“Scholars and Spies: Worldly Knowledge and the Predicament of the University,” University Lecture, Columbia University, February 2012.

“The Rise of South Asian Area Studies: From the OSS to the Challenges of the Twenty-first Century,” lecture, University of Virginia, November 2011, and Distinguished Lecture at the Mumbai Global Center, Mumbai, India, March 2012.

“Scholars and Spies: The Emergence of Area Studies in the United States,” lecture, Sciences Po, Paris, November 2010; Stanford University, January 2011; Free University, Berlin, May 2011, University of California, Berkeley, April 2013.

“The Liberal Arts and Global Higher Education,” plenary speech, Conference on Global Education, Beijing, China, October 2010.

“Postcolonial Studies and the Question of Sovereignty,” lecture, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, June 2010.

“The British Empire in India: Beginnings and Endings,” lecture, University of Illinois, March 2010.

“Ghurye and the Anthropology of Caste,” inaugural G.S. Ghurye Lecture, Mumbai University, January 2010.

“The Historical Politics of Caste Studies,” lecture and seminar, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, India, January 2010.

“Caste after Ambedkar,” keynote lecture, Columbia University conference on the life and work of B.R.

Ambedkar, April 2009.

“Scholars and Spies,” lecture, Mellon conference on disciplinary innovation, Cambridge University, April 2009.

“The Modern University and the Challenge of Global Education,” keynote lecture, Reinventions Conference, Washington, D.C., November 2008.

“Empire on Trial,” keynote lecture, British Studies Group, Rutgers University, October 2008.

“Franz Boas,” keynote lecture, American Philosophical Society annual meeting, Philadelphia, May 2008.

“On the Passion of Edmund Burke,” lecture, University of Michigan, November 2008.

“The New India: A Colonial History of the Present,” keynote lecture, India Shining conference in Copenhagen, October 2007.

“Autobiography of an Archive: The Collection of Colin Mackenzie,” lecture, conference, University of Michigan, May 2007.

“Sovereignty and Nationalism: The Nation out of Empire,” keynote address, International Conference, Keio University, Kyoto, Japan, March 2007.

“On Imperial Sovereignty,” lecture, Postcolonialism Seminar, New York University, November 2006.

“Culture and Empire,” lecture, Tata Institute for Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India, December 2005.

“Empire and Sovereignty,” lecture, Conference on Utopias and Dystopias, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands, October 2005.

“Burke and Sovereignty,” lecture, Heyman Center for the Humanities, Columbia University, November 2004.

“Imperial Sovereignty,” lecture, Graduate Faculty Seminar, the New School University, September 2004.

“The Ethnographic State: Reflections on Castes of Mind,” keynote lecture, Heidelberg University, July 2004.

Conference organizer, Empire and Terror, Institute for Southern Asian Studies, Columbia University, May 2004.

Lecture, Special Roundtable on Caste and Democracy, University of Delhi, January 2004.

Conference member, Sixth Subaltern Studies Conference, Delhi, India, January 2004.

“Sovereignty and Empire,” paper and conference member, Research Seminar on Empire, School of American Research, Santa Fe, New Mexico, November 2003.

“The Trial of Warren Hastings,” paper and conference member, Scotland and Empire, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, September 2003.

“Corruption and Empire,” lecture, International Conference on Empires: Past and Present, University of Thessaloniki, Volos, Greece, June 2003.

Respondent, Special Panel on the Scholarly Impact and Significance of “Castes of Mind,” Association for Asian Studies annual meeting, March 2003.

“The Colonial Context of Midnight’s Children,” lecture, Columbia University Humanities Festival, March 2003.

“The Scandal of Empire,” lecture, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, February 2003.

“The Ethnographic State: History, Anthropology, and Empire,” Society for South Asian Studies annual lecture, the British Academy, November 2002.

“The Scandal of History,” paper, conference, Clio in the Colonies, University of Michigan, October 2002.

“Caste and Colonialism,” lecture, Institute for Southern Asian Studies, Columbia, October 2002.

