Mr. Christopher Leo Chacon is a sixth year History PhD candidate at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) and works on early twentieth century Hindu political thought under his doctoral advisor, Dr. Vinayak Chaturvedi. Specifically, he is interested in how Hindu anticolonialism and intellectualism fostered innovative conceptions of history and social reform during the last decades of colonial India as well as for the global Indian community. He is a California State University Chancellor’s Doctoral Incentive Program scholar and has received numerous awards for writing and research. He was an AIIS Language fellow in 2018-2019 and studied Hindi in Jaipur, India. He was also the 2016 Southern California Regional Conference of Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society Best Graduate Paper Award recipient for their world history category.
Mr. Chacon enjoys facilitating discussions on history as a Teaching Assistant, a position he has held since 2017. While at UCI, he has guest lectured on topics ranging from ancient world history to Indian religions. A native of Orange County, he received his bachelor’s degree in Anthropology, History, and Religious Studies and his master’s degree in History from California State University, Fullerton in 2013 and 2016 respectively. While speaking on behalf of his graduating class in 2013, Mr. Chacon underscored his belief in a holistic approach to the humanities as well as dedicated himself to mentoring future young scholars as he began his graduate career. He has kept that promise by pursuing several certificate programs at his university centered on mentorship and currently leads a writing group for his department. Mr. Chacon will graduate in 2023 and, after completing his Mellon postdoctoral teaching appointment at UCI, pursue a career in either academics or the federal government. He will be the first in his family to receive a PhD. In his spare time, he enjoys watching films and bowling with family and friends.
Mr. Chacon’s Fulbright-Nehru project is an investigation into the transnational works of Lajpat Rai and Bhai Parmanand in order to reconstruct of one of the most consequential and influential sociopolitical movements of the 20th century—Hindu intellectualism. Through the lens of the relatively new and innovative field of global intellectual history, Mr. Chacon focuses on the writings of Parmanand and Rai so as to argue that their ideas were essential to the development of global Hindu intellectualism. Mr. Chacon has compiled evidence that strongly suggests their transnational experiences shaped Hindu intellectualism, which in turn contributed to worldbuilding before and after independence.