Daniel Lapinski is a fifth-year PhD candidate in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. He has an MA from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from the University of Chicago. His research focuses on the history and languages of Northeast India, with an emphasis on the development of modern Manipur and on Meitei linguistics and literature.
Daniel’s Fulbright-Nehru project is examining the linguistics and language politics in Manipur during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is investigating how various actors (academics, officials, artists) conceptualized and presented the Meitei (or Manipuri) language at different historical moments and how these framings influenced its current position within the linguistic and political landscape of India. By tracing this discourse through the institutions and intellectual products of colonial and postcolonial India, the project seeks to elucidate the concerns and material factors that have helped shape Manipur, and the Northeast more generally, as a sociocultural space.