Rochelle Pinto
Areas of Interest & Expertise
- Colonial Novel and Ethnography
- Nineteenth-century History of Goa
- History of Print in India
- Iberian Colonialism
- Origin Narratives and Claims on Land
- Theories of Time and History
Biography
Rochelle Pinto received her doctorate degree from the Department of Languages and Cultures of South Asia at School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) University of London. Her primary academic training was at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi where she received a Master of Arts (MA) degree in English. She has a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in English from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. She also has a diploma in Social Communication and Media from Sophia Polytechnic, Mumbai.
Her research interests draw on historical and literary studies, with a specific focus on Iberian colonial rule in Goa. Her doctoral work was on the nature of print production and colonial rule in nineteenth-century Goa.
Most recently, her work has explored the role of origin narratives in claims on land in Goa. A linked research interest is the hold of ethnography as a master narrative in the colonial novel in India, and its significance for literary history.
Prior to joining Azim Premji University, she was a research fellow at L’Institut d’Études Avancées de Nantes (2019 – 2020), the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML), New Delhi (2015 – 2017), and the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi (2014 – 2015). She taught English at Delhi University, and at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), Bengaluru, where she co-directed a project, ‘Archive and Access’, between 2009 and 2011.
She was a member of the project Pensando Goa – uma peculiar biblioteca de língua portuguesa based in the Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil, and O Grupo Internacional de Estudos da Imprensa Periódica Colonial do Império Português on the periodical press in Portuguese colonies.
Her recent book, Translation, script and orality: Becoming a Language of State, is an edited anthology on discourses around script and translation in Konkani, published by Orient BlackSwan Pvt. Ltd. in 2021.
Her book, Between Empires: Print and Politics in Goa, published by Oxford University Press received the Hira Lal Gupta research award at the Indian History Congress (2009) for the best book on Indian History by a woman author, published during the years 2004 – 2008.
Courses
Drama as Text and Performance
Students learn about the origins and categories of drama through ancient and contemporary texts and the conditions of production and reception of dramatic texts and performance.
Publications
Books
- Pinto, R. (Ed.). (2021). Translation, script and orality: Becoming a Language of State. Orient Blackswan Private Limited. https://orientblackswan.com/details?id=9789354420047
- Pinto, R. (2007). Between Empires: Print and politics in Goa. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195690477.001.0001
Book Chapters
- Pinto, R. (2020). Historians and their public. In M. Dodd, & N. Kalra (Eds.), Exploring Digital Humanities in India (pp.40 – 54). Routledge India.
- Pinto, R. (2019). Govinda Samanta, or eluding ethnography in the colonial novel. In B. Bhattacharya, & S. Sen (Eds.), Novel Formations (pp. 98 – 134). Permanent Black.
- Pinto, R. (2017). Settling the land: The village and the threat of capital in the novel in Goa. In S. Chaudhuri, J. McDonagh, B. H. Murray, & R.S. Rajan (Eds.), Commodities and Affect (pp.100 – 112). Routledge.
- Pinto, R. (2015). At Home in Bombay: Housing Konkani print. In A. Gupta, & S. Chakravorty (Eds.), Founts of Knowledge, Volume III, Book History in India (pp. 74 – 105). OrientBlackswan.
- Pinto, R. and Balachandran, A. (2011). Archives and the State. The Centre for Internet and Society. https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/archives-and-access/archives-and-access
- Pinto, R. (2010). Temporality and colonialism between Goa and Latin America. In M. Boatca and W. Spohn (Eds.), Globale, Multiple und Postkoloniale Modernen (pp. 263 – 284). Rainer Hampp Verlag.
- Pinto, R. (2010). A diffused history of race: The Portuguese presence in the Indian Ocean. In P. Gupta, I. Hofmeyr, & M. Pearson (Eds.), Eyes Across the Water: Navigating the Indian Ocean (pp. 238 – 257). UNISA Press.
- Pinto, R. (2009). Traveling Science: Anthropometry and colonialism in the Indian Ocean. In S. Moorthy & A. Jamal (Eds.), Indian Ocean Studies: Cultural, Social, and Political Perspectives (pp. 319 – 339). Routledge.
Journal Articles
- Pinto, R. (2018). The Foral in the history of the comunidades of Goa. Journal of World History, University of Hawai’i Press, 29(2), 185 – 212. https://doi.org/10.1353/jwh.2018.0020
- Pinto, R., Mendiratta, S.L., & Rossa, W. (2018). Reframing the nineteenth century. Dossier Portuguese Colonialism in Goa: Nineteenth-Century Perspectives. 93 – 112. https://doi.org/10.4000/rccs.7006
- Pinto, R. (2017). In keeping with character: Early encounters with ethnography inOs Brahamanes’. Via Atlântica. 1(30), 65 – 84. https://doi.org/10.11606/va.v0i30.121272
- Pinto, R. (2007). Race and imperial loss: Accounts of East Africa in Goa. South African Historical Journal, 57, 82 – 92. https://doi.org/10.1080/02582470709464710
- Pinto, R. (2005). A time to publish: Form and politics in pamphlets of colonial Goa. Economic and Political Weekly, 40(09), 877 – 884. https://www.epw.in/journal/2005/09/special-articles/time-publish.html
Book Reviews
- Pinto, R. (2018). [Review of the book The Empire of Apostles: Religion, Accommodatio, and the Imagination of Empire in Early Modern Brazil and India, by A. Chakravarti]. South Asian Studies, 34(2), 200 – 201. https://doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2018.1548822
- Pinto, R. (2016). [Review of the book Other Orientalisms: India between Florence and Bombay 1860 – 1900, by F.L. Vicente]. Raiot. https://raiot.in/other-orientalisms-from-florence-to-bombay/
- Pinto, R. (2006). [Review of the book Power in print: Popular Publishing and the Politics of Language and Culture in a Colonial Society, 1778 – 1905, by Anindita Ghosh]. Contribution to Indian Sociology. 40(3), 422 – 423.
Blog
- Balachandran, A., & Pinto, R. Archive and Access. www.publicarchives.wordpress.com