Biography: Patrick D. Rasico
Patrick D. Rasico Ph.D.
Dr. Patrick D. Rasico is an assistant professor in the Department of History and Political Science, focusing on the history of modern Britain and the empire in India. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of History at Vanderbilt University in 2019. From 2019 to 2021, he was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Fisk.
His research examines the relationships between the processes of empire formation, the production of representations of India by Europeans, and how Britons collected and circulated South-Asian artworks and artifacts in India and in London during the latter part of the eighteenth century and early nineteenth century. Rasico’s first article, “Calcutta ‘In These Degenerate Days’: The Daniells’ Visions of Life, Death, and Nabobery in Late Eighteenth-Century British India,” appeared in The Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies (The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies) in March 2019. His second article, “Auctions and the Making of the Nabob in Late Eighteenth-Century Calcutta and London” appeared in The Historical Journal (Cambridge University Press) in 2022. He is presently composing his first academic monograph, which is tentatively titled Empire of Circulation: Imperial Expansion, Indian Material Culture, and British Imagined Geographies, 1750–1820.
At Fisk, Dr. Rasico teaches Modern Asian History, Global British Imperial History, European History, an Introduction to History, Historiography and Methodology, the Junior and Senior History Seminars, and World History. Since August 2021, Dr Rasico has served as Discipline Coordinator for History.
Education:
Ph.D., Vanderbilt University, 2013–2019
M.A., Vanderbilt University, 2015
M.A. (with honors), Pennsylvania State University, 2010–2013
B.A. (with honors), Indiana University , 2004-2008
Contact information:
Office Location: Department of History and Political Science
Office email: prasico@fisk.edu
- Research & Publications
- Professional Service
- Conference Presentations,Supervisions, & Committees
- Courses
Patrick Rasico, Ph.D. Research & Publications
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X21000303
“Calcutta ‘In These Degenerate Days’: The Daniells’ Visions of Life, Death, and Nabobery in Late Eighteenth-Century British India,” The Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 42, No. 1 (March, 2019): 27-47.
https://doi.org/10.1111/1754-0208.12586
Review of Goods from the East, 1600–1800: Trading Eurasia, edited by Maxine Berg, Felicia Gottmann, Hanna Hodacs, and Chris Nierstrasz (2015). Journal of Early Modern History, Vol. 21, No. 1 (2017): 137-39.
“The Fisk Jubilee Singers In Asia and the Antipodes, 1886-90,” in Heritage & Honor: 150 Year Story of the Fisk Jubilee Singers (Nashville: T. Scott, 2022).
“‘Sweet, Beautiful Voices’: When a Troupe of African American Musicians Sang at the Taj Mahal in 1889,” Scroll.in. 19 August, 2021.
https://scroll.in/magazine/1002976/sweet-beautiful-voices-when-a-troupe-of-african-american-musicians-sang-at-the-taj-mahal-in-1889
Patrick D. Rasico, Ph.D. Professional Service
Secretary of the Fisk University Faculty Assembly (Fall 2023- )
Secretary Elect for the Fisk University Faculty Assembly (Fall 2022-Spring 2023).
Faculty Executive Committee Member (Fall 2022-Spring 2023, Fall 2023- )
Honors Faculty Council, Fisk University (Fall 2022- ).
Academic Mentor for a United Negro College Fund (UNCF) Mellon Mays Fellow Fisk undergraduate student (Summer, 2022- ).
Academic Mentor for HistoryMakers Oral History Project for Fisk undergraduate student (Fall, 2022-Spring, 2023).
Co-Organizer of the Piersen-Mitchell Lecture Series at Fisk University (Spring, 2023; Spring, 2022; Spring, 2021).
CORE Curriculum Faculty Search Committee (Fall, 2022).
Registrar Search Committee, Fisk University. (Spring, 2022).
John L. Lewis Center for Social Justice Curriculum Development Committee, Fisk University. (Spring, 2022).
Constitution Day Committee, Fisk University. (Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020).
Patrick D. Rasico, Ph.D. Conference Presentations
“‘It would Give Offense at Both Calcutta and Leadenhall Street’: British Missionaries, American Merchants, and Circulating Texts, 1783-1813.” Will be Presented at the North American Conference on British Studies, Baltimore, Maryland, November 10, 2023.
“‘A Fair Criterion of Success’: The Little-Known Tour of the Fisk Jubilee Singers in Nineteenth Century India.” Presented at The Pierson-Mitchell Lecture Series at Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, February 28, 2022.
“‘The Green Tent at Seringapatam’: Sale, Circulation, and the Transformation of Indian Courtly Items Into Trophies of Empire, 1799-1815.” Presented at the North American Conference on British Studies, Atlanta, Georgia, November 12, 2021.
“The Fisk Jubilee Singers in Australia and Asia, 1886-90.” Presented at The George L. White Lecture Series at Fisk University, (via Zoom due to COVID-19) March 16, 2021.
“Missionaries, American Merchants, and the Smuggling of Texts and People Between Calcutta and Britain, 1783-1813.” Presented at the Southern Conference on British Studies, (via Zoom due to COVID-19) November 20, 2020.
“The ‘Oriental’ Performance of the Eighteenth-Century Art Auction in London and Calcutta.” Presented at The 18th and 19th Century Studies Seminar at the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, December 6, 2019.
“Intellectual Circles and Collecting South Asian Coins in Georgian Britain: The Indian Specie and Collecting Practices of Sarah Sophia Banks.” Presented at the Southern Conference on British Studies, Dallas, Texas, November 10, 2017.
“Daniells' Calcutta: Visions of Life, Death, and Nabobery in Late-Eighteenth-Century British India.” Presented at the North American Conference on British Studies, Little Rock, Arkansas, November 15, 2015.
Conference Organizer and Panel Chair: Panel Featuring Professor Natasha Eaton (University College London) at the Vanderbilt History Workshop “In the Light of Empire: Art, Illumination and Obsolescence in India,” February, 2015.
Panel Chair: Panel Featuring Professor Sanjay Subrahmanyam and Professor Robert Travers at “The Local as Cosmopolitan: Negotiating Tradition, Making History, Translating Culture in South Asia, A Conference in Memory of Professor Kumkum Chatterjee,” State College, Pennsylvania, October, 2013.
Patrick D. Rasico, Ph.D. Courses
The World and Its Peoples
European History
Global British Imperial History
History of Modern Asia, 1500-1900
Historiography & Methodology
Introduction to History
Junior Research Seminar
Senior Thesis Seminar