AIIS gratefully acknowledges the generosity of colleagues who contributed to our 60th Anniversary Campaign (their names are listed below the announcement of the upcoming fellows). These contributions enabled AIIS to award three additional junior fellowships to non-U.S. citizens (for whom funding is otherwise limited) for 2022-24. These additional funds were especially welcome this year, as AIIS received the largest number of applications for its November 2021 fellowship competition than for any other competition.
The Following Scholars have been Awarded Fellowships to Carry Out their Projects in India in 2022-24:
Samantha Agarwal, a graduate student in the Department of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project ‘Exploring Dynamics of Recognition-Redistribution in Contemporary Dalit Movements.” Ms Agarwal’s fellowship is funded by a grant from the U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) through CAORC.
Sanjam Ahluwalia, a professor in the Department of History and the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Northern Arizona University, was awarded a senior fellowship to carry out the project “Entertainment Interruptus: Films Division of India’s Messaging on Population Control, Family Planning, and Happiness, 1940s-2000s.” Professor Ahluwalia’s fellowship is funded by a grant from the U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) through CAORC.
Aditya Bahl, a graduate student in the Department of English at Johns Hopkins University, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project “The Absent Archives: Reading World Literature Amidst Peasant Revolts in Punjab, 1960s-70s.”
Jocelyn Bell, a graduate student in the Department of Sociology at Brown University, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project “Reimagining Within-movement Conflict: Ideology and the Anti-sex Trafficking Movement.” Ms Bell is the recipient of the Joe Elder College Year in India Junior Fellowship. Ms Bell’s fellowship is funded by a grant from the U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) through CAORC.
Anamitraa Chakraborty, a graduate student in the Department of Linguistics at Indiana University, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project, “Inter-generational Language Change among the Bangali Immigrants in Refugee Colonies of Kolkata.” Ms Chakraborty is the recipient of the Thomas W. Simons Fellowship.
Shashwat Dhar, a graduate student in the Department of Political Science at Vanderbilt University, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project, “Circular Migration and Citizenship in Rural India.” Mr. Dhar is the recipient of the Vina Sanyal Research Award.
Haimonti Dutta, an assistant professor in the Department of Management Sciences and Systems at SUNY Buffalo, was awarded a senior fellowship to carry out the project “Digitization, Transcription and Art Recommendation From Painted Narrative Scrolls of Bengal.” Professor Dutta’s fellowship is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Stefan Fiol, a professor in the Department of Musicology at the University of Cincinnati, was awarded a senior fellowship to carry out the project “Drumming as Embodied Memory and History in the Indian Himalayas.” Professor Fiol’s fellowship is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Suvendu Ghatak, a graduate student in the Department of English at the University of Florida, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project “Malaria and the Narratives of the Modern in Literatures from Colonial Bengal.” Mr. Ghatak is the recipient of the Kumkum Chatterjee Memorial Fellowship in Indian History.
Ronit Ghosh, a graduate student in the Departments of Music and South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project “Technicians, Makers and Mavericks: The Entangled Histories of the ‘Modern’ Bengali Song.” Mr. Ghosh is the recipient of the Rachel F. and Scott McDermott Fellowship.
Radhika Govindrajan, an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Washington, was awarded a senior fellowship to carry out the project, “Scandal: Theorizing Sex and the Rural in Himalayan India.” Professor Govindrajan’s fellowship is funded by a grant from the U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) through CAORC.
Stephen Graf, a graduate student in the Department of Politics at the New School University, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project “Parties-as-Networks in India: The Form and Function of Student Organizations.” Mr. Graf’s fellowship is funded by a grant from the U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) through CAORC.
Payal Hathi, a graduate student in the Department of Demography and Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project “Narratives of Stillbirth and the Production of Stillbirth Statistics in India.” Ms Hathi’s fellowship is funded by a grant from the U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) through CAORC.
John Stratton Hawley, a professor in the Department of Religion at Barnard College, Columbia University, was awarded a senior fellowship to carry out the project “Beautifully Blind: Surdas Paintings from Udaipur, 1660-1730.” Professor Hawley’s fellowship is funded by a grant from the U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) through CAORC.
Vasugi Kailasam, an assistant professor in the Department of South and SE Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, was awarded a senior fellowship to carry out the project, “Tamil Realisms: Reading the Global Tamil Novel.” Professor Kailasam’s fellowship is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Anuj Kaushal, a graduate student in the Department of History at the University of Texas, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project “Fann-e Mubasharat: Science of Sex and Masculine Ethics in North India’s Greco-Islamicate Healing, ca 1750-1930.” Mr. Kaushal is the recipient of the Metcalf Fellowship in Indian History.
Mohit Kaycee, a graduate student in the Department of Religion at Columbia University, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project “Imprints of Place and Memory: Dalit Pedagogy and the Quest for Re-habitation in Rural Karnataka.”
Matthew Leveille, a graduate student in the Department of Religion at the University of Virginia, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project “To Praise One’s Rival, A Śaiva’s Hymn to Viṣṇu: The Varadarājastava of Appayya Dīkṣita.” Mr. Leveille is the recipient of the Ludo and Rosane Rocher Research Fellowship in Sanskrit Studies. Mr. Leveille’s fellowship is funded by a grant from the U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) through CAORC.
