South Asian social, religious and cultural history; India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Indian Ocean

Email:  bellenoi@usna.edu
Phone: 410-293-6299

Education:

• D.Phil - Oxford University
• M.St. - Oxford University
• B.A. - Wheaton College

Research Interests:

Indian social, cultural, economic and religious history; History of Islam and Persian cultural influence & traditions in India; 18th century & the 'transition to colonialism'; Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism; India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal

Recent Publications:

‘Pen, paper and power between empires in north India, 1750-1850,’ South
Asian History & Culture, under review 

Review of Sanjay Seth, 'Educating subjects: The western education of colonial India', in Indian Economic and Social History Review, June 2009

Missionary Education and Empire in Late Colonial India, 1860-1920 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2007).

‘Missionary Education, Religion and Knowledge in India, c. 1880-1915’, Modern Asian Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 41:2, March 2007, pp. 373-398.

Book review of Manu Bhagavan, ‘Sovereign Spheres: Princes, Education and Empire in colonial India’, in Journal of the Oxford University History Society (Oxford) 2005

Current research:

Currently I am working on a book which explores 18^th and early 19^th century India, examining the transition between the Mughal and British empires in India. It explores how concepts of learning and Islamic traditions proto-bureaucracy and ‘communities of learning’ served to mould the emergence of the East India Company’s empire and its bureaucratic tendrils.

Current Projects:

'Religion, Law and Pedagogy: The politics of negotiating liberalism in India 1915-1950', co-authored with Dr Nandini Chatterjee, Plymouth University

Students, scribes and scholars: learning and community between empires, 1770-1870, anticipated completion 2014

Seminars and Conference Papers:

Lecture on India’s prospects for long-term economic development and global
standing, for the Asia Forum, 13 April 2011, US Naval Academy

‘The bureaucratic foundations of Empire in colonial India, 1770-1870’, Centre
for South Asian Studies, Cambridge University, 26 November 2010

‘Pens, paper and power between empires in India, 1770-1870’, Department
of History Lecture Series, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi, 23 July 2010

 ‘Students, saints and scholars: learning and community between empires in
India, 1770-1870’, 6^th Galway Conference on Colonialism, Galway University, Ireland, 24 June 2010

‘The Future of Afghanistan and Pakistan’, Annapolis Forum, Feb. 11, 2010 

‘Afghanistan, the Taliban and the US: Prospects for Stability’, Asia Forum, US Naval Academy, 6 November 2009

 ‘Whither Indian-Pakistani Rivalry?’, Asia Forum, US Naval Academy, 20 February 2009 

'India and the US relations for the 21st century', Asia Forum, US Naval Academy, 31 October 2008

'Islam, Hinduism, the public sphere and modernity in colonial India, 1850-1920', for 48th International Association of Historians of Asia (IAHA) Conference, New Delhi, India, November 2008

“Learning, Education and Knowledge in the Transition to Colonialism in India, c.1750-1850,” Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, 6 April 2008

"Pakistan, South Asia and the US after Benazir Bhutto", Asia Forum, US Naval Academy, 1 February 2008

 “Aesthetics, Education and the Environment in Colonial North India, c.1840-1940,” South Asia Seminar Series, St. Antony's College, Oxford, 29 May 2007

“Education and Indian Society in the Emergence of Modern Knowledge and Religions,” Imperial History Seminar, Kings College, University of London, 16 October 2006

“Education and Indian Secularism in Colonial India,” panel with Professor C.A. Bayly, N. Chatterjee, Religion and the Public Sphere in Colonial India, 74th Annual Anglo-American Conference of Historians, Institute of Historical Research, London, 7 July 2005

“Education, Religion and "Colonial Knowledge" in North India c.1880-1915,” Centre for South Asian Studies, Edinburgh University, 17 March 2004

“Missionary Education, Knowledge and North Indian Society, c.1880-1915,” panel organizer for Colonial Knowledge and Empire, 20th Annual South Asian Studies Conference, University of California at Berkeley, 11-12 February 2005

“Education, Religion and Colonial Knowledge in North India c.1880-1915,” to South Asian Seminar Series, St. Antony's College, Oxford University, 16 November 2004

“Religion, Education and Colonial knowledge in North India, c.1880-1915,” Centre for South Asian Studies, Cambridge University, 3 November 2004

“The Indian Mutiny of 1857: Revolution or Re-evaluation?” South Asian Studies Seminar, Oxford University, 28 February 2002

Research Languages:

Hindi (written, advanced; intermediate, oral)

Urdu (intermediate, oral and written)

Farsi (written, intermediate; oral, intermediate)

English (fluent, oral and written)