Ines G. Županov

Ines G. Županov is a Research Director at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and Director of the Centre d'Etudes de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud (CEIAS) at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. She has held academic positions at the University of California, Berkeley, Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, and regularly teaches at EHESS on mission history in the early modern world. As a Käte Hamburger Kolleg Visiting Research Fellow in 2012-13, she investigated Jesuit Missions in South Asia during the 16th-18th century.

Her educational background includes a PhD in History from the University of California, Berkeley (1991), an MA in Asian Studies from the same institution (1986), and a BA in Comparative Literature and Indology from the University of Zagreb, Croatia (1979). She also held a post-doctoral fellowship at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London funded by the European Science Foundation (1996-1998).

Županov's research focuses on the social and cultural history of South Asia, particularly mission history in the early modern world and the history of science in colonial contexts. Her work examines how missionaries produced, used, and disseminated scientific information across fields including medicine, botany, astronomy, philology, and ethnography. She has pioneered research on the intersection of religious conversion with knowledge production, analyzing how Jesuit missions in South Asia created complex networks of cultural exchange while simultaneously imposing European frameworks of understanding.

Her extensive publication record reveals consistent themes of cultural encounter, knowledge circulation, and the politics of representation in colonial contexts. Županov's scholarship demonstrates how missionary activities served as crucial vectors for the transmission of knowledge between Europe and South Asia, while also highlighting the agency of local actors in shaping these exchanges. Her work moves beyond simplistic narratives of cultural imposition to reveal the complex negotiations that characterized early modern cross-cultural encounters.

• Fellow at Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin (2003-2004)
• Mellon visiting scholar at PennState University (2009)
• Käte Hamburger Kolleg visiting fellow (2012-13)
• Multiple research grants from European Science Foundation
• Authorization to supervise research, EPHE (2010)
• Ecole Française de Rome research grants (1995, 1997, 2000)

As Director of CEIAS, Županov leads one of Europe's premier research centers for South Asian studies, coordinating numerous international projects and workshops that bring together scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds. Her leadership has been instrumental in organizing significant conferences including 'The Rites Controversy in the Early Modern World' (2011) and 'L'Inde des Lumières/Indian Enlightenment' (2011-2013), fostering interdisciplinary dialogue on the complex histories of knowledge production in South Asia.