Sunaina Danziger

Position
Graduate Student
Bio/Description

Sunaina Danziger is a third-year PhD candidate with broad interests in global intellectual history, the comparative history of empire, and tensions between nationalism and internationalism in the twentieth century.

Sunaina’s dissertation is a global history of the interwar period. She uses intelligence, spying, and rising discourse around “security” to understand how subjectivity and the psyche operate within a volatile global order. Her work also engages with questions of time/temporality and modernism.

Sunaina received her BA in History from Harvard College. Her senior thesis—awarded the Philip Washburn Prize for best thesis on a historical subject and Thomas T. Hoopes Prize for outstanding scholarly work—explored how US recruitment of former Nazi scientific, military, and intelligence personnel contributed to the rhetorical and ideological construction of the “West” between 1945 and 1949.

In May 2024, Sunaina passed her general examinations at Princeton with distinction, with fields in Modern Global History, Modern South Asia, and Modern Central Europe.

Before beginning graduate studies, Sunaina worked as an editor and foreign-policy researcher in Washington, DC. She co-organizes the Global History Workshop for the 2024-2025 academic year.

Year of Study
Third Year
Adviser
Area of Interest
Colonialism & Postcolonialism
Communism
Diplomatic History
Fascism
Foreign Relations
Global
Imperial History
Intellectual History
Internationalism
Literary Studies
Political History
Theory of History
Home Department & Other Affiliations
History
Period
19th Century
20th Century