Philip J. Stern | Scholars@Duke

Philip J. Stern
Associate Professor of History

My work focuses on various aspects of the legal, political, intellectual, and business histories that shaped the British Empire. My interests include the role of companies and corporations in colonial enterprise, overseas exploration and cartography, the historiography of British India, early modern economic thought, and digital and data visualization approaches to the problem of colonial sovereignty.

Current Appointments & Affiliations

Associate Professor of History, History, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2013

Contact Information

Box 90719, Durham, NC 27708-0719
History Dept, Durham, NC 27708
philip.stern@duke.edu (919) 668-1695

Background
Education, Training, & Certifications
- Ph.D., Columbia University 2004
- M.Phil., Columbia University 2001
- M.A., Columbia University 1999
- B.A., Wesleyan University 1997
Previous Appointments & Affiliations
- Gilhuly Family Assoc Professor, History, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2018 - 2020
- Director of Graduate Studies in History, History, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2016 - 2019
- Sally Dalton Robinson Associate Professor, History, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2015 - 2018
- Assistant Professor of History, History, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2008 - 2013
- Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor, History, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2010 - 2011
Recognition
In the News
- FEB 4, 2020 Trinity College of Arts and Sciences
  
  Building Sandcastles with History: Recreating the Vision of Pre-Modern Mapmakers
- JUN 16, 2016 Marketplace
  
  Philip Stern: The first corporations -- way back -- had social purpose
- MAY 1, 2015
  
