About this event
The Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (IASH) at the University of Edinburgh proudly presents a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Charles Wallace India Trust. Supported by the Trust, IASH has hosted more than twenty scholars from India, exploring topics as diverse as sepoys in the colonial era, sculptural art, the origins of chess, agriculture, yoga and contemporary Hindi fiction.
Former CWIT / IASH Fellows from across India will discuss their research and reflect on their work with Professor William Gould of the University of Leeds. Speakers include Shreela Ghosh (Secretary of the Charles Wallace India Trust), Dr Sabyasachi Dasgupta, Dr Piyush Mathur, Dr Sridhar Modugu and Dr Nilanjana Mukherjee.
Free tickets are available at https://cwit40.eventbrite.co.uk.
Biographies
Dr Sabyasachi Dasgupta is an Assistant Professor at the Department of History at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan. His core area of research is the Colonial Indian Army, while also retaining an interest in the Post-Independence Indian Army. Dasgupta essentially seeks to explore notions of identity, notions of honour and justice, structures of deference, the complex dynamics between colonial armies and their parent societies, the flux generated by army policies in their parent societies, etc. Dasgupta has also delved into comparative military history by comparing the mutinies in the Scottish Highland regiments of the British army with that of high caste regiments in the pre-1857 British Indian army, or more specifically the Bengal army. He is currently working on visual depictions of the Revolt of 1857 and two biographies by Bengali medical personnel in World War I.
Dr Piyush Mathur, an unaffiliated researcher, is the author of Technological forms and ecological communication: a theoretical heuristic (Lexington Books, 2017); and relatively recently, of 'Understanding post-COVID-19 global politics: A tentative theoretical framework' (TIGA Studies 3: November 2020). Mathur's academic publications generally have explored themes in philosophy, communication, politics, environment, literary criticism, and India studies. He has also published journalistically in Asia Times Online, Himal Southasian, Acres USA, The Earth Island Journal, and Thoughtfox.xyz. To access his academia.edu profile, click here.
Dr Sridhar Modugu completed his doctoral studies from the University of Hyderabad on the topic of technology and colonialism. During his postdoctoral research he is engaged in understanding postcolonial developments in agriculture research policy. He also has done studies on Tribal Agriculture and livelihoods. For the Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar he has conducted a study on understanding dissent in Indian agriculture. Since 2013, he is engaged in teaching history and technology related courses to the students of Masters and Undergraduate at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Tuljapur campus.
Dr Nilanjana Mukherjee teaches English Literature in Shaheed Bhagat Singh College, University of Delhi. She received her degree of Ph.D. in the year 2011 from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She is the author of Spatial Imaginings in the Age of Colonial Cartographic Reason: Maps, Landscapes, Travelogues in Britain and India (Routledge: 2020). She has also co-edited the volume, Mapping India: Transitions and Transformations 18th - 19th Centuries (Routledge: 2019). She was recently conferred the Delhi University Foundation Day Award for Teaching Excellence in June, 2021 and is the recipient of the Meenakshi Mukherjee Memorial Prize for her journal article, 'Drawing Roads, Building Empire: Space and Circulation in Charles D'Oyly's Indian Landscapes', awarded in 2015 by the Indian Association of Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies. In the past, she was the Charles Wallace India Trust Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh in the year 2017 and a doctoral fellow at King's College, London, in 2009. At present, she is working on two projects: first, a creative biography of her grandfather, Ardhendu Prasad Banerji, a Bengal School Artist at the time of the nationalist movement in Bengal; and second, a study of the Indian Desert as a spatial imaginary in its evolution as a frontier zone in North-West India.
[Image: © Vyacheslav Argenberg / http://www.vascoplanet.com/]
About the Trust
The Charles Wallace India Trust gives grants to Indians in the early or middle stages of their careers who are living in India and working or studying in the arts, heritage conservation or the humanities.
The grants enable successful applicants to achieve their artistic, academic or professional ambitions through spending time in the United Kingdom. The categories of grants available include: arts scholarships for post-graduate study; visiting fellowships in agreed subjects at specific institutions; and short-term grants for research and professional visits.
Full information about the various types of grants available, and guidance on eligibility and how to apply, can be found on on the CWIT website: https://www.charleswallaceindiatrust.com/
Grants for visits to India by Britons working or studying in similar fields are given by The INTACH UK Trust (The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, UK), which was also set up with funds bequeathed by Charles Wallace. The INTACH UK Trust awards discretionary scholarships to UK citizens to allow them to undertake educational study visits to India in the field of art and cultural heritage. More information can be found on: http://www.intach.org
About IASH
The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities was established in 1969 to promote interdisciplinary research in the arts, humanities and social sciences at the University of Edinburgh.
It provides an international, interdisciplinary and autonomous space for discussion and debate. Since its foundation, more than 1,300 scholars from 67 countries have held Institute fellowships; and up to 28 Fellows are in residence at any one time. Housed in a secluded 19th-century courtyard overlooking the Meadows, the Institute is adjacent to most centres of University activity.
To find out more about the Charles Wallace India Trust Fellowships at IASH, please visit https://www.iash.ed.ac.uk/charles-wallace-india-trust-fellowship The deadline for applications for 2022-23 visits is 17:00 GMT on Friday 25 February 2022.