“The Ethnographic State,” keynote lecture, conference, Knowledge and its Objects in South Asia, Columbia University, November 2001.

“Caste and Identity in India Today,” plenary address, South Asia annual meetings, University of Wisconsin, Madison, November 2001.

“Historical Anthropology,” and “The Ethnographic State,” lectures, European University, Florence, Italy, April 2001.

“The Ethnographic State: Indirect Rule and Colonial Difference,” keynote lecture, Conference on Indirect Rule in Africa and India, Yale University, March 2001.

“Annals of the Archive,” paper, History and the Archive, American Historical Association annual meeting, January 2001.

“Dreams Chairs Dream,” roundtable, Future of Anthropology, Panel of Anthropology Chairs, American Anthropological Association annual meeting, November 2000.

“Tribute to Bernard S. Cohn,” paper and co-organizer of panel to commemorate the work of Bernard S. Cohn, American Anthropological Association annual meeting, November 2000.

“Violence, Religion, Critique: The Examples of B.R. Ambedkar, and E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker,” presented at Conference on Religion and Violence, University of Amsterdam, May 2000.

“Gandhi against the Grain,” presented at Wellesley College, February 2000.

“Slouching Towards Ambivalence: History, Anthropology, and Postcolonial Critique,” plenary address, Conference in the Human Sciences, George Washington University, April 2000; special lecture, University of Rochester, March 2000; University of Iowa, April 2000.

“The Ethnographic State,” presented at International Conference on the State in India, Kyoto University, December 1999 (published in volume of conference proceedings).

“Ambedkar, Nationalism, and the Problem of Governance,” presented to conference on Governance in South Asia, sponsored by the Social Science Research Council, Muree, Pakistan, August 1999.

“Historical Anthropology and the Archive,” presented to Department of Anthropology, New York University, October 1998; for a special seminar on historical anthropology at Emory University, February 1999.

“Homo Politicus: The Politics of Caste,” presented to the Department of Anthropology, City University of New York, November 1998; the Social Science Seminar, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, February 1999.

“Casting the Minority,” presented to Conference on Minorities, Department of History, Princeton University, April 1999.

“Anthropology and the Archive,” presented to Department of Anthropology, Princeton University, February 1998.

“The Crisis in Cultural Theory and the Echo of Postcoloniality,” paper, Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, November 1997.

“Subaltern Studies and African History,” discussant at conference, Problematizing History and Agency, University of Capetown, South Africa, October 1997.

“Annals of the Archive: Ethnographic Notes on the Sources of History,” presented at conference, History After Braudel, Bellagio, Italy, June 1997; South Asia Lecture Series, Columbia University, September 1997.

“Homo Hierarchicus: Colonial Histories and Postcolonial Politics,” lecture, History Department, Princeton University, February 1996.

Invited papers at the Center for Studies in Social Science, Calcutta, January 1996; Film Studies Department, Jadavpur University, January 1996.

Invited lecture in Historical Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz, February 1996.

Organizer, discussant, SSRC conference, Violence Against Women in South Asia, Colombo, Sri Lanka, March 1996.

“G.S Ghurye and the Politics of Caste,” lecture, conference, Ethnicity, National-Building, and Pluralism, University of Bombay, December 1995.

“Film and Politics in India,” paper, conference, Popular Culture and Cultural Studies, International Institute of Asian Studies, Leiden, Holland, November 1995.

“The Politics of Caste,” paper, conference, Political Violence in India, Amherst, Massachusetts, September 1995.

“Discriminating Difference,” paper, conference, Minorities, Maison de Science de l’Homme, Paris, June 1995.

“The Home and the Nation,” paper, conference, perspectives in Indian popular culture, School for Oriental and African Studies, the University of London, June 1995.

“Postcolonial Criticism and the Politics of Location,” paper, International Conference on Cultural Analysis, Amsterdam, July 1995.

“The future of area studies,” discussant, Duke University, March 1995.

“The Home and the Nation,” and “Real to Reel,” papers, University of California, May 1995.

“The Music Room,” paper, conference, Cinema of Satyajit Ray, University of California at Santa Cruz, May 1994.

