This work is an original and pioneering exploration of not only the social history of the subcontinent but also of performance and popular culture. The domain of analysis is entirely novel and opens up a bolder approach of laying a new field of historical enquiry of South Asia. Trawling through an extraordinary set of sources such as colonial and postcolonial records, newspaper reports, unpublished autobiographies, private papers, photographs and oral interviews the author brings out a fascinating account of the transnational landscape of physical cultures, human and animal performers and the circus industry.
Nisha P R received her doctorate from Delhi University, India in 2015. Her research was on the social history of circus and circus performances in twentieth century South India. Her monograph, The Jumping Devils: A Tale of Circus Bodies has been published in the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library Occasional Paper Series. Her writings have appeared, amongst others, in Indian Economic and Social History Review, Economic and Political Weekly, Conservation and Society, Indian Journal of Gender Studies and Social Science Probings. She has been awarded the Swedish South Asia Studies Network postdoctoral fellowship in Lund University, Sweden, Charles Wallace India Trust Research Grant, UK, Indian Council of Historical Research Junior Research Fellowship, New Delhi and the Papiya Ghosh Memorial Trust Ph.D Fellowship from Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata, India. She has curated 'Indian Circus: A Photo Exhibition in Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in 2013 (18-24 January) and organized an
international conference, Circus Histories and Theories (21-22 June 2018) in Centre for Indian Studies in Africa, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa where she has been a Social Science Research Council Tranregional Fellow.
