Dr. Bernardo A. Michael
Distinguished Professor of South Asian and World History
Meet the faculty:
Dr. Bernardo A. Michael
Bernardo A. Michael received his graduate training in Modern South Asian and World History at the University of Hawai´i at Mānoa. His research has focused on the relationship between Nepali state formation, British colonialism, and territorial reordering on the subcontinent. He teaches upper and lower level courses in Asian and World history, in addition to Historical Methods and the capstone seminar History and Theory of Historical Writing. He has lived and worked in South Asia, including spending nearly eight years in community development work in Nepal. He has also led students on cross cultural study tours to India, Nepal, Malaysia, and Trinidad. He has also served the University in a number of administrative capacities including Director of the Center for Public Humanities at Messiah College (2006-2010), the Special Assistant to the President & Provost, for Diversity Affairs (2010-2017), and Co-chair/Chair of the Department of History. He lives in South Central Pennsylvania. with his wife Shanti, their three children, Sharon, David Ano’i, Mary Nirmala, and grandsons Derron Dhiraj and Dominic Ishaan.
Current Projects
I am currently working on a biography of the Anglican educator and activist Charles Freer Andrews (1871-1940)
Books and Edited Works
Statemaking and Territory: Lessons from the Anglo-Gorkha War, 1814-16 (London: Anthem Press, December 2012).
Aditya Kiran Kakati, Mélanie Vandenhelsken, and Bernardo A. Michael, eds., Re-orienting the Himalayan Borderlands, Special issue of South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal (SAMAJ) Vol. 23 (2024) [published 2025; backdated 2024].
Select Publications
2024 [published in July 2025; backdated to 2024]. “Introduction” Special Issue on Re-Orienting the Himalayan Borderlands, South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal (Samaj) Vol. 33.
2024 [published in July 2025; backdated to 2024]. “Indexing Space in the Anglo-Gorkha Borderland Disputes of the Early Nineteenth Century,” South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal (SAMAJ), Vol. 33.
Forthcoming. “Colonial and Imperial Mapping in British South Asia,” The History of Cartography Project: Volume 5, Cartography in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Roger J.P. Kain (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press).
2021. “Teaching the Nation from its Borderlands: The Tharu Barka Naach,” Publication of paper presented at Global General Education and Asian Texts: What should students read? Asian Core Texts Conference, Concordia University—Irvine, CA, Thursday 12- Saturday 14 July 12, 2018.
2018. “States and Territories: The Anglo-Gorkha War as a ‘Diagnostic Event,” Invited to write for a special Issue of the European Bulletin of Himalayan Research under the guest editorship of John Whelpton (Autumn 2017-Spring 2018), pp. 33-57.
2018. “A “willingness to become undone in relation to others”: The Plural Life of C.F. Andrews,” in Joel Carpenter & Rebecca Shah, eds., Christianity in India: Conversion, Community Development, and Religious Freedom (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2018), pp. 48-68.
2016. “The Spatial Anxieties of Everyday Colonial Rule and the History of Cartography: Connecting the Dots.” In Holt Meyer, Susanne Rau, & Katharina Waldner, eds., SpaceTime of the Imperial (Berlin: De Gruyter), pp. 338-366.
2014. “Writing a World History of the Anglo-Gorkha Borderlands in the Early Nineteenth Century,” Journal of World History, Vol. 25, no. 4, (2014), pp. 535-558. Invited to write contribute this piece to a special issue in honor of the noted world historian and my mentor, the late Jerry H. Bentley.
2011. “Nepali History as World History.” Occasional Papers Social Science Baha (Kathmandu: Social Science Baha).
2009. “Spatiality, Power, and Statemaking in Colonial South Asia: The Case of the Anglo-Gorkha Frontier, 1740-1816.” In Peter W. Kirby, ed., Boundless Worlds: Social Dynamics of 'Space', Power, and Movement (New York: Berghahn Books), pp. 45-68.
2007. Land, Labour, Local Power, and the Constitution of Agrarian Territories on the Anglo-Gorkha Frontier, 1700-1815,” in Michael Mann ed., Special Issue on the Environment in Internationales Asienforum International Quarterly for Asian Studies,Volume 38, no. 3-4, pp. 309-328.
2007. “Making Territory Visible: The Revenue Surveys of Colonial South Asia,” in Imago Mundi: Journal for the International History of Cartography, Volume 59, no. 1 (2007): 78-95.
My book reviews have appeared in journals like: Asian Ethnology, H-Net Reviews, Pacific Circle, Himalayan Research Bulletin, European Bulletin of Himalayan Research, Imago Mundi, Journal of World History, Studies in Nepali History and Society, and Indian Economic and Social History Review.
Select Conference Presentations
“Towards a Convivial History of Borderlands: Speculating on Dwelling, Assemblages, and Elusive State Spaces on the Anglo-Gorkha frontier, 1750-1816,” as part of a panel on "Uncertain methods, elusive lives: exploring the methodological and relational horizons of doing research with more-than-humans," at the Annual Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists, 26-29 July 2024, Barcelona, Spain.
Panel organizer & Presenter. Panel: Repairing the American Project: Lessons Learned from Research, Teaching & Learning for the Public Good at Messiah University,” Paper title: “Japanese Americans in South Central Pennsylvania: The story of the Sakimura family and Messiah University, 1945-2022,” Messiah University Humanities Symposium, Messiah University February 2024.
Faculty-Student Panel organizer (with Dr. David Pettegrew). “The Transformative Power of History: Pursuing Reconciliation through Research, Teaching, and Learning for the Public Good,” Pennsylvania History Association Annual Conference, 26-28 October 2023, Camp Hill, PA.
