About Arts and Sciences
Administration:
Vice President and Dean of the Faculty
Nicholas B. Dirks
Nicholas B. Dirks is the
Franz Boas Professor of History and Anthropology at Columbia University, where since September 2004 he has been Vice President
for the Arts and Sciences and Dean of the Faculty. Dirks came to Columbia in 1997 when he was asked to chair and rebuild
the Department of Anthropology. Before coming to Columbia, Dirks was Professor of History and Anthropology at the
University of Michigan, where he had also been the founding Director of the Interdepartmental Ph.D. Program in Anthropology
and History, Director of the Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, and Director of the Advanced Study Center of the
International Institute.
Dirks did his undergraduate degree in Asian and African Studies in the College of Social Studies at Wesleyan University, graduating in 1972. He then joined the Ph.D. program in the Department of History at the University of Chicago, where he received his Ph.D. in 1981. He taught in the Division of Humanities at the California Institute of Technology between 1978 and 1987, when he accepted a professorial position at the University of Michigan. He has also taught at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and has held a visiting appointment at the London School of Economics.
His major works include The Hollow Crown: Ethnohistory of an Indian Kingdom (Cambridge University Press, 1987); Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India (Princeton University Press, 2001); and The Scandal of Empire: India and the Creation of Imperial Britain (Harvard University Press, 2006). He has edited several books , including Colonialism and Culture, (University of Michigan Press, 1992), Culture/Power/History: A Reader in Contemporary Social Theory (Princeton University Press, 1994), and In Near Ruins: Cultural Theory at the end of the Century (University of Minnesota Press, 1999), and published more than forty articles on subjects ranging from the history and anthropology of South Asia to social and cultural theory, the history of imperialism, historiography, cultural studies, and globalization. He has done extensive archival and field research in India as well as in Britain. He is currently working on a book concerning imperial sovereignty with special reference to the historical relationship between Britain and India.
Dirks has held numerous fellowships and scholarships and received several scholar honors, including a residential fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Lionel Trilling Award for his book Castes of Mind. He has directed book series at Princeton and Columbia University Presses. He also serves on numerous national and international bodies, as advisor or member of the board, and is a Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. As Vice President for Arts and Sciences and Dean of the Faculty at Columbia, he is responsible for the academic administration and direction of twenty-nine departments (covering the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences), twenty-seven institutes and centers, and six schools (Columbia College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the School of International and Public Affairs, the School of the Arts, the School of General Studies, and the School of Continuing Education). In addition, he oversees the operational and financial management of the Arts and Sciences in conjunction with long-term academic and financial planning.Nicholas B. Dirks
Franz Boas Professor of Anthropology and History
Vice President for Arts and Sciences
Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences
nbd7@columbia.edu
(212) 854-8296
Ruby Cruz
Executive Assistant to the Vice President
rc32@columbia.edu
(212) 854-6104
Rose Razaghian
Special Assistant to the Vice President
Director of Communications
rr222@columbia.edu
(212) 854-5989
Office of the Vice President for Arts and Sciences and
Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences
208 Low Library, MC 4314
535 West 116th Street
New York, NY 10027
Fax: (212) 854-5401