Amrita Chattopadhyay

Dr. Amrita Chattopadhyay is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) working on the ERC-funded Timely Histories: A Social History of Time in South Asia project since 2024. Her research focuses on early modern nights in Mughal South Asia as a social category where power, production technology, labor, and object-practices coalesced.

Her research interests center on material culture of Mughal South Asia, particularly examining nocturnal temporality through lighting objects, illuminants, and their ecological dependencies. She investigates how imperial patronage and commercial networks shaped courtly ceremonies, religious gatherings, and social festivities during nighttime, challenging narratives that treat early modern nights as unproductive or dormant.

Dr. Chattopadhyay's publications reveal a strong focus on sensory and material history, with particular attention to perfumery culture and aromatic substances in Mughal India. Her works demonstrate how material objects function as historical evidence for understanding cultural practices, trade networks, and sensory experiences in pre-colonial South Asia.

• PhD in History, Centre For Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (2024)
• MPhil in History, Centre For Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (2015-2017)
• Graduation and Post-Graduation in History, Jadavpur University, Kolkata (2010-2015)

She has served as a BMBF DAAD Research fellow at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (2021-2022) and provided guest lectures on Visual and Material Cultures in History at Jadavpur University (2024).