Traversing the overlapping print worlds of Portuguese, Konkani and English, Rochelle Pinto has been studying how colonialism and its aftermath has shaped life in Goa and the larger Goan diaspora in Mumbai and beyond. In this interview with Murali Ranganathan, she looks back at her engagement with print history and its connection with politics and land
At what point of time in your career did you realize that you had evolved into a book/print historian from a professor of English literature? How did the evolution happen?
A Master’s degree at JNU opened up a world of different methodologies thanks to an extraordinary range of teachers who introduced us to nineteenth century writing in India and to theoretical questions about the history of literary studies both in England and in India. This led to questions about how the field of literature was shaped during colonial rule and after, and about the assumptions that underlay our use of the category literature. Amo