Faisal Devji appointed as Beit Professor of Global and Imperial History

Balliol College and the Faculty of History are pleased to announce that Professor Faisal Devji has been appointed as our next Beit Professor of Global and Imperial History.  

Professor Devji said “I am grateful to have been elected Beit Professor, and hope the position will allow me to contribute to the Faculty in expansive new ways well beyond my previous work on South Asia. My forthcoming book, Waning Crescent: the Rise and Fall of Global Islam (Yale 2025), is an example of this new focus, and I hope to follow it up with a project on the return of civil war to the political imagination.” 

Professor Faisal Devji, who had previously held posts at Harvard and Yale, has worked in Oxford since 2009 as Professor of Indian History. His academic interests include the intellectual and political thought of modern South Asia as well as the emergence of Islam as a global category. He has also focussed on the cultural and philosophical meanings of violence as much as the emergence of non-violence as a political project. His recent works have dealt with efforts to think beyond the nation-state and the inheritance of anarchism in the post-colonial world. 

“The History Faculty is delighted to announce that Faisal Devji will be the Beit Professor from Michaelmas Term 2025. Faisal is an outstanding scholar; and his publications, teaching and leadership will reinforce the reputation of Oxford History as a major centre for the study of Global History.” Professor Martin Conway, Chair of the History Faculty Board commented. 

Dame Helen Ghosh, Master of Balliol said, “We are delighted to be welcoming Faisal Devji to Balliol as the Beit Professor, the latest in a long line of distinguished scholars who have enriched the academic life of the college since the Chair was established more than a hundred years ago”.   

The Beit Professorship in Global and Imperial History (previously Beit Professorship in the British Commonwealth), was established in 1905 as the Beit Professorship in Colonial History. It is partially funded by the Beit Fund.