South Asian social, religious and cultural history;
India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Indian Ocean
Email:
bellenoi@usna.edu
Phone: 410-293-6299
Education:
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D.Phil - Oxford University
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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 18th
and early 19th
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’, 6th 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)
French (intermediate, oral and written).