The American Institute of Indian Studies is pleased to announce that the following scholars and artists have been awarded fellowships to carry out their projects in India in 2008-2009:

 

Glenn Ames, a professor in the Department of History at the University of Toledo, was awarded a senior fellowship to carry out his project, “Slavery, Servitude and Manumission: The Structure and Role of Unfree Labor in Portuguese India, 1640-1700.”

 

Simone Barretta, a graduate student in the Department of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out her project, “Contestation and Appropriation in the Tantric Shaivism of Medieval Kashmir.”

 

Bernard Bate, an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at Yale University, was awarded a senior fellowship to carry out his project, “Speaking the Public Sphere: Tamil Oratory and Linguistic Modernity.” Professor Bate’s fellowship is being funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

 

Sarah Besky, a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out her project, “Distinguishing Darjeeling: An Ethnographic Study of Tea Brokerage in Kolkata.”

 

Anuj Bhuwania, a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out his project, “Everyday Policing and its Publics in Contemporary India.”

 

Lisa Bjorkman, a graduate student in the Department of Political Science at the New School University, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out her project, “Water, Power and Citizenship in Mumbai.” Ms Bjorkman is the seventh recipient of the Priscilla M. Boughton-Stanley Kochanek Graduate Fellowship in Indian Studies.

 

Allison Busch, an assistant professor in the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University, was awarded a senior fellowship to carry out her project, “The Poetry of History: Responses to Mughal Power in Early Modern Hindi Literature.” Professor Busch’s fellowship is being funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

 

Bradley Chase, an archaeologist, was awarded a senior short-term fellowship to carry out his project, “Investigating the Economic Organization of the Indus Civilization in Gujarat.”

 

Prachi Deshpande, an assistant professor in the Department of History at the University of California, Berkeley, was awarded a senior fellowship to carry out her project, “Itinerant Geographies: Maratha Migration, Homeland and Expansion, 1750-1900.” Professor Deshpande’s fellowship is being funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

 

Sara Dickey, a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Bowdoin College, was awarded a senior short-term fellowship to carry out her project, “Cinema, Consumption, and Class in Neoliberal India: Producing the Media of Tamil Cinema.”

 

David DiValerio, a graduate student in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out his project, “Overturning Norms: A New Approach to Buddhist “Madmen.”

 

Eric Eide, a graduate student in the Department of Sociology at the University of Michigan, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out his project, “Industrial Upgrading in India's Information Technology Enabled Service Industry.”

 

Maura Finkelstein, a graduate student in the Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology at Stanford University, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out her project, “Spinning Histories of the Future: Memory, Materiality and the Making of Mill Lands in Central Mumbai.”

 

Michele Friedner, a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out her project, “Focus on Which Family?: Deaf Identity and Social Movements in India.”

 

Durba Ghosh, an assistant professor in the Department of History at Cornell University, was awarded a senior fellowship to carry out his project, “Revolutionaries and Freedom Fighters: Nationalism in Bengal in the 20th Century.”

 

Akhil Gupta, a professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles, was awarded a senior fellowship to carry out his project, “Refashioning Selves, Reimagining Futures: Media and Mobility in Call Centers.”

 

Trisha Gupta, a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out her project, “A Historic Capital for A Historic Nation: Siting Urban Heritage in Post-Colonial Delhi.”

 

Ehud Halperin, a graduate student in the Department of Religion at Columbia University, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out his project, “Hadimba Becoming Herself: A Himalayan Goddess in Change.”

 

John Hawley, a professor in the Department of Religion at Columbia University, was awarded a senior short-term fellowship to carry out his project, “The Bhakti Movement: Excavations in a Master Narrative.”

 

Tiffany Hodge, a graduate student in the Graduate Division of Religion at Emory University, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out her project, “Piety in Practice: Seeking Out Religious Authority in Rural West Bengal.”

  

Risha Lee, a graduate student in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out her project, “Tamil Merchant Temples in India and China.”

 

Purnima Mankekar, an associate professor in the Department of Women’s Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, was awarded a senior fellowship to carry out her project, “Refashioning Selves, Re-imagining Futures: Media and Mobility in Call Centers.”

  

Karline McLain, an assistant professor in the Department of Religion at Bucknell University, was awarded a senior short-term fellowship to carry out her project, “Envisioning Hinduism: Beyond Raja Ravi Varma's Visual Canon.”

 

Lisa Mitchell, an assistant professor in the Department of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, was awarded a senior fellowship to carry out her project, “A Social History of the Indian Railway Station as Public Space.”

 

Sudeshna Mitra, a graduate student in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out her project, “Reshaping Urban India for the IT Sector: Case Study Kolkata, Hyderabad.”

 

Janaki Patrik, a dancer, was awarded a performing/creative arts fellowship to carry out her project, “Study of Syllabi and Curricula in Teaching Kathak: Study of Contemporary Kathak Choreography in Performance.”

 

Gregory Possehl, a professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, was awarded a senior short-term fellowship to carry out his project, “The Biography of Charles Masson.”

 

Ramnarayan Rawat, a teaching fellow in the Department of South Asian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, was awarded a senior fellowship to carry out his project, “The Dalit Public Sphere.”

 

Rashmi Sadana, a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University, was awarded a senior fellowship to carry out her project, “The Delhi Metro: An Ethnography of the ‘New’ India.”

 

Jennifer Saunders, an assistant professor in the Department of Religion at Denison University, was awarded a senior short-term fellowship to carry out her project, "Living Bhajans: Transmission, Migration, and Gender."

 

Juned Noor Shaikh, a graduate student in the Department of History at the University of Washington, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out his project, “Dalits and the City: Work, Identity and Cultural Politics of Untouchables in Mumbai, 1898-1988.”

 

Aradhana Sharma, an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at Wesleyan University, was awarded a senior short-term fellowship to carry out her project, “The Cultural Life of the Common Man: Imagining Statehood, Citizenship and Democracy in India.”

 

Pushkar Sohoni, a graduate student in the Department of History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out his project, “Between Greater Kingdoms: Ahmadnagar and the Centrality of Boundaries.”

 

Valerie Stoker, an assistant professor in the Department of Religion at Wright State University, was awarded a senior short-term fellowship to carry out her project, “Polemics and Patronage: Vyasatirtha as Krishnadevaraya's Guru.”

 

Daniel Malinowski Stuart, a graduate student in the Group in Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out his project, “Text, Path, and Practice: Meditation Theory and Community Imperatives in Indian Buddhism.”

 

Aaron Ullrey, a graduate student in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out his project, “Tantric Transmissions.”

 

Vazira Zamindar, an assistant professor in the Department of History at Brown University, was awarded a senior short-term fellowship to carry out her project, “Ruined Histories: Archaeology, Islam and the Making of Gandhara Art in Modern South Asia.”