William R. Pinch

About

Consulting Editor of History and Theory
Professor of History, Wesleyan University

William R. Pinch is Professor of History at Wesleyan University and Consulting Editor of the journal History and Theory. His first book, Peasants and Monks in British India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), examined the intersecting social, cultural, and intellectual histories of caste and religious asceticism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with a particular focus on lineage claims and community histories. His second book, Warrior Ascetics and Indian Empires (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), sought to contextualize the life and career of the eighteenth-century Saiva warlord Anupgiri Gosain (“Himmat Bahadur”). He is the editor of Speaking of Peasants: Essays on Agrarian History and Politics in Honor of Walter Hauser (New Delhi: Manohar, 2008), and co-editor (with Ethan Kleinberg) of the theme issue History and Theory in a Global Frame (2015). Pinch’s current research and writing explores themes emanating from the explosion of “Mutiny” violence at Meerut in May of 1857. He is also finishing a joint translation of two long 18th-century Braj-bhasha (early Hindi) poems from Bundelkhand, with an eye toward both their historical content and historiographical significance.

Contact

Email: wpinch@wesleyan.edu