  Duke Announces 2015 Distinguished Professors
- MAY 1, 2015 Duke Today
  
  Duke Announces 2015 Distinguished Professors
- FEB 18, 2014
  
  Historian Philip Stern Honored for Study of British Empire
Awards & Honors
- NEH/Library Company Fellow. Unknown. December 2013
- New Directions Fellowship. Mellon Foundation. December 2013
- New Directions Fellowship. Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. 2013
- JB Harley Fellowship in the History of Cartography. Unknown. December 2012
- Elected Fellow. Royal Historical Society. November 2011
- Co-Director, BorderWork(s) Humanities Lab. Unknown. May 2011
- Morris D. Forkosch Prize for Best Book in British, British Imperial, or British Commonwealth History since 1485. American Historical Association. 2011
- Morris D. Forkosch Prize. American Historical Association. 2011
- Franklin Humanities Institute/Mellon Faculty Book Manuscript Workshop. Franklin Humanities Institute. October 2009
Expertise
Global Scholarship
- Expertise
  - India (Country)
  - United Kingdom (Country)
Research
Selected Grants
- The Sandcastle Workflow: A Malleable System for Visualizing Pre-modern Maps and Views awarded by National Endowment for the Humanities 2020 - 2023
- Virtual and Augmented Reality for Digital Humanities Institute (VARDHI) awarded by National Endowment for the Humanities 2017 - 2020
- Sawyer Seminar: Corporate Rights and International Law: Past, Present, and Future awarded by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation 2016 - 2019
External Relationships
- Bedford/St. Martin's Press
- Harvard University Press
- Oxford University Press
- University of Massachusetts Amherst
Publications & Artistic Works
Selected Publications
- Books
  - Stern, P. J., and M. R. Hunt, eds. The English East India Company at the Height of Mughal Expansion A Soldier's Diary of the 1689 Siege of Bombay, with Related Documents (In preparation). Bedford/St Martins, 2015.
  - Stern, Philip J., and Carl Wennerlind, eds. Mercantilism Reimagined: Political Economy in Early Modern Britain and Its Empire, 2013.
  - Stern, Philip J. The Company-State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India, 2012.
  - Stern, P. J. The Company-State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195393736.001.0001.
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- Academic Articles
  - Stern, P. J. “Alcohol and the Ambivalence of the Early English East India Company-State.” Historical Journal 65, no. 1 (February 1, 2022): 185–201. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X21000236.
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  - Hunt, M. R., and P. J. Stern. “Bombay: The genealogy of a global imperial city.” Urban History 48, no. 3 (August 1, 2021): 461–78. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963926820000486.
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  - Doherty, Stephen, Lisa Ford, Kirsten McKenzie, Naomi Parkinson, David Roberts, Paul Halliday, Zoe Laidlaw, Alan Lester, and Philip Stern. “Inquiring into the Corpus of Empire.” Journal of World History 32, no. 2 (2021): 219–40. https://doi.org/10.1353/jwh.2021.0022.
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  - Gottmann, Felicia, and Philip Stern. “Introduction: Crossing Companies.” Journal of World History 31, no. 3 (2020): 477–88. https://doi.org/10.1353/jwh.2020.0028.
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  - Stern, Philip J. “Early Eighteenth-Century British India: Antimeridian or antemeridiem?” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 21, no. 2 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1353/cch.2020.0014.
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  - Brewster, R. “Introduction to the Proceedings of the Seminar on Corporations and International Law.” Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law 28, no. 3 (2018): 413–23.
    Link to Item
  - Stern, Philip J. “The Corporation and the Global Seventeenth-Century English Empire: A Tale of Three Cities.” Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 16, no. 1 (2018): 41–63. https://doi.org/10.1353/eam.2018.0002.
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  - Stern, Philip J. “Seeing (and Not Seeing) like a Company-State: Hybridity, Heterotopia, Historiography.” Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 17, no. 3 (2017): 105–20. https://doi.org/10.1353/jem.2017.0020.
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  - Stern, P. J. “Parasites, Persons, and Princes: Evolutionary Biology of the Corporate Constitution.” Itinerario 39, no. 3 (January 18, 2016): 512–25. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115315000959.
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  - Stern, P. “The English East India Company and the Modern Corporation: Legacies, Lessons, and Limitations.” Seattle University Law Review 39, no. 2 (2016).
  - Stern, P. J. “The Ideology of the Imperial Corporation: “Informal” Empire Revisited.” Chartering Capitalism: Organizing Markets, States, and Publics (Political Power and Social Theory) 29 (2015): 15–43. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0198-871920150000029002.
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  - Stern, P. J. “Corporate Virtue: The Languages of Empire in Early Modern British Asia.” Renaissance Studies, August 2012.
  - Stern, P. J. “Soldier and Citizen in the Seventeenth-Century English East India Company.” Journal of Early Modern History 15 (2011).
  - Stern, P. J. “The History and Historiography of the English East India Company: Past, Present...and Future!.” History Compass 7, no. 4 (2009).
