Staff

Turaj Atabaki (), studied theoretical physics (BSc, MSc) and history at National University of Iran and University of London. Worked at Utrecht University, where he acquired MA and PhD. Holds the endowed chair of "Social History of the Middle East and Central Asia" at the Department of Languages and Cultures of the Middle East of the Leiden University. He holds the Senior Research Fellow position at the International Institute of Social History in charge of the Department of the Middle East and Central Asia. Visiting senior research fellow, the Middle East Centre, St. Antony's College, University of Oxford. Visiting fellow at the Academy of Sciences of Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Touraj Atabaki is member of the Academic Committee of the International Institute of Asian Studies and member of editorial boards of: Journal of Iranian Studies, Journal of Azerbaijani Studies, Review of International Affairs, Journal of Iran and the Caucasus and Journal Central Asian Survey. Main research interest: Historiography of everyday life and comparative subaltern history. Author of: The State and the Subaltern. Society and Politics in Turkey and Iran (London, I.B. Tauris, 2007), Iran and the First World War: A Battleground of the Great Powers (London: I.B.Tauris, 2006), Central Asia and the Caucasus: Transnationalism and Diaspora, co-Editor [Sanjyot Mehendale] (London: Routledge, 2005), Men of Order: Authoritarian Modernisation Under Atatürk and Reza Shah, co-Editor [Erik Jan Zürcher] (London: I.B Tauris, 2004), Beyond Essentialism. Who writes whose Past in the Middle East and Central Asia? (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2003), Post-Soviet Central Asia, co-Editor [John O'Kane] (London: I.B.Tauris, 1998), Azerbaijan: Ethnicity and the Struggle for Power in Iran, [Revised Edition of Azerbaijan, Ethnicity and Autonomy in Twentieth-Century Iran] (London: I.B.Tauris, 2000), Centraal Azië, co-Author [Joris Versteeg] (Amsterdam: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen-Novib-NCOS, 1994), Azerbaijan, Ethnicity and Autonomy in Twentieth-Century Iran (London, IB Tauris, 1993).

Willem van Schendel (), Ph.D. Amsterdam (1980). Senior research fellow at the IISH, Professor of Modern Asian History at the University of Amsterdam. Recent publications include: Global Blue: Indigo and Espionage in Colonial Bengal (2006; with P.P. Darrac); The Bengal Borderland: Beyond State and Nation in South Asia (2005); Illicit Flows and Criminal Things: States, Borders, and the Other Side of Globalization (2005, ed. with I.Abraham); Identity Politics in Central Asia and the Muslim World: Nationalism, Ethnicity and Labour in the Twentieth Century (2001, ed. with E.J.Zürcher); Time Matters: Global and Local Time in Asian Societies (2001, ed. with H. Schulte Nordholt); The Chittagong Hill Tracts: Living in a Borderland (2000, with W.Mey and A.K.Dewan). See https://home.medewerker.uva.nl/h.w.vanschendel

Emile Schwidder (), studied history at the University of Utrecht; research fellow at the IISH Asia Department; Author of Labour and the Law in Historical Perspective (Amsterdam, 1993) and Guide to the Asian Collections at IISH (Amsterdam, 1996). Co-author (with Dr Fritjof Tichelman) Het Proces Sneevliet 1917 (Leiden, 1991), co-author (with Eef Vermeij) Guide to the Asian Collections at IISH (2nd. ed., Amsterdam, 2001).

Eef Vermeij (), co-ordinator of the Asia Department, co-author (with Emile Schwidder) Guide to the Asian Collections at IISH (2nd. ed., Amsterdam, 2001)

The following persons are also involved in the activities of the Asia Section of the IISH:
Ahmad Saleem (Islamabad, Pakistan), Bidyut Debnath (Calcutta, India), Han Gyi (Thailand), Shahriar Kabir (Dhaka, Bangladesh), Ramin Karimian (Teheran, Iran), Neng Magno (Philippines) and Semaun Utomo (Semarang, Indonesia)

The general email address for the Asia Department is: