About Me
Photo Credit: Sasikumar Balasundaram
Welcome to my personal website. I am a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto Scarborough, based in the Department of Historical and Cultural Studies. My research analyses inherited inequality in the historical encounter between South Asians, Europeans, and Americans. My current book project, “Schooling the Master: Caste Supremacy and American Education in British Ceylon, 1795–1855,” charts the entwining of caste, nation, and gender in nineteenth-century American missionary boarding schools in Ceylon. Between 2016 and 2017, I spent fourteen months conducting dissertation research in Sri Lanka’s Jaffna Peninsula on a U.S. Fulbright award, during which time I also led two British Library-funded archive search and digitization programs (EAP835/EAP971). Prior to my fieldwork, I spent four years studying Tamil and two years studying Sinhala; I am now working on Early Modern Dutch. I hold a BA in the comparative history of ideas (University of Washington, 2010), MAs in religion and South Asian studies (both Columbia, 2015), an MPhil in religion (Columbia, 2016), and a PhD in religion (Columbia, 2020).
My curriculum vitae can be downloaded here.
My pronouns are he / him.
PUBLIC OFFICE HOURS
I hold weekly, public office hours for anyone interested in discussing independent or family research relating to the history and religion of Southern India and Sri Lanka. Please contact me at m.balmforth@utoronto.ca to schedule an appointment. I look forward to hearing from you!
Land Acknowledgement
I want to recognize that I am an uninvited guest on the traditional lands of many peoples. I was born and raised on the Salish lands of the Duwamish and the Suquamish, trained on the territory of the Lenape, the Canarsie, the Matinacock, the Rockaway, and the Merrick, and I currently live on lands of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit River. Today, the places that we settlers call Seattle, New York, and Toronto are still home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to live and work on their lands.