“On Ethnographic Translation,” lecture, American Anthropological Association annual meeting, Atlanta, December 1994.

“The Sovereignty of History: Music Rooms and Chess Players,” paper, conference, Culture of Consumption, International Institute of Asian Studies, Amsterdam, December 1994.

Invited lecture, conference, Conversion, University of Amsterdam, June 1994.

Invited lecture, conference, Unwriting Empire, Leiden University, April 1994.

Invited lecture, symposium, Orientalism, University of Amsterdam, April 1994.

“Reel to Real: The Cinematics of Tamil Political Culture,” lecture, M.I.T., March 1993; University of Pennsylvania, March 1994; Columbia, April 1994; Minnesota, April 1994.

Invited Participant, conference, Beyond Orientalism, University of California, Santa Cruz, November 1993.

“The Invention of Modernity in India,” lecture, Tufts University, March 1993.

“Colonial Anthropology and Popular Religion in India,” Cornell University, April 1993.

Invited participant, SSRC conference, Nationalism and Modernity in India, Goa, India, May 1993.

Invited participant, SSRC conference, Comparative Modernities in the Middle East and South Asia, Cairo, May 1993.

Invited participant, conference, Caste Today, London School of Economics, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, July 1993.

“Colonial Anthropology and India,” lecture, Heidelberg University, January 1992; Edinburgh University, April 1992; Johns Hopkins University November 1992; University of Washington, January 1993.

“Beyond the Fringe (II): Hyper-myth and the Cinematics of Tamil Political Culture,” lecture, American Anthropological Association annual meeting, San Francisco, November 1992.

“Subaltern Intellectuals and Postcolonial Politics: India,” paper, American Anthropological Association annual meeting, San Francisco, November 1992.

“Home and the World: The Invention of Modernity in Colonial India,” lecture, University of Pennsylvania, November 1992; University of California, Berkeley, December 1992.

“The Biography of an Archive” presented at conference, Myth, Memory and History, University of Virginia, April 1992.

Papers delivered at the Ethnology Seminar, Heidelberg University, January 1992; the London School of Economics, April 1992; the University of Edinburgh, April 1992.

“Myth, Memory, and History in India,” paper, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, April 1992.

“Caste and Race in Tamil India,” presented at the Ethnohistory Workshop, University of Pennsylvania, November 1991.

“Sanskritization and the transformation of Hinduism,” presented at the American Anthropological Association annual meeting, Chicago, November 1991.

“Colonialism and European Identity,” panel discussant, American Anthropological Association annual meeting, Chicago, November 1991.

“The Policing of Tradition,” lecture and seminar, Agrarian Studies Program, Yale University, December 1991.

“The Emergence of Tamil Identities,” presented to the South Asian Seminar, Harvard University, February 1991.

“Comments on History, Experience, and Anthropology: A paper by Joan Scott,” presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, November 1990.

“Castes of Mind,” presented at the Institute for Advanced Study and Harvard University, February 1990; University of Toronto, October 1990; American Anthropological Association annual meeting, November 1990.

“The Policing of Tradition: Anthropology and the Police in Colonial India,” presented to the Ethnohistory Workshop, University of Pennsylvania, November 1989; Subaltern Studies Conference, Calcutta, December 1989; Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, October 1990.

“History as a Sign of the Modern,” presented at the American Anthropological Association annual meeting, Washington, November 1989.

“Glorious Spoliations: Colin MacKenzie and the Colonial Surveying of India,” presented at a conference on the uses of the Indian Past, Banaras, India, December 1989.

Invited lecture, Forms of Resistance in South Asia, University of Texas, Austin, January 1989.

“Does Social Theory Need History,” presented at the Social Science History Association, Chicago, November 1988.

“Rituals of Colonialism and the Colonialism of Ritual,” presented at the Association for Asian Studies annual meeting, San Francisco, March 1988.

Invited lectures on Caste in India at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, December 1987; University of Washington, Seattle, March 1988; University of Southern California, April 1988; University of Pennsylvania, October 1988.

