Michael Bednar

Assistant Professor
Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin
area: south Asian history
office: 215 Read Hall
phone: 573-882-7566
email: bednarm@missouri.edu

Michael Bednar earned his M.A. in South Asian Studies from the University of Wisconsin in 1997 and his Ph.D. in South Asian history from the University of Texas in 2007. He has received a number of fellowships including a Title VI (Foreign Language and Area Studies) fellowship to study Hindi, Urdu, and Persian as well as a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowship to conduct dissertation research.

His research focuses on Hindu and Muslim interactions within the Delhi Sultanate, South Asia’s first pan-Indic Muslim empire, from 1206 to 1526. His current research project examines how Hindu and Muslim authors promoted an emerging Rajput and Indo-Muslim culture, how this Rajput and Indo-Muslim culture adhered to and challenged established social and literary traditions, and how the Rajput and Indo-Muslim culture affected the aesthetics of Sanskrit and Persian history and literature from the thirteenth to fifteenth century.

Undergraduate Courses Offered

History 1860: History of India before 1600
History 1861: History of India after 1500
History 4840: History of the Mongols
History 4850: Traversing the Muslim World (Writing Intensive)
History 4860: Indian Army as Colonial Army
History 4004: Women in Indian History
History 4004: Western Heritage of Islam
Religious Studies 4640: Sanskrit 2

Graduate Courses Offered

History 8820: Studies on India in World History

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