Global Studies University is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Dale Luis Menezes as Assistant Professor of History and inaugural faculty member of The Asia Institute, which is currently in the process of being established. The Asia Institute will be the University’s second academic institute, following The Africa Institute, and reflects its continued development in interdisciplinary global studies.
Inaugural Faculty Appointment
Dr. Menezes is a historian of early modern South Asia and the Indian Ocean world, with a particular focus on Goa and the Iberian presence in Asia. His research examines how agrarian communities engaged in coconut and rice cultivation shaped imperial formations between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries, with attention to labor, commodity production, and regional knowledge systems.
He holds a Ph.D. in History from Georgetown University. His doctoral dissertation, Four Hundred Monsoons of Coconuts and Rice: The Small and Big People Who Made the Empire in the Indian Ocean, 1517–1910, explored the role of staple crops and laboring communities in empire-making across the Indian Ocean world. Dr. Menezes is also a contributor to the European Research Council–funded project India’s Politics in its Vernacular, which brings together scholars working across seventeen Indian languages.
Once established, The Asia Institute is envisioned as a hub for the study of Asia in a global context, advancing research that bridges histories, economies, languages, and cultures from the Indian Ocean to the Arabian Gulf and beyond. The Institute plans to host its inaugural conference “Global Asia: The State of Asian Studies in the 21st Century” in Fall 2026, alongside the formation of its Advisory Board, recruitment of additional faculty, and development of its academic programs and research agenda.
The appointment of Dr. Menezes represents the first step in building The Asia Institute’s academic community and advancing Global Studies University’s commitment to locally grounded, globally relevant scholarship.