Teotónio de Souza
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Teotónio Rosário de Souza (18 February 1947 – 20 February 2019) was a
Goan Goans ( kok, गोंयकार, Romi Konkani: , pt, Goeses) is the demonym used to describe the people native to Goa, India, who form an ethno-linguistic group resulting from the assimilation of Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Indo-Portuguese, and ...
historian and the founder-director of the Goa-based
Xavier Centre of Historical Research The Xavier Centre of Historical Research is a Jesuit history research centre located in Alto Porvorim, Goa in India. It was founded in the late 1970s and its first director was John Correia Afonso SJ. After John Correia Afonso, Dr. Teotonio R. de ...
(XCHR), at
Alto Porvorim The musical term alto, meaning "high" in Italian ( Latin: '' altus''), historically refers to the contrapuntal part higher than the tenor and its associated vocal range. In 4-part voice leading alto is the second-highest part, sung in choru ...
. Based in Portugal since 1995, de Souza was Head and chair, Department of History in the Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias from 1999 to 2014. He has been a fellow of the Portuguese Academy of History since 1983, and of the
Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa The Lisbon Geographic Society (Portuguese: ''Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa'') is a Portuguese scientific society created in Lisbon in the year of 1875, aiming to "promote and assist the study and progress of geography and related sciences in P ...
since 2000.


Personal life

Of
Goan Catholic Goan Catholics ( gom, Goenchem Katholik) are an ethno-religious community of Indian Christians following the Roman Rite of worship from the Goa state, in the southern part of the Konkan region along the west coast of India. They are Konkani peo ...
origin, de Souza was born in the village of Moira, Goa in the Bardez taluka of Goa. He belonged to the fifth vangodd (clan) of the village and is the 12th generation descendant of Shantappa Kamat, a
Goud Saraswat Brahmin Gaud Saraswat Brahmins (GSB) (also Goud or Gawd) are a Hindu Brahmin community of the north. The Konkani speaking Gaud Saraswat of Goa and southern India claim to be descendents of these Gaud Saraswat Brahmins of the north that migrated to K ...
who became Diogo de Souza after his conversion to Christianity in 1618. Teotónio de Souza was educated mostly in Goa during Portuguese colonial rule. He belonged to the Goan
Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...
s for twenty-six years. He left the priesthood in 1995, with dispensation for laicisation from the Holy See so that he could marry a Portuguese woman named Elvira. He was awarded Portuguese nationality in 1995 and was granted
Overseas Citizenship of India Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) is a form of permanent residency available to people of Indian origin and their spouses which allows them to live and work in India indefinitely. Despite its name, OCI status is not citizenship and does not gr ...
(OCI) by the Government of India in 2007. On 20 February 2019, de Souza died in
Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...
.


Career


In History

In 1979, Teotónio de Souza wrote his
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...
thesis, ''Medieval Goa: A Socio-Economic History.'' It challenged the view that Portuguese rule in South Asia resulted in overall prosperity in Goa in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. His work claimed that "Golden Goa" was an expression popularised by art historians, with reference to the
baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
church architecture of the early centuries of the Portuguese rule. de Souza was the author and editor of many books and research papers, in both Portuguese and English. His partial memoirs are penned in a book, titled ''Goa To Me''. His favourite area of research includes colonial and post-colonial themes, with particular reference to Portuguese in Asia. His authority in this field has at times been hijacked by people stealing his identity on the Internet. An article entitled "The Goa Inquisition", attributes its authorship to him, on a US-based website called ''Christianaggression,'' in 2005. It has since been cited by other communal sites. On his 60th birthday, de Souza was felicitated with a festschrift titled, ''Metahistory: History questioning History'', containing personal tributes and 43 research papers contributed by historians and social scientists from the world over. The Lusophone University of Lisbon awarded him its Gold Medal of Merit on the same occasion, in recognition of his research, teaching, and critical appreciation and promotion of
Lusophony Lusophones ( pt, Lusófonos) are peoples that speak Portuguese as a native or as common second language and nations where Portuguese features prominently in society. Comprising an estimated 270 million people spread across 10 sovereign countries a ...
. A firm believer in the power of web since the early 70s, and a defender of digitalization of historical sources, he founded, in partnership with the Goan free-lance journalist Frederick Noronha, the ''Goa-Research-Net'' in 1997, initially hosted in the ''Goanet'' server, and since 2005 on Yahoo! Groups. It also has branches on Facebook and on Mendeley, since May 2017. Since November 2008, Teotónio R. de Souza has continually been a columnist to the Goan daily ''Herald,'' in a section which seeks to link Goa and Portugal, in the past and present. Since 2012, he has written
Op-ed An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page", is a written prose piece, typically published by a North-American newspaper or magazine, which expresses the opinion of an author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial board. O ...
columns for ''The Goan Everyday.'' He also writes for the ''Goan Observer '' and, since April 2018, runs a column for a Portuguese digital newspaper,'' Pátria ''. Many of his writings may be consulted online at Academia.edu, Scribd,
ResearchGate ResearchGate is a European commercial social networking site for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators. According to a 2014 study by ''Nature'' and a 2016 article in ''Times Higher Education'' ...
, and the ReCil Lusófona - the online scientific repository of the Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, Lisboa. His book ''Goa: Outgrowing Postcolonialism - Historical Explorations (1961-2014),'' is a cultural-historical analysis of the evolution of Goa since its
Liberation Liberation or liberate may refer to: Film and television * ''Liberation'' (film series), a 1970–1971 series about the Great Patriotic War * "Liberation" (''The Flash''), a TV episode * "Liberation" (''K-9''), an episode Gaming * '' Liberati ...
.


Academic and research activities

Teotónio de Souza retired from October 2014 as Cathedratic professor of the Universidade Lusófona, after representing, since 1996, the interests of History teaching and research on the Scientific and Pedagogic Councils, of the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, Education and Administration of the Universidade Lusófona, as an ex-officio member. While acting as coordinator / Director of the MA and M.Phil. courses in History, he guided M.Phil. and Ph.D. researchers in Political Science and Diplomatic Relations, and directed a line of research related to "Colonial and Post-Colonial Societies", and Memories of CPES (Centro de Pesquisa e Estudos Sociais) of the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, Universidade Lusófona, Lisboa. He was Director-Editor of the Journal of ACSEL (Associação dos Cientistas Sociais do Espaço Lusófono) and continued to help as Chief-Editor of the Journal FLUXOS E RISCOS - Revista de Estudos Sociais, that published the research findings of CPES (Centre for Social Research and Studies). He was also a Member of the editorial board of the Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Souza, Teotonio de 1947 births 2019 deaths Scholars from Goa Indian Roman Catholics Portuguese Roman Catholics 20th-century Indian historians 20th-century Portuguese historians Indian male writers Portuguese male writers Portuguese people of Goan descent People from North Goa district Savitribai Phule Pune University alumni 20th-century Portuguese writers 21st-century Portuguese historians