Ranjana Saha is currently a MSCA COFUND TIAS TIES Fellow (September 2023-August 2026) at the Department of European and World History, University of Turku, Finland. She was a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow and Faculty Member at Manipal Centre for Humanities, Manipal (July 2020-July 2023) and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Mohali, India (May 2018-April 2020). She completed her MPhil and PhD from the Department of History, University of Delhi, Delhi, India. She has a MA degree in History from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, and a BA Hons in History from Lancaster University, U.K. Her papers have been published in The Indian Economic and Social History Review (IESHR), South Asia Research, and Women’s Studies International Forum. She is the author of Modern Maternities (London & New York: Routledge, 2023).

Select Lectures / Conference Presentations / Workshops (2024-25):

- Lecture on Medicine and Culture: Creating New Pathways? at the Turku City Library, Turku, April, 2024.

- ‘Medicine, Mothercraft & Materialities: ‘Scientific’ Motherhood Advice in Colonial Bengal’ presented at Research Council of Finland's Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences (HEX), Tampere University, Tampere, 7 May 2024.

- New Perspectives in the History of Child Health 2024 Workshop and Special Issue, fully funded and hosted at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, 21-22 June 2024.

- Reproductive Health Histories Workshop at The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, U.K., 15 July 2024.

- ‘Decolonising ‘Scientific’ Motherhood and Child Healthcare Advice in Colonial Bengal: The Bengal Baby and Health Week Exhibitions & their Global Connections’ presented at ‘Resistance’ Society for the Social History of Medicine Biennial Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, U.K., 18 July 2024.

- Institute Decoloniality Project Visiting Fellow presentation about ‘100 Years of the First All-India Baby Week Exhibitions (1924): Decolonising “Scientific” Motherhood and Child Healthcare in British India and Beyond’ at The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, U.K., 7 August 2024.

- ‘A 100 Years ago at the First Bengal Baby Weeks (1924): Exhibiting ‘Scientific’ Motherhood and Childcare in Colonial Bengal’ presented at ‘Science, Technology, Humanity, and the Earth’ 11th Conference of the European Society for the History of Science (ESHS), Barcelona, 5 September 2024.

- Co-organised the Histories of Expertise Symposium with Johanna Skurnik and Juha Haavisto at Department of European and World History, University of Turku, Turku, 19-20 September 2024.

- ‘A Global History of Baby Weeks: Past & Present’ presented at Finnish Oral History Network conference at the University of Jyväskyla, Jyväskylä, 28 November 2024.

- ‘Exhibiting motherhood and child healthcare advice in British India’ presented at The Finnish Medico-Historical Society Autumn Seminar VIII, Helsinki, 29 November 2024.

- ‘Mothering, Medicine and Material Culture: Exhibitions, 'Scientific' Motherhood and Child Healthcare Advice in British India’ presented at Department of Cultural History Research Day, University of Turku, Turku, 13 December 2024.

- Co-organised the Sexual Values Workshop with colleagues Aymeric Pantet and Joona Räsanen at the Turku Institute for Advanced Studies (TIAS), University of Turku, Turku, 17 January 2025.

- ‘Exhibiting “Scientific” Midwifery and “Ideal” Mothering in Colonial India: Historicizing Baby Week Exhibitions, Communities, and Experiences’ presented at The Seventh Annual HEX Conference: Historicizing Experiences, Research Council of Finland's Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences (HEX), Tampere University, Tampere, 11 March, 2025.

My research aims to decolonise the colonising cult of ‘scientific’ motherhood and the recurring stereotypes of ‘Indian mothers’ from mothercraft literature in colonial India. Regular habits of mother and baby were considered indispensable to the rejuvenation of community, ‘racial’ and national health and virility. I am interested in the cross-cultural tensions between 'scientific' motherhood and childcare, colonialism and nationalism. It draws on various textual and visual sources as well as historical and multidisciplinary approaches and transnational comparisons to explore the material culture of ‘scientific’ motherhood from modern clocks and baby foods to national and international baby weeks to comprehend the intersections of ‘race’, medicine, modernity, nation and empire between the porous boundaries of the private and the public.

Select Research Fellowships & Travel Grants:

    2024: Awarded travel grant by The Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters for conducting research during Institute Project on Decoloniality (IPD) Visiting Fellowship (July-August 2024) at The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
    2023-26 Awarded the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) COFUND Turku Institute of Advanced Studies (TIAS) Turku Intersectoral Excellence Scheme (TIES) Fellowship (September 2023-August 2026), Department of European and World History, University of Turku, Finland.
    2023: Awarded Institute Project on Decoloniality (IPD) Visiting Fellowship (July-August 2024) at The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, U.K.
    2019: Travel and maintenance from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft German Research Foundation to present paper at the Workshop “Cultures of Archival Research in Germany and India”, jointly organised by the Indian Council Historical Research and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft German Research Foundation (New Delhi, India), in Marburg and Berlin from 15 to 21 May.
    2018: Travel Grant from the University of Warwick to present paper Doctoral and Early Career Workshop, ‘Between & Beyond: Transnational Networks & the British Empire C. 18 – 20th Centuries’, at University of Warwick, U.K., 23-24 June.
    2018: Contingency Grant from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Mohali, for postdoctoral research and to present paper at the Workshop at the University of Warwick and postdoctoral research in London, (June-July).
    2016 - 2017: PhD Fellowship from the CSDS (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies), Delhi.
    2013 - 2015:Junior Research Fellowship/JRF from Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi.
    2015: Short-term Grant from Charles Wallace India Trust UK (July-August).
    2015: Foreign Travel Grant from the Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi (July-August).
    2014: Awarded national level prizes: the Professor Partha Sarthi Gupta Prize and Professor J. C. Jha Memorial Prize for my paper ‘Infant Feeding: Child Marriage and “Immature Maternity” in Colonial Bengal, 1890s-1920s’ at the 75th Indian History Congress, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 28th-30th December, 2014.
    2013: Conference travel and maintenance to participate in 8th International Congress on Traditional Asian Medicine (ICTAM VIII) Sancheong, South Korea (September).

I have recently co-designed and co-taught (with PhD scholar Koko Hubara) Spring 2025 UTU History and HILMA course titled Mothers and Daughters in British India, Britain and Finland.

In autumn 2025 (SL1), I will be teaching History course Gender, Health and Society in British India and Beyond.

I am interested in designing lectures, teaching and supervising thesis students primarily related to Social History of Medicine; Colonialism, Decoloniality, Nationalism, Motherhood Studies; Childhood Studies; Cultural History, among many others. In India, I was a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow and Faculty Member at Manipal Centre of Humanities (MCH) from 15 July 2020 - 31 July 2023. I have designed and taught twelve courses (BA and MA) over six semesters along with BA and MA thesis supervision. I was also a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Humanities and Social Sciences Department, IISER, Mohali, from 1 May, 2018 – 30 April, 2020. I conducted a few lectures alongside evaluation duties in Modern Indian History course titled ‘From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India.’