture.” Los Angeles, California. 7 January, 2011.
“Struggling to Abide by Sri Lanka: An Attempt to Engage in Responsible International Youth Activism.” South Asian Literary Association Conference: “The Sacred and the Secular in South Asian Literature and Culture.” Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 26 December, 2009.
“The Lady and the Tiger: Diasporic Tamil Nationalism as (Re)Produced and (Re)Positioned by M.I.A.” Program in the Comparative History of Ideas and Clowes Center for the Study of Conflict and Dialogue Conference: “States of Violence: Representations of Conflict in Film, Fiction and Media of South Asia.” University of Washington. 21 February, 2009.
Refereed Workshop (1)
“Nāki’s Death: Breaking Caste and Negotiating Accommodation in the American Ceylon Mission.” Yale Modern South Asia Workshop, New Delhi, India. 10 July, 2018.
Invited Public Talks (6)
“Tobacco Rāṇi: The Agricultural Case for a Jaffna Slave Society.” Tamil Worlds Initiative at the University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario. Scheduled for Winter semester, 2022.
“American Imperialism and Christian Logic in Daniel L. Carroll’s Vīcakaṇitam,” Noolaham Foundation Zoom Seminar “ariya vakai āvaṇaṅkaḷ nūlakak kalanturaiyāṭal – 7 [A Discussion of Rare Archival Materials - 7].” 3 July, 2021.
“Costs of Desire: Ethics of Production in Historic Chintz,” with Deepali Dewan and Bessie Cecil. ROM Curator Conversations, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada. 15 June, 2021.
“Slavery, Dye Root, and the Chintz Trade: Notes from Dutch Ceylon, 1660–1700.” Invited for presentation at the ROM Chintz Symposium, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada. 24 April, 2020 [Cancelled due to COVID-19].
“Surveying Lankan Chintz: Slavery, Aesthetics, and Textile Production in Colonial Jaffna.” Lecture at the Sri Lanka Archive of Contemporary Art, Architecture & Design, Jaffna, Sri Lanka. 2 July, 2017.
“A Colour of Tragedy and Opportunity: Red Textile Dye and the Story of Ceylon's Dye Root Diggers.” Lecture at Apparao Galleries, Chennai, India. 9 May, 2014.
Invited Lectures (12)
“An Interdiciplinary Introduction to Archival Research.” A half-day workshop to be conducted for the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Open University of Sri Lanka. 12 October, 2021.
“Caste and Enslavement in Tamil History.” Guest lecture for An Introduction to Tamil Worlds, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario. 7 October, 2021.
“Tobacco Rāṇi: The Agricultural Case for a Jaffna Slave Society.” American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies’ Zoom Seminar “New Research in Sri Lankan History,” 5 March, 2021.
“In Nāki’s Wake: Slavery and Caste Supremacy in the American Ceylon Mission.” Department of History, University of Toronto, Canada, 31 January, 2020. Also, delivered at the Department of History, Stony Brook University, 24 June, 2020.
“The Politics of Language: Conflict in Sri Lanka.” Guest lecture for Introduction to Indian Civilizations. Barnard College, New York. 2 December, 2015.
“Ceylon's Dye Root Diggers.” Guest lecture for Introduction to Anthropology. College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA. 10 October, 2014.
“Text/Power/Sanskrit.” Guest lecture for East Asian Buddhism. Columbia University, New York. 17 September, 2014.
“The Politics of Disaster Aid: Intersections of Politics, Ethnicity, Religion, and Disaster Relief in Post-Tsunami Sri Lanka.” Guest lecture for NGOs and the Politics of Aid. University of Kentucky. 4 February, 2013.
“Contextualizing Selvadurai’s Funny Boy.” Guest lecture for Social Identities and the Arts. Cornish College of the Arts. Seattle, WA. 10 February, 2010. Also, guest lecture for Literature in Context: South Asian Canadian Literature. University of the Frasier Valley, British Columbia, Canada. 28 January, 2010.
“Incorporating Jaffna: Identity and Sustainable Development in a (Post-)Conflict Era.” Guest lecture for Applied Sociology, Department of Sociology, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. 19 November, 2009.
TEACHING ASSISTANCE
Columbia University
Hindu Goddesses. Professor Rachel McDermott. Spring 2016.
Introduction to Indian Civilizations. Professor Rachel McDermott. Fall 2015.
Introduction to Hinduism. Professor John Stratton Hawley. Spring 2015.
East Asian Buddhism. Professor Michael Como. Fall 2014.
New York University
Introduction to Buddhism. Professor Robert Chang. Fall 2014.
University of Washington
States of Violence: Gender, Nationalism and Identity in Contemporary Sri Lanka. Instructor: Theron Stevenson. Fall 2009.
DIGITAL HUMANITIES
Manager, Jaffna Protestant Digital Library (jaffnapdl.org), 2016–Current.
Co-Applicant and Programme Manager, EAP971: Jaffna Protestant Digital Archive Project, funded by the Endangered Archives Programme of the British Library and Arcadia, September 2017–August 2018.
Co-Applicant and Programme Manager, EAP835: Jaffna Protestant Digital Archive Project, funded by the Endangered Archives Programme of the British Library and Arcadia, September 2016–July 2017.
CONFERENCE ORGANIZING
Co-Coordinator, “Teaching Religion: Transmission, Pedagogy, and Technology." Department of Religion Graduate Student Conference, Columbia University. 27 March, 2015.
Committee Member, “Sri Lanka: Remaking Society: The 2011 Sri Lanka Graduate Student Conference.” New School for Social Research, New York. 25 and 26 March, 2011.
Committee Member, “States of Violence: Representations of Conflict in the Film, Fiction, and Media of South Asia.” University of Washington, Seattle. 20 and 21 February, 2008.
SERVICE
Associate Chair, Tamil Worlds Programming Committee, UTSC, 2020–Current.
Senior Research Advisor, Noolaham Foundation, 2020–Current.
Vice President, Religion Graduate Student Association, Columbia University, 2015–2016.
LANGUAGES
Early Modern Dutch (Reading) University College London. 2020–2021
Sinhala (Advanced) Columbia University. 2015–2016
University of Wisconsin, Madison. June 2015–August 2015
Tamil (Advanced) Columbia University. 2012–2013, 2014–2015
American Institute of Indian Studies, Madurai. 2013–2014
University of Wisconsin, Madison. June 2011–August 2011
German (Reading) Columbia University. July 2014–August 2014
French (Intermediate) University of Washington. Summer 2006, 2007–2008
Arabic (Intermediate) American University in Cairo. January 2007–May 2007
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies
American Academy of Religion
History of Education Society
REFERENCES
Bhavani Raman
Associate Professor
Department of Historical and Cultural Studies
University of Toronto – Scarborough
1265 Military Trail, Room 430
Toronto, ON M1C 1A4
(416) 287-7145
bhavani.raman@utoronto.ca
Rachel McDermott
Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures
Barnard College
321B Milbank
New York, NY 10027
(212) 854-5416
rfm17@columbia.edu
Professor John Stratton Hawley
Claire Tow Professor of Religion
Barnard College
219A Milbank
New York, NY 10027
(212) 854-5292
jsh3@columbia.edu
Professor E. Valentine Daniel
Professor of Anthropology
Columbia University
1200 Amsterdam Ave
New York, NY 10027
(917) 741-7764
evd7@columbia.edu