ON THURS EVENING AT PORVORIM: AT HOME IN BOMBAY: READING KONKANI .... FN
>From her base outside Goa, Rochelle Pinto takes her work seriously and digs into rare and little-known aspects of Goa's past and its history. Her areas of interest and specialisation include Portuguese colonialism, land laws and property rights, the nineteenth century novel, and the history of Goa. Recently, she shared that she has written an article on Goans and anthropometry. Besides, she has also gathered material on early newspapers in Goa. In 'A Time to Publish: Pamphlets and Politics in Colonial Goa', Pinto "discusses two sets of pamphlets that appeared towards the end of the 19th century in colonial Goa, in an attempt to show how precedents and norms established by European print were not exactly reproduced in the colony." She goes on to argue that the function of print and the genre of pamphlets, in particular, were altered by class difference, caste hierarchies and the context in which rural and urban politics functioned in Goa. See http://marthoman.tv/Brahmavar/alvares.pdf Her book (OUP, 2007) also looked at print and its relationship with colonial Goa. This is what historian Teotonio R de Souza wrote in a review of Pinto's work: *Between Empires: Print and Politics in Goa* is one book where a reader can gulp in a wealth of information about the various genres of print production by Goans in Portuguese, Konkani and Marathi. It includes a detailed analysis of a couple of novels in Portuguese (Os Brahmanes and Jacob e Dulce ) and one in Konkani (Battcara), revealing the impact of the print as an aid to self-representation and social contestation by different social groups. The author is a promising scholar of her generation in Goa, writing both in the mainstream press and academic journals. No criticism in this review, however harsh it may sound, takes away any merit from this young scholar who has shown extraordinary ability to absorb so much in so many languages in such a short span of time. http://bit.ly/rochelle-pinto On Thursday evening (tomorrow, March 26, 2015 at 5 pm) she will be speaking on 'At home in Bombay: Reading Konkani Newsprint' at the Xavier Centre of Historical Research's History Hour. The event is held almost monthly at Alto Porvorim. Pinto argues that "the early years of Konkani newsprint in Bombay are the years during which language was thrust in the role of furnishing a modern subject." As she puts it: This phenomenon was achieved as speakers renegotiated their pace in language, by positing their language/speech (amchi bhas) as something that could be talked about but only as one’s own, as a place to which the speaker already belonged. It was what allowed them to hurl it in defiance against the censorious comments of those who wrote in Portuguese, and it also allowed them to turn it to good use, producing print that escorted a community through the rites of modernity and assisted its entry into new kinds of employment, new homes and new kinds of time. Dr. Rochelle Pinto is a visiting Fellow at the Centre for the study of Developing Societies (CSDS). She has taught at the University of Delhi and at the Centre for the study of Culture and Society, Bangalore. She has a PhD from the SOAS, the School of Oriental and African Studies, in the UK. More details about the organisers or the event via XCHR at B B Borkar Road, Alto Porvorim, Goa – 403521 Ph +91-832-2417772, 2414971 e:i...@xchr.in http://www.xchr.in/ http://www.facebook.com/xchr.goa
