Ines G. Županov

Ines G. Županov is a distinguished historian and Research Director at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), serving as co-director of the Center for Indian and South Asian Studies (CEIAS) at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris. She has held visiting positions at prestigious institutions including the University of Pennsylvania, Duke University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Tokyo University. Her academic career spans teaching appointments at Jawaharlal Nehru University (Delhi), University of California at Berkeley, and EHESS where she teaches courses on colonial history, connected histories, and South Asian religious missions.

Dr. Županov's research focuses on the complex interplay between religious missions, colonial power structures, and cultural exchange in early modern South Asia. Her work examines Jesuit missions within the Portuguese Empire, exploring how knowledge systems, religious practices, and power dynamics intersected during the 16th-18th centuries. She investigates themes of Orientalism, translation practices, medical knowledge transfer, and the construction of religious identities in colonial contexts. Her scholarship reveals how missionary encounters created spaces for both conflict and creative adaptation between European and South Asian knowledge systems.

Analysis of her recent publications shows a consistent focus on the material dimensions of religious missions, particularly how objects, texts, and bodily practices served as sites of cultural negotiation. Her work demonstrates how Jesuit missionaries engaged with local knowledge systems while simultaneously attempting to reshape them. A recurring theme is the tension between missionary universalism and local particularities, especially regarding religious conversion, healing practices, and botanical knowledge. Her scholarship bridges religious studies, colonial history, and postcolonial theory to offer nuanced understandings of cross-cultural encounters.

Throughout her career, Dr. Županov has coordinated significant research initiatives including the thematic workshop 'Histoires de soi, histoires des autres' (2014-2018), the research team 'Cultures et constructions historiques dans l'Asie du Sud' (2010-2013), and 'Guérison, remèdes et pratiques de santé' (2006-2009). Her leadership extends to editorial roles for major publications including the Oxford Handbook of the Jesuits and the journal SAMAJ (South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal).

Based at CEIAS, Dr. Županov works within a vibrant interdisciplinary research environment that brings together specialists in anthropology, demography, geography, history, literature, linguistics, philosophy, political science, religious studies, and sociology. The center's research approach emphasizes the interconnectedness of South Asian societies with broader global processes, aligning perfectly with Dr. Županov's expertise in transnational religious and cultural exchanges during the early modern period.