“Ritual and Resistance in South Indian Village Rituals,” at the American Historical Association annual meeting, December 1987.

“Forms of Inversion in Modern South Asia,” panel discussant, Annual Meetings on South Asia, University of Wisconsin, Madison, November 1987.

“Ethnography in the Colonial Mirror,” lecture, American Anthropological Association annual meeting, Chicago, November 1987.

“Beyond the Fringe” and “Castes of Mind,” presented at the Mellon Workshops on Cultural Colonialism, California Institute of Technology, April–May, 1987.

Comments on the Subaltern Project, University of California, Santa Cruz, April 1987.

“History and Anthropology,” presented at L’École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, November 1986.

“Ethnohistory and the Indian Eighteenth Century,” presented to a special symposium at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, June 1986.

“Ethnohistory of an Indian Kingdom,” presented at Cambridge University, March 1986; University of Michigan, March 1986; London School of Economics and Political Science, June 1986; École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, November 1986; Oxford University, December 1986; University College, London, December 1986.

“Gifts and Kingship,” presented at the Association for Asian Studies annual meeting, March 1986.

“Marriage and Rank in Tamil Kinship,” presented to the Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin, November 1985.

Discussant on the position of culture in Indian historiography, workshop on the Indian Eighteenth Century, Warwick University, Coventry, August 1985.

“Caste and Kingship: Power, Hierarchy and Social Relations in a Tamil Little Kingdom,” presented at the Association for Asian Studies annual meeting, March 1985.

“Commodity Fetishism and Political Form: Money and the Old Regime in South India,” presented to Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin, November 1984.

“Power, Territory, and Hierarchy: The Kallars of Pudukkottai,” presented to Workshop on Ethnosociology of South Asia at Madison, Wisconsin, November 1984.

“Orthodoxy in the Chinese Tradition and in China Today,” discussant, Southern California Colloquium in Chinese Studies, Anthropological Perspectives in Chinese History, California Institute of Technology, March 1984.

“Ritual Kingship and Civilization: The Political Dynamic of Cultural Change in Medieval South Indian History,” presented to conference, The Historical Experience of Change and Patterns of Reconstruction in Selected Axial Age Civilizations, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, December 1983–January 1984.

“Lineages and Subcastes in a Tamil Little Kingdom: Ethnosociology in a Historical Dimension,” presented to American Anthropological Association annual meeting, Chicago, November 1983.

“Gifts and Kingship,” presented to the 12th Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin-Madison, November 1983.

“Culture and Comparison in South Asian History,” presented to Workshop on Modern South Asian History, University of California at Santa Cruz, June 1983.

“The Structure of Social and Political Relations in a South Indian Little Kingdom,” presented to South Asian Anthropologist’s group meeting, London School of Economics, May 1983.

“The Origins of Local Administration in Ancient China,” discussant, workshop on the political economy of pre-industrial society, Caltech-Weingart Conference, May 1983.

“Land as Political Relation in the Little Kingdoms of Southern India,” presented to Annual Meeting of the Association of Asian Studies, Toronto, March 1981.

“The Moral Economy of a Little Kingdom in South India,” presented to South Asia Colloquium on Regional States in South Asia, University of Washington, Seattle, February 1981.

“Topics in Indian Social and Economic History,” paper, Western Conference of the Association for Asian Studies, Salt Lake City, autumn 1980.

“Peasant Rebellion in South India,” presented to Western Conference of the Association for Asian Studies, Salt Lake City, autumn 1980.

“Myth and History in Southern India,” presented to Anthropology Colloquium, State University of New York, Stonybrook, May 1980.

“Indian Socio-Economic Development: Theoretical Surprises and Practical Lessons,” paper, Association for Asian Studies annual meeting, Washington D.C., March 1980.

“Becoming a King in South India,” presented to special seminar on Kingship in Asia at the University of Chicago, January 1980.

“State Ceremonial in Late Imperial China,” paper, Association for Asian Studies annual meeting, Los Angeles, April 1979.

“The Ritual State in Medieval South India,” Anthropology, University of Southern California, February 1979.