  - Stern, P. “Introduction: Rethinking Institutional Transformations in the Making of Modern Empire in Company South India.” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 9, no. 2 (October 2008).
  - Stern, P. “'A Politie of Civill & Military Power’: Political Thought and the Late Seventeenth-Century Foundations of the East India Company-State.” Journal of British Studies 47, no. 2 (April 2008): 253–83.
  - Stern, Philip J. “Rethinking Institutional Transformations in the Making of Modern Empire: The East India Company in Madras.” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 9, no. 2 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1353/cch.0.0008.
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  - Stern, P. “Politics and Ideology in the Early East India Company-State: The Case of St. Helena, 1673-1696.” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 35, no. 1 (March 2007): 1–23.
  - Stern, P. “British Asia and British Atlantic: Comparisons and Connections.” William and Mary Quarterly 63, no. 4 (October 2006): 693–712.
- Book Sections
  - Stern, P. “An Empire of Shopkeepers? The Middling Sort and the Making of the Early English East India Company.” In To Take Us Lands Away: Essays in Honour of Margaret R. Hunt, edited by Astrid Wendel-Hansen, Francisca Hoyer, and Katarina Nordström. Uppsala: Studia Historica Upsaliensia, 2022.
  - Stern, P. “Legal geography and colonial sovereignty: the making of early English ‘Bombay'.” In Making the British Empire 1660-1800, edited by Jason Peacey. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020.
  - Stern, P. “The 1689 Siege of Bombay in Global Historical Perspective.” In The World of the Siege, edited by Anke Fischer-Kattner and Jamel Osterwald. Brill, 2019.
  - Stern, P. “The Google of its Time? The English East India Company and the Modern Corporation.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Corporation, edited by Thomas Clarke. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
  - Stern, P. J. “Limited Liabilities: The corporation and the political economy of protection in the british empire.” In Protection and Empire: A Global History, 114–31, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108283595.007.
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  - Stern, P. J. “The Corporation in History.” In The Corporation: A Critical, Multi-Disciplinary Handbook, 21–46, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139681025.002.
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  - Stern, P. J. “Politics, State, and Empire in Weber’s The Religion of India.” In Max Weber’s Economic Ethos of the World Religions, edited by Thomas C. Ertman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
  - Stern, P. “Petitions, Power, and the ‘Povo’ in Early English Bombay.” In Thinking through Law in South Asia, edited by Aparna Balachandran, Rashmi Pant, and Bhavani Raman. Oxford University Press, 2017.
  - Ross, R. J., and P. J. Stern. “Reconstructing early modern notions of legal pluralism.” In Legal Pluralism and Empires, 1500-1850, 109–41, 2013.
  - Stern, P. J. “"Bundles of hyphens": Corporations as legal communities in the early modern British empire.” In Legal Pluralism and Empires, 1500-1850, 21–47, 2013.
  - Stern, P. J. “"Trading Companies".” edited by Joseph C. Miller. Princeton University Press, 2012.
  - Stern, P. J. “Company, state, and empire: Governance and regulatory frameworks in Asia.” In Britain’s Oceanic Empire: Atlantic and Indian Ocean Worlds, c. 1550-1850, 130–50, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139096744.010.
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  - Stern, P. J. “Exploration and Empire.” In Exploration: Reassessing the West’s Encounter with the Rest, edited by Dane Kennedy. Oxford University Press, 2012.
  - Stern, P. J. “Governance and Regulatory Frameworks in Early Modern British Asia.” In British Atlantic and British Asia: Two Worlds or One?, edited by H. V. Bowen, Elizabeth Mancke, and John Reid, 2012.
  - Stern, P. J. “Sovereignty.” In Princeton Companion to Atlantic History, edited by Joseph C. Miller, 2012.
  - Stern, P. J. “Companies.” In Rethinking Mercantilism, edited by P. J. Stern and Carl Wennerlind. Oxford University Press, 2012.
  - Stern, P. J. “From the Fringes of History: The Early East India Company and the Birth of the British Empire in India.” In Fringes of Empire, edited by Elizabeth Kolsky and Sameetah Agah. Oxford University Press, 2009.
  - Stern, P. “Exploration: Overview.” In Encyclopedia of the Modern World, edited by Peter Stearns. Oxford University Press, 2008.
  - Stern, P. “Exploration: Africa.” In Encyclopedia of the Modern World, edited by Peter Stearns. Oxford University Press, 2008.
  - Stern, P. “Auspico Regis et Senatus Angliae: The Political Foundations of the East India Company’s Incorporation into the British Military-Fiscal State.” In War, State and Development: Fiscal-Military States in the Eighteenth Century, edited by Rafael Torres Sánchez. Eunsa, 2007.
  - Stern, P. “East India Company.” edited by Thomas Benjamin. Macmillan, Gale, Thomson, 2006.
  - Stern, P. “Middle East and India.” edited by Thomas Benjamin. Macmillan, Gale, Thomson, 2006.
  - Stern, P. “Enlightenment and Empire.” edited by Thomas Benjamin. Macmillan, Gale, Thomson, 2006.
  - Stern, P. “East India Company.” In Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450, edited by Thomas Benjamin. Macmillan, Gale, Thomson, 2006.
  - Stern, P. “Companies and Colonization.” In Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450, edited by Thomas Benjamin. Macmillan, Gale, Thomson, 2006.
