Office: TMH-226
Email: lr22@txstate.edu
Phone: 512.245.2118

Curriculum Vitae

Leah Renold is a historian of South Asia who joined the faculty of Texas State in 2007. She offers courses focusing on South and Southeast Asian history and religion, as well as World Civilizations to 1500. Her academic background includes an MA in Asian Studies and a doctorate in South Asian History, both completed at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Renold researches the interaction of religion and politics in modern South Asia. In 2005 Oxford University Press published her first book, A Hindu Education: The Early Years of Banaras Hindu University, which explores the complex inter-relationships between Hindu traditions, Hindu-Muslim relations, education, and colonial policy during the Indian independence movement. Her current research includes work on the divergence of religious and secular interpretations of nationalism, myth as a means of knowing in South Asia, and Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, a leading promoter of Hindu interests during the late colonial period. Dr. Renold has lived in India for over seven years and is currently organizing a study abroad program in India for Texas State. She is the advisor for the South Asian Students Association.

Courses Taught

HIST 2311 World Civilizations to 1500
This introductory survey is the first of two courses on the history of world civilization. This course addresses major developments in human existence from the earliest recorded times until the sixteenth century. Course materials provide a glimpse into diverse influences shaping the human continuum: climate and geography, technological innovation, trade and cultural exchange, and aggression and peaceful coexistence. This particular section of the course includes an emphasis on the history of religions and ideas.

HIST 4350H Gandhi and Non-violence
Mohandas K. Gandhi is recognized as one of the major figures of the modern era. This course offers students opportunity to explore Gandhi in the context of the late British imperialism in India. The first half of the course will explore Gandhi’s life alongside developments in Indian nationalism and colonial polity in the late nineteenth and twentieth century. The second half of the course is focused upon research into various aspects of the life of Mahatma Gandhi using primary sources. There are no prerequisites for this course.

HIST 4350I History of India
India, with a population of well over one billion, is the largest democracy and one of the most diverse nations on the planet. The South Asian subcontinent is a region of multiple ethnicities, languages, and religions, possessing a rich and dynamic history and culture. This course is an introduction to Indian history and culture from ancient times of the Indus Valley Civilization to the creation of the present modern nation-states of India and Pakistan. The course offers a focus on the cultural developments of the region, including the caste system and the religious and philosophical traditions originating in India (including Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh) and the Islamic traditions that developed in South Asia.