Dr Santanu Dey is today an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandira (a residential autonomous College affiliated to the Calcutta University) located at Belur Math near Kolkata, India. He completed his Masters in 2001 at Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi, India, and a MPhil in 2004, also at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. In 2015 Dr Santanu Dey did his Ph.D. on the topic ‘Resuscitating or Restructuring Tradition? Issues and trends among Gaudiya Vaishnavas in late Nineteenth and early Twentieth century Bengal’, likewise from Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Dr Santanu Dey is a Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, Oxford University, and a UK Life Member of Bangiya Sahitya Parishat and Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture Library, Golpark.

Research Area/s:

Modern Indian History, Socio-cultural history of Colonial Bengal, Religion and modernity, Cultural Studies, and Pilgrimage studies.

Research Interests:

Vaishnava Studies, Religion and Colonial Modernity and literary history of Bengal.

Selected Publications:

• “Piety in Print: The Vaishnava Periodicals of colonial Bengal”, Journal of Hindu Studies 13/1, (2020).
• “Vaishnava Institutional Processes in colonial Bengal”, in: Ferdinando Sardella & Lucian Wong eds., The Legacy of Vaishnavism in colonial Bengal, Routledge Hindu Studies Series, Abingdon and New York (2020).
• “Debating historical validity of Vaishnava texts in colonial Bengal”, in: Samina Sultana ed., Itihas Prabandhamala, Annual Proceedings of the Itihas Academy, Dhaka (2015).
• “Oupanibeshik Juge Banglar Baishnab Andolaner prabhab o prabanata” Dashadishi journal 3, 160-177 (2015).
• “Dinesh Chandra Sen and the archiving of a Vaishnava Literary Heritage: Search for Bengali identity in colonial Bengal”, Bengal Past and Present 132, 1-68 (2013).
• “Vaishnava Periodicals and Aspects of Bengali Devotionalism in Colonial Bengal”, in: Santanu Dey ed., Religion and Culture in India across the Ages: Historical Reflections, Rkm Vidyamandira, Belur Math (2013).
• “Vaishnava Reform movement and the making of a national culture in colonial Bengal”, in: Santanu Dey et al., Indigenous Traditions and Historical Forces: Impact of Bhakti Movement on Indian Nationalism, Manav Prakashan, Kolkata (2012).
• “Kedarnath Datta and the Process of re-asserting Gaudiya Vaishnava identity in Bengal at the cusp of the 20th century”, in: Ratna Ghoshal ed.,  The Study of Social History, Progressive Publishers, Kolkata (2013).
• “Autobiographic and Hagiographic constructions of Kedarnath Datta as a Gaudiya Vaishnava Reformer in colonial Bengal”, History Journal 11, 64-75 (2012).