Elizabeth Lhost, a post-doctoral fellow in the Society of Fellows and Department of History at Dartmouth College, was awarded a senior fellowship to carry out the project “A Moral Hazard? Risk, Religion, and Modern Finance in the Indian Ocean World.” Dr. Lhost’s fellowship is funded by a grant from the U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) through CAORC.
Darshana Mini, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin, was awarded a senior fellowship to carry out the project “Rated A: Soft-Porn Cinema and Mediations of Desire in India.” Professor Mini’s fellowship is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Shahana Munazir, a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project “Daughters of Destiny: Politics of Gharelu Muslim Women in India.” Ms Munazir is the recipient of the Joseph W. Elder Fellowship in the Social Sciences.
Devon Newhouse, a graduate student in the Department of History at Brown University, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project “Roots Across the Ocean: The Journey of Cashew Through Portuguese Colonial Circuits.” Ms Newhouse’s fellowship is funded by a grant from the U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) through CAORC.
Jia Win Kelvin Ng, a graduate student in the Department of History at Yale University, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project “The Labor of Self-Respect: Labor Migration and Tamil Political Modernism, 1920-1950.”
Jamie O’Connell, a graduate student in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project “Zoroastrian Identity and Authority Formation in the Persian Rivāyats.” Ms O’Connell is the recipient of the Daniel H.H. Ingalls Memorial Fellowship. Ms O’Connell’s fellowship is funded by a grant from the U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) through CAORC.
Thomas Oommen, a graduate student in the Department of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project, “Houses of Labor: Dwelling, Middling Experts and Architectural Cultures on the Malabar Coast (1960-2022).”
Jaideep Pandey, a graduate student in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project “Belonging and Nostalgia: Medieval Spain in Modern Urdu Literary Imagination.”
Mayuri Patankar, a graduate student in the Graduate Division of Religion at Emory University, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project “Adivasi Religiosity in a Mixed Caste-Tribe Village.” Ms Patankar is the recipient of the Rajendra Vora Fellowship for the Study of Society and Culture in Maharashtra
Ilma Qureshi, a graduate student in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out her project “The Taste of Love and Knowledge in the Works of Amīr Khusraw and Fakhr al-Dīn ‘Irāqī.”
Nikhil Rao, an associate professor in the Department of History at Wellesley College, was awarded a senior fellowship to carry out the project “From Improvement to Gentrification. Property, Citizenship, and Cooperative Housing in 20th Century Bombay.” Professor Rao’s fellowship is funded by a grant from the U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) through CAORC.
Rosalind Rothwell, a graduate student in the Department of History at Duke University, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project “Coromandel Goods, Caribbean Goods: Material Culture & Colonialism in 18th C South India.” Ms Rothwell is the recipient of the Thomas R. Trautmann Fellowship. Ms Rothwell’s fellowship is funded by a grant from the U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) through CAORC.
Elizabeth Salmon, a graduate student in the Department of Conservation of Cultural Heritage at the University of California, Los Angeles, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project “Traditions in Practice: Sustainable Pest Management in the Preservation of Indian Cultural Collections.” Ms Salmon’s fellowship is funded by a grant from the U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) through CAORC.
Usha Sanyal, a visiting assistant professor in the Department of History and Political Science at Wingate University, was awarded a senior fellowship to carry out the project “Between Governmentality and Precarity: Girls’ Madrasas in UP Since 2017.” Professor Sanyal’s fellowship is funded by a grant from the U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) through CAORC.
Utsavi Singh, a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project, “Building Memories: An Archaeology of Identity in a Frontier Region in India.” Ms Singh is the recipient of the Asher Family Fellowship.
Namita Sugandhi, an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at Hartwick College, was awarded a senior fellowship to carry out the project “Long-term Landscapes and The Archaeological Study of Tekkalakota.” Professor Sugandhi’s fellowship is funded by a grant from the U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) through CAORC.
Shiva Sai Ram Urella, a graduate student in the Graduate Division of Religion at Emory University, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project, “Caste, Religion, and the State in a Telangana Oral Performance Tradition.” Mr. Urella is the recipient of the Taraknath Das Memorial Fellowship.
Archana Venkatesan, a professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Davis, was awarded a senior fellowship to carry out the project “The Nava Tirupati Network: A Study of Nine Viṣṇu Temples in Tamil Nadu.” Professor Venkatesan’s fellowship is funded by a grant from the U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) through CAORC.
Rabindra Willford, a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego, was awarded a junior fellowship to carry out the project “Paradox of Health: Entanglement and Wellbeing Among Irula Snake-Catchers.” Mr. Willford’s fellowship is funded by a grant from the U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) through CAORC.
Contributors to the 60th Anniversary Fund for Junior Fellowships for Non-US Citizens:
Manan Ahmed Indrani Chatterjee John Cort
Donald R. Davis Tejaswini Ganti Vinay Gidwani
Harjant Gill Ann Gold Sumit Guha
Robert Hardgrave Philip Lutgendorf Rebecca Manring
Gail Minault Durba Mitra John Nemec
Patrick Olivelle Teresa Raczek Mary Rader
Priti Ramamurthy Anupama Rao Anthony Seeger
Svati Shah Cynthia Talbot Audrey Truschke