William R. Pinch specializes in the history of South Asia, especially India. His work engages themes in historical representation, asceticism, military conflict, and power. Pinch’s 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 asceticism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with a focus on lineage claims and community histories. His second book, Warrior Ascetics and Indian Empires (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), contextualizes the life and career of the enigmatic eighteenth-century Saiva warlord Anupgiri Gosain (“Himmat Bahadur”) in the long history and culture of Indian warrior asceticism. Pinch is the editor of the festschrift 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 in 1857. He is also finishing a joint translation and analysis of two long 18th-century Braj-bhasha (early Hindi) poems from Bundelkhand, with an eye toward their historical content and historiographical significance.
Professor of History