Discussant, Panel on “Re-orienting Borderlands: Beyond spatial fixations in South Asia,” 27th European Conference on South Asian Studies, University of Turin, 26-29 July 2023.
“Tracing an Italian thread in a South Indian family's story, 1944-2022,” Panel on “En-Route: Stories of Travel and Translation on the Journey to Messiah University," Messiah University Humanities Symposium, 21 February 2023.
“Shifting Agrarian Landscapes on an Imperial Frontier: Lessons from the Pargana /Praganna of (Gadh) Simraon, 1769-1816,” Seminar on Indo-Nepal Relations, S.S. Jina University, 27-29 June 2022.
Discussant. Panel on “Territory, Jurisdiction, and the Significance of Space in the Sovereignty of Nepal,” Association of Asian Studies Annual Meeting, 20 March 2020. (online version due to COVID-19)
“Faith and Friendship: The “affective cosmopolitanism” of Charles Freer Andrews (1871-1940).” Conference on Faith & History, 4-6 October 2018.
“Agrarian Resources and Territorial Dynamism along the Anglo-Gorkha Borderlands in the Early Nineteenth Century.” 6th Asian Borderlands Research Network Conference: Borderland Spaces: Ruins, Revival(s) and Resources, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, 13-15 August 2018.
Presenter. “War and Space: Territorial Lessons from the Anglo-Gorkha War (1814-1816),” International Conference on Between Empires: The Making and Unmaking of Borders, 19th to 20th Century, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, 1-2 February 2018.
Organizer and Participant. Anthony Paul Smith’s workshop on “A Democracy of Thought Amidst the Failure of the World: Introducing the Ideas of Francois Laruelle,” at Messiah University, 30 September 2017.
“Separating the Yam from the Boulder: Statemaking and Space and the Anglo-Gorkha War of 1814-16,” Global and Area Studies, Excellence Speaker Series Lecture, University of Wyoming-Laramie, 29 March 2016.
Invited Speaker. “States and Territories: The Anglo-Gorkha War as a ‘diagnostic event,’” British-Nepal
Academic Council Bicentenary Workshop on Britain-Nepal Relations, London, 23 March 2016.
Invited Discussant. “Roundtable: Rethinking structure, agency, and the history of Nepal,” Annual South Asia Conference, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 24 October 2015.
Invited Participant. The Nagel Institute for the Study of World Christianity at Calvin College’s Seminar in India, “Christianity in India: Religious Change and Economic Development,” 17 June-3 July 2015.
Invited Speaker. “Can the history of colonial cartography include more than the study of maps and mapmaking?” Conference on SpaceTime of the Imperial, University of Erfurt & Gotha, 10 October 2014.
Invited Speaker. “Spatiality and the History of Cartography: Some Evidence from Colonial South Asia,” Mapping History: New Directions in Interdisciplinary Research, Michael P. Malone Memorial Conference, Montana State University, 3-7 October 2012.
Select Public Scholarship/Presentations/Teaching
Teachers as Scholars Seminar and Hoverter Course in the Humanities, Center for Public Humanities, Messiah University (on multiple occasions)
“Collecting Model Cars: Playing with Memory and History.” Messiah University Human Library Project, 9 April 2025.
“Living Well in the World Requires Critical Consciousness,” Pt. 1 & 2, Imagine Otherwise, the online magazine of the Center for Asian American Christianity, Princeton Theological Seminary, 9 & 25 September 2024.
(with Anil Varghese), “The Global Branding of Caste,” Himal Southasian, 1 December 2021.
“From Frontier to Boundary,” Himal Southasian, 26 August 2020.
(With Dr. George Varughese & Sumina Karki), “The Stubborn Persistence of Gender Inequality,” Weekly Insight and Analysis in Asia, 1 April 2015, The Asia Foundation.
(With Dr. George Varughese). “From Femininity to Masculinity,” Nepali Times, 16-22 January 2015.
Invited Respondent. “Reimagining Development: How do Multimethod Approaches Shape Development Practice?” Virtual Roundtable, Institute for Global Development, University of New South Wales, Australia, 16 September 2021.
Invited Presenter along with Mani Ram Banjade, Lisa Denney, Hemant Ojha, Dinesha Samararatne, Chris Roach, George Varughese. “The Significance of History for Development,” IGD Reimagining Development Roundtable (Virtual), Institute for Global Development, University of New South Wales & The Niti Foundation (Nepal), 9 November 2020.
Select Administrative Assignments
2006-2010. Director, Center for Public Humanities
2010-2017. Special Assistant to the President and Provost for Diversity Affairs
2018-2021. Co-chair/Chair. Department of History
- Ph.D., Modern South Asian and World History, University of Hawai´i at Mānoa, 2001
- M.A., Medieval South Asian History, University of Delhi, 1986
- B.A., History (Hons), St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi, 1984
- IDFYS 101: First Year Seminar
- HIST 201 Introduction to History
- HIST 202 Historical Methods
- HIST 271: World History to 1500)
- HIST 272: World History since 1500
- HIST 273: History of Premodern Asia to 1500
- HIST 274: History of Asia since 1500
- HIST 372: Modern Civilizations of Asia, post 1500 (QuEST Non-Western)
- HIST 373: History of Premodern South Asia
- HIST 374: History of Modern South Asia since 1500
- HIST 401: Senior Capstone Seminar Historiography: History and Theory of Historical Writing
- HUMA 101: Hoverter Course in the Humanities
- HUMA 201: Humanities Past & Present
Colonialism, statemaking, ethnographic history, history of cartography, research methods, historiography, speculative biography, gender and masculinity, interfaith and intercultural dialog and reconciliation, historical trauma and healing, Civil Rights history and memorabilia, culinary histories, antiquities, vintage model car collection, and family histories.