FARINA MIR The Social Space of Language Vernacular Culture in British Colonial Punjab ( South Asia Across the Disciplines Series ) In December 2002, it was announced that Farina Mir's dissertation titled 'The Social Space of Language' was joint winner of the Sardar Patel Dissertation Award for that year. The award is given to the best doctoral dissertation in modern Indian studies at any American university. ( Click here for more details. ) Now, confirming the stature and importance of Farina Mir's scholarship, comes the news that for the revised version of her dissertation, published jointly by Permanent Black and the University of California Press, she is the recipient of the prestigious American Historical Association's RICHARDS BOOK PRIZE for 2011 ( the prize commemorates the work of the historian John F. Richards ). Now, in early 2012, this book has won the Association for Asian Studies 2012 Bernard S. Cohn Book Prize, given for the best first bo