  - Stern, P. “Middle East and India.” In Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450, edited by Thomas Benjamin. Macmillan, Gale, Thomson, 2006.
  - Stern, P. “Enlightenment and Empire.” In Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450, edited by Thomas Benjamin. Macmillan, Gale, Thomson, 2006.
  - Stern, P. “Governors-General and Viceroys.” edited by David Johnson and Prem Poddar. Edinburgh University Press, 2005.
  - Stern, P. “Governors-General and Viceroys.” In A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Thought in English, edited by David Johnson and Prem Poddar. Edinburgh University Press, 2005.
  - Stern, P. “’Rescuing the Age from a Charge of Ignorance’: Gentility, Knowledge, and the British Exploration of Africa in the Later Eighteenth Century.” edited by Kathleen Wilson. Cambridge University Press, 2004.
  - Stern, P. “’Rescuing the Age from a Charge of Ignorance’: Gentility, Knowledge, and the British Exploration of Africa in the Later Eighteenth Century.” In A New Imperial History: Culture, Identity and Modernity in Britain and the Empire, 1660-1840, edited by Kathleen Wilson. Cambridge University Press, 2004.
- Other Articles
  - Stern, P. J. “Politics, State, and Empire in weber's the religion of India,” March 24, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316460092.008.
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- Book Reviews
  - Stern, P. J. “Review, Bibliography of the East India Company: Books, Pamphlets, and Other Materials Printed Between 1600 and 1785 by Catherine Pickett.” H Net Reviews in the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2013.
  - Stern, P. J. “Review of So Great a Proffit: How the East Indies Trade Transformed Anglo-American Capitalism by James Fichter.” Journal of British Studies, April 2012.
  - Stern, Philip J. “James R. Fichter. So Great a Proffit: How the East Indies Trade Transformed Anglo-American Capitalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010. Pp. 400. $35.00 (cloth).” Journal of British Studies. Cambridge University Press (CUP), April 2012. https://doi.org/10.1086/663801.
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  - Stern, P. J. “Review of The Indian and Pacific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1768-1820, Volume I: Letters, 1768-1782.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 2011.
  - Stern, Philip J. “The Indian and Pacific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1768-1820. Volume I: Letters 1768-1782.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. Brill, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1163/156852011x539590.
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  - Stern, P. J. “Review of the Domination of Strangers: Modern Governance in Eastern India, 1780-1835 by Jon Wilson.” Reviews in History, September 2009.
  - Stern, P. J. “Review of Caribbean Exchanges: Slavery and the Transformation of English Society, by Susan Dwyer Amussen.” Social History, August 2009.
  - Stern, P. J. “Review of Britain’s Declining Empire: The Road to Decolonisation, 1918-1968, by Ronald Hyam.” Comparative Journal of South Asian, Middle Eastern, and African History, August 2009.
  - Stern, Philip J. “Caribbean Exchanges: Slavery and the Transformation of English Society, 1640–1700.” Social History. Informa UK Limited, August 2009. https://doi.org/10.1080/03071020902982020.
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  - Stern, Philip J. “Neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth: Early Modern Empire and Global History.” Huntington Library Quarterly, March 2009. https://doi.org/10.1525/hlq.2009.72.1.113.
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  - Stern, P. “Posmodern Gandhi and Other Essays; Gandhi in the World and at Home, by Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph.” Journal of British Studies, June 2007.
  - Stern, P. “The Global Eighteenth Century, edited by Felicity Nussbaum.” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 2007.
  - Stern, P. “Edge of Empire: Lives, Culture, and Conquest in the East, 1750-1850, by Maya Jasanoff.” William and Mary Quarterly, April 2006.
  - Stern, P. “Forging the Raj: Essays on British India in the Heyday of Empire, by Thomas R. Metcalf and The Lion and the Tiger: The Rise and Fall of the British Raj, by Denis Judd.” Victorian Studies, 2006.
  - Stern, P. “The English Gentleman Merchant at Work: Madras and the City of London 1660-1740 by Søren Mentz.” Journal of Economic History, December 2005.
- Digital Publications
  - Stern, P. J. “Atlantic Ocean and India.” Oxford University Press, 2013.
Teaching & Mentoring
Recent Courses
Scholarly, Clinical, & Service Activities
Presentations & Appearances
- Legal Geography and English Sovereignty: Bombay in the Later Seventeenth Century. April 26, 2013 2013
Outreach & Engaged Scholarship
- Bass Connections Team Leader. Mapping History: Seeing Premodern Cartography through GIS and Game Engines. 2020 - 2021 2020 - 2021
- Data+ Project Leader. Data+. 2020 2020
Service to Duke
- Bass Connections Faculty Advisory Council. 2021 - 2022 2021 - 2022
- Bass Connections Theme Leader (Information, Society & Culture). 2021 - 2022 2021 - 2022

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Education, Training, & Certifications

Previous Appointments & Affiliations

In the News

Awards & Honors

Global Scholarship

Expertise

Selected Grants

External Relationships

Selected Publications

Books

Academic Articles

Book Sections

Other Articles

Book Reviews

Digital Publications

Recent Courses

Presentations & Appearances

Outreach & Engaged Scholarship

Service to Duke