New Books in History Julia Stephens, "Worldly Afterlives: Tracing Family Trails Between India and Empire" (Princeton UP, 2025)
May 7, 2026
Julia Stephens, associate professor of history at Rutgers and author of Worldly Afterlives, draws on archives and family lore to trace Indian migrants across the 19th and 20th centuries. She follows figures like Thamboosamy Pillai, Jambai, and sailor John Muhammad. Listens to archival traces, funerals, legal records, photographs, and genealogies to rethink migration, memory, and imperial afterlives.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Archival Research Meets Family Memory
- Julia Stephens blends archival research with family memory to trace diasporic lives across empire and present-day media.
- She combines genealogy, objects, photos, and platforms like Instagram to capture continuities and ruptures in family afterlives.
Empire As Variegated Networks
- The book spans mid-19th to mid-20th centuries to follow Indians across imperial circuits and into postcolonial states.
- Stephens treats the British Empire as variegated, including indirect rule in places like Zanzibar and settler regimes like the U.S.
Searching A Grave Unravels A Patriarchal Myth
- Stephens found Thamboosamy Pillai's 1902 funeral procession described in Singapore newspapers and pursued his grave in Kuala Lumpur.
- The search revealed women's roles in his family and challenged patriarchal diaspora narratives.
