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Bhaswati Bhattacharya

1958 –
Modern history
South Asia, Bengal

Curriculum vitae

1958born in Kharagpur (West-Bengal) on January 26
1982MA modern history, Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan
1983-1984B.Ed. course, Calcutta University
1985-1989PhD reserach at Visva Bharati and National Archives in The Hague
1990-1991guest lecturer, department of history, Vidyasagar University, West Bengal
1993PhD degree at Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan
1993-1994post-doctoral fellow, International Institute of Asian Studies, Leiden
1994-1995translation project, the International Centre for Bengal Studies
1995-2000project of Leiden University and the Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi
2000-2001affiliated fellow, Centre for Studies in Social Science, Kolkata
2001-2003lecturer (part time), Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata
2002-2004post-doctoral research fellow, Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi
2003-2004research fellow, Department of South Asian Studies, Leiden University.
2004-2005project fellow, Department of Asian Languages, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam
2006-2009project fellow and part-time lecturer, Leiden University
2008-2009lecturer (part time), Erasmus University, Rotterdam
2007-2010project co-ordinator, Plants, People and Work, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam
2010-presentThyssen Foundation fellow, Center for Modern Asian Studies at Göttingen University

Special activities and positions

  • Member of the European Association of Modern South Asian Studies
  • Member of the European Social Science and History Conference
  • Member of the Indian History Congress
  • Review editor of the Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 2005-10

Sources

Publications

1989 Review of: S. Arasaratnam, Merchants, companies and commerce on the Coromandel coast, 1650-1740, Delhi 1986. Itinerario 13,2: 123-127.
1993  The Dutch East India Company and the Coromandel Coast 1740-1780: a story of its decline. – Unpublished PhD thesis Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan.
1994  “The textile trade of the Dutch East India Company on the Coromandel coast, 1730-1780.” International Institute of Asian Studies Year Book 1994: 187-206.
1995  “The Bay of Bengal, seminar 16-20 December 1994, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi,” IIAS Newsletter 5.
– “The Dutch East India Company and the trade of the Chulias in the Bay of Bengal in the late 18th century.” In: K.S. Mathew (ed.), Mariners, merchants and oceans: studies in maritime history, New Delhi, pp. 347-361.
1996  Transl. Shunya-garbha company: Banglay Belgiamer aini ebong be-aini banijya (J. Parmentier’s De holle compagnie: smokkel- en legale handel van de Zuid-Nederlanders in Begalen, 1720-44, transl. from Dutch into Bengali with an introduction), Dhaka, 118 p.
– “Porto Novo and the shipping in the Bay of Bengal in the mid-18th century.” In: J. Everaert and J. Parmentier (eds), Shipping, factories and colonization, Brussels.
– “A note on shipbuilding in Bengal in the late eighteenth century.” Itinerario 19,3: 167-174.
1998  “The hinterland and the coast: the pattern of interaction in Coromandel in the late eighteenth-century.” In: Rudrangshu Mukherjee and Lakshmi Subramanian (eds), Politics and trade in the Indian Ocean world: essays in honour of Ashin Das Gupta, Delhi [etc.]: Oxford University Press, pp. 19-51.
1999  “The Chulia merchants of southern Coromandel in the eighteenth century: a case of continuity.” In: O. Prakash and D. Lombard (eds), Commerce and culture in the Bay of Bengal: 1500-1800, Delhi, pp. 285-305.
– Review of: G. Knaap, Shallow waters, rising tide: shipping and trade in Java around 1775, Leiden: KITLV 1996. Itinerario
2001  “Nagapatnam and the commercial revolution in the Bay of Bengal.” In: J. Parmentier and S. Spanoghe (eds), Orbis in orbem: liber amicorum John Everaert, Gent, pp. 77-90.
– Review of: Vahe Baladouni and Margaret Makepeace (eds), Armenian merchants of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries: English East India Company sources, Philadelphia, [PA] 1998. JESHO 44,2: 234-237.
– Review of: Hugo K. s’Jacob, The Rajas of Cochin, 1663-1720: kings, chiefs and the Dutch East India Company, New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal 2000. Itinerario 22: 146-148.
2002  “Commerce in the Bay of Bengal in the 18th century.” Indian Association of Asian and Pacific Studies, Lecture Programmes I to IV, 2002: 33-44.
– Review of: Jos Gommans, Lennart Bes and Gijs Kruijtzer, Dutch Sources on South Asia c. 1600-1825, vol. 1: Bibliography and Archival Guide to the National Archives at the Hague (The Netherlands), New Delhi 2001. JESHO 45,3: 412-414.
2003  “Between fact and fictions: Khoja Gregory alias Gurgin Khan, the “Evil Genius” of Mir Qasim.” In: Jos Gommans & Om Prakash (eds), Circumambulations in South Asian history : essays in honour of Dirk H.A. Kolff, Leiden [etc.] (Brill’s indological library 19), pp. 133-158.
2005  “Armenian European relationship in India, 1500-1800: no Armenian foundation for European empire?” JESHO 48,2: 277-322.
2007  & Gita Dharampal-Frick and Jos Gommans, “Spatial and temporal continuities of merchant networks in South Asia and the Indian Ocean (1500-2000).” JESHO 50,2/3: 91-105.
2008  “Bhuj: a little-known corner of Dutch heritage in India.” In: [Neelam D. Sabharwal, ambassador of India, ed.], Changing images: lasting visions: India and the Netherlands [collection of 35 essays published on the occasion of 400 years of Indo-Dutch relations] , Amsterdam: Nieuw Amsterdam, pp. 59-62.
– “The book of will of Petrus Woskan (1680-1751): some insights into the global commercial network of the Armenians in the Indian Ocean.” JESHO 51,1: 67-98.
– “Making money at the blessed place of Manila: Armenians in the Madras-Manila trade in the eighteenth century.” Journal of Global History 3,1: 1-20.
2010  “Mutual heritage of the Low Countries and South Asia [review article of two books pertaining to Dutch sources on South Asia, especially India, from the 1600s in particular].” JESHO 53,4: 653-660.
2014  “Local history of a global commodity: production of coffee in Mysore and Coorg in the nineteenth century.” Indian Historical Review 41,1: 67-86.
– & Alied de Cock, Hanneke ’t Hart, Dory Heilijgers (red.), ‘Mijn Reis in India’, de dagboeken en foto’s van Jan Kornelis de Cock in India en Sri Lanka, 1909-1910, met een inleiding door Bhaswati Bhattacharya, Leiden-Groningen (Kern Institute Miscellanea 14).
2017“Smallholdings versus European plantations: the beginnings of coffee in nineteenth-century Mysore (India).” In: Willem van Schendel (ed.), Embedding agricultural commodities, using historical evidence, 1840s-1940s, London [etc.]: Routledge, pp. 55-77.
–Much ado over coffee: Indian Coffee House, then and now. New Delhi: Social Science Press.
2021& Henrike Donner (eds), Globalising everyday consumption in India : history and ethnography. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge. Online resource.