Rachel Hirsch studies the cultural history of early modern South Asia. Her research is geared towards understanding the construction of cities and gardens, theorizing urbanism and territoriality, and experimenting with new research methods. Rachel has spent the past several summers in Pune, Jaipur, Lucknow, and Burhanpur, where she has conducted fieldwork and studied Hindi and Persian. More recently, she has written on the construction of Burhanpur in the early seventeenth century and on the historiography of Islamic cities in South Asia.