Dr Bhadrajee Hewage

I am a Junior Research Fellow in History at St Hugh’s College, Oxford. I completed my DPhil in History from Trinity College, Oxford supported by the Clarendon and Beit Funds, a MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies from St Edmund’s College, Cambridge supported by a Prize Research Studentship from the Joint Centre for History and Economics, and an AB in History with minors in African Studies, Latin American Studies, and South Asian Studies from Princeton University. I was also a recipient of a 2026 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions COFUND Postdoctoral Fellowship from the European Commission. 

I am a historian of modern South Asia, with particular interests in Buddhist intellectual and religious history, colonialism, nationalism, and the relationship between religion and political thought. My research examines how Buddhism has been understood, contested, and transformed across South Asia, particularly during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I am interested in the ways religious ideas travel across geographical and political boundaries, how intellectuals respond to colonialism and social change, and how competing interpretations of the past shape contemporary identities. I have nevertheless also published work on a variety of other topics, including Boer internment during the South African War and political conflict in British Guiana. I am currently working on several monograph projects, including a history of modern South Asian Buddhism and on the lives and contributions of its key thinkers, the place of South Asia in the development of Global Buddhism, an exploration of the intersection of Eastern and Western spirituality and religion at the turn of the twentieth century, an analysis of how shame has historically featured in language education, and a translation of the Sinhalese writings of the prominent Sri Lankan Buddhist revivalist, Anagarika Dharmapala. 

I am an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA), and I have taught across a variety of undergraduate and master’s papers at Oxford. I have taught the Theory and Methods paper for History MSt and MPhil students and the following undergraduate papers: The Global Twentieth Century, 1930–2003 (EWF14); The Middle East in the Age of Empire, 1830–1971 (FS22); A Global War, 1914–1920 (FS27); and From Gandhi to the Green Revolution: India, Independence and Modernity, 1947–73 (SS22). I also teach a paper on British imperial history for the Middlebury-CMRS Oxford Humanities Program. 

I am strongly committed to widening access to higher education and ensuring that students from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds can study at Oxford. As an Outreach Tutor for the Faculty of History, I have delivered workshops and talks for primary and secondary school students, introducing them to historical research and university-level study. I have worked as an Access Tutor for UNIQ, Oxford’s access programme for state-school students from underrepresented backgrounds, and as a Course Tutor for Opportunity Oxford, supporting incoming undergraduates from disadvantaged backgrounds as they prepare for university. I was also previously a Senior Tour Guide for Uncomfortable Oxford, a social enterprise that encourages public discussion of Oxford's connections to imperialism, inequality, and contested histories. I previously served as a Researcher-in-Residence at the Cheney School, a local state secondary school in Oxford, working with teachers to enrich the History curriculum and introduce pupils to historical research. I am equally interested in communicating historical research to wider audiences, and my public writing has appeared in the BBC History Magazine, History Workshop Online, the Journal of the History of Ideas Blog, and the Institute of Historical Research’s blog On History.

I previously co-convened Oxford’s South Asian Intellectual History Seminar, and I currently serve as a Book Reviews Editor for the Journal of Global Buddhism. 

Prizes and Funding:

• 2026- Junior Research Fellowship in History, St Hugh's College, Oxford. 
• 2026-2029 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions COFUND Postdoctoral Fellowship and Senior Research Fellowship, Turku Institute for Advanced Studies, Finland [Declined]. 
• 2024-2025 Visiting Doctoral Research Fellowship (Finalist), Institute of Historical Research, London.
• 2024-2025 Beit Fund Scholarship, University of Oxford.
• 2024-2025 Designated Research Studentship, Faculty of History, Oxford. 
• 2021-2024 Clarendon Fund Scholarship, University of Oxford. 
• 2021-2024 Scatcherd European Scholarship, University of Oxford. 
• 2021-2024 Cooper-Max Beloff Scholarship, Trinity College Oxford.
• 2020-2021 Prize Research Studentship, Joint Centre for History and Economics, Cambridge

AB History, Princeton University
MPhil Modern South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge
DPhil History, University of Oxford