Mitra Sharafi

Evjue-Bascom Professor of Law

Pronouns: she/her

Contact

mitra.sharafi@wisc.edu
+16082658428
Room 6112, Law School

Curriculum Vitae

Websites:
Mitra Sharafi's South Asian Legal History Resources

@mjsharafi

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Education

PhD (History), Princeton University (2006)
BCL (Law), Oxford University (1999)
BA (Law), Cambridge University (1998)
BA (History), McGill University (1996)

Biography

Mitra Sharafi is a legal historian whose research focuses on South Asia. She holds law degrees from Cambridge and Oxford (the UK equivalent of a JD and LLM) and history degrees from McGill (BA) and Princeton (PhD). Her first book, Law and Identity in Colonial South Asia: Parsi Legal Culture, 1772-1947 won the Law and Society Association’s 2015 Hurst Prize. She is completing her second book manuscript, provisionally entitled, Fear of the False: Forensic Science and the Law of Crime in Colonial South Asia. Her next major project will explore the world of non-European law students from across the British empire (and globe) who came to London's Inns of Court to become barristers, 1860s-1960s. Sharafi has published articles on the history of abortion, blood-stain testing, forum-shopping for divorce, the legal profession, constitutionalism and the rule of law, and slavery. Future articles will examine the role of scientific experts in criminal trials, and the history of law books and publishing. Her research has been funded by the American Council of Learned Societies, Institute for Advanced Study, Mellon Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Science Foundation, Romnes Faculty Fellowship, Shelby Cullom Davis Center, and Social Science Research Council.

Sharafi teaches Contracts I at the UW Law School, along with undergraduate courses in Legal Studies and History. She is the recipient of campus awards for her teaching and mentoring.

Mitra Sharafi is president-elect of the American Society for Legal History.

She has hosted the South Asian Legal History Resources website since 2010.

Scholarship & Publications

SSRN

Law Repository

Activities

Mitra Sharafi presented "False Evidence in Colonial South Asia: Planted Animal Blood in Murder and Rape Cases" virtually during the "Fake, Fraud, Counterfeit--Fraud as a Way of Knowing in Modernity" international workshop in Ashoka University, India, on Sept. 15, 2025.
Mitra Sharafi was a commentator on the book panel "Rohit De and Ornit Shani, Assembling India's Constitution: A New Democratic History (Cambridge University Press, 2025)" at the 5th Asian Legal History Conference in Kyoto, Japan, on August 1, 2025.
Mitra Sharafi presented "The Global Travels of K. J. Rustomji's Law Books" at the 5th Asian Legal History Conference in Kyoto, Japan, on August 1, 2025.
Mitra Sharafi was interviewed for "Scholars in Conversation: Professor Mitra Sharafi with Assistant Professor Kunal Ambasta," now available on the National Law School of India University Blog on July 30, 2025. The interview was a follow-up to Sharafi's keynote address at the "Contours of Legal History in India" workshop in Bangalore, India, in March. Read more.
Mitra Sharafi presented "Studying Secrets in the Legal History of Empire" as a keynote lecture for the Legal Histories of Empire 2025: Empires in Touch conference in Toronto, Canada, on July 11, 2025. She discussed the ethical and methodological challenges of discovering secrets when doing historical research and interacting with descendants, based on the past 25 years of her own research on legal history in colonial South Asia.
Mitra Sharafi presented "Fear of the False: Forensic Science and the Law of Crime in Colonial South Asia" at Queen's University Department of History seminar series on Feb. 27, 2025. The talk reflects her upcoming book of the same name, to be published by Cornell University Press in 2026.
Mitra Sharafi presented the keynote, "Fear of the False: Forensic Science and the Law of Crime in Colonial South Asia," at the "Contours of Legal History in India" workshop hosted by the National Law School of India, Bengaluru, on March 27, 2025.
Mitra Sharafi was awarded the 2023 Indian Law Review Best Article Prize for her article "Indian constitutionalism, the rule of law, and Parsi legal culture" on Jan. 4, 2025.
Mitra Sharafi published "South Asians at the Inns of Court: Empire, Expulsion, and Redemption circa 1900" in "In Between And Across: Legal History Without Boundaries," edited by Kenneth W. Mack and Jacob Katz Cogan and published by Oxford University Press in October 2024.
Mitra Sharafi presented "Death Investigation in Bombay: A Tale of Three Coroners, 1776-1976" during the 4th Asian Legal History Conference in Hue, Vietnam, July 25, 2024. The talk related to Sharafi's current book project on forensic science in colonial India and her undergrad Legal Studies teaching on the history of forensic science (including on the coroner system in Wisconsin).
Mitra Sharafi presented "Trial by Certificate: Government Scientific Experts and India's Criminal Procedure Code s.293" during a Berkeley Legal History Workshop on Feb. 20, 2024, and during an ABF-Northwestern Legal History Colloquium on March 15, 2024. The article, a spin-off from Sharafi's book project, aims to convince judges in India to cross-examine scientific experts more via video-conferencing.
Mitra Sharafi was named president-elect of the American Society for Legal History (ASLH) during the awards ceremony of the 2023 ASLH annual meeting in Philadelphia on Oct. 28, 2023. Sharafi will be president-elect of the ASLH in 2023-25 and will be president in 2025-27.
Mitra Sharafi presented "Falsity and Forensic Science in South Asian Legal History" on June 20, 2023. This keynote adress, based on the book manuscript Sharafi is completing, was given during the 3rd Annual Asian Legal History Conference hosted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Mitra Sharafi was awarded a 2022 Slesinger Award for Excellence in Mentoring by University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Women, Trans and Nonbinary Faculty Mentoring Program Advisory Committee. Twelve UW faculty members were nominated. Of these, three received the award.
Mitra Sharafi presented "Fear of the False in Colonial South Asia" during the Max Planck Institute for Legal History-Tel Aviv University Law: Transnational Legal History Workshop on Nov. 22, 2022. The presentation was the introduction to Sharafi's book manuscript on the history of forensic science.