Rajbir Singh Judge

Rajbir Singh Judge is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at California State University, Long Beach. He is a current Member of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton) for 2024–2025. His research and teaching focus on South Asian History, Postcolonial Theory, and Critical Theory, with particular interest in the Sikh tradition, sovereignty, and historical changes in colonial Punjab.

• Ph.D., History, University of California, Davis (2018)
• M.A., History, University of California, Davis (2012)
• B.A., History, California State University, Chico (2010)

He has published extensively on colonial South Asia and authored Prophetic Maharaja: Loss, Sovereignty, and the Sikh Tradition in Colonial South Asia (Columbia University Press, 2024). His ongoing second book, A Critique of Contextual Reason, is supported by the IAS Membership. He also serves as Editor of the Sikh Research Journal and is on editorial boards of History of the Present, Sikh Formations, and The History Teacher.

His research bridges Intellectual History, Sikh Studies, and the intersections of colonialism and sovereignty. He was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life, Columbia University (2018–2020).

• Institute for Advanced Study Membership (School of Social Science), 2024–2025

At California State University, Long Beach, he teaches courses on South Asian History, World History, and Critical Theory. He has contributed to academic discourse through editorial leadership and publications addressing historical epistemology and colonial-era transformations in Punjab.