As we reflect on the academic year, we at the South Asia Center would like to thank you for participating in our vibrant community of scholars, students, partners and community members. We hope you will enjoy perusing the highlights below.
Congratulations, Graduates!
The South Asia Center congratulates the 2023 graduates of the M.A. in International Studies (South Asia) and affiliated South Asia Studies programs!
Prerna Choubey, M.A. in South Asia Studies
Scott Halliday, Ph.D. in Global Health
Anup Hiwrale, M.A. in Comparative Religion
Nathan Mark, M.A. in South Asia Studies
Rachel Rothenberg, Ph.D. in International Studies
Amrita Vinod, M.S. in Architecture History and Theory
SAC Hosts South Asia Conference of the Pacific Northwest
Over 40 students and scholars from throughout the Pacific Northwest gathered at UW-Seattle in May for the South Asia Conference of the Pacific Northwest (SACPAN), the first in-person iteration of the beloved regional conference since 2020.
The 20+ presentations covered a broad array of topics ranging from language and literature, history, gender, politics, caste, class and religion in South Asia. Ravinder Kaur (University of Copenhagen) delivered the conference keynote lecture, “Who Owns the Memory of Partition?”
Afghan Scholars Discuss the Taliban, Rule of Law, and the Diaspora
In this panel, three Afghanistan specialists discussed critical topics in contemporary Afghanistan, including the Taliban and modernity, the rule of law in the Muslim context, and the Afghan diaspora.
The event was a unique collaboration between the South Asia Center, Jackson School of International Studies, and MESA Global Academy, which awards competitive scholarships to social science and humanities scholars from the Middle East and North Africa region to join interdisciplinary research collaborations at North American universities.
Reception Celebrates Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellows
On January 6, the Title VI Centers in the Jackson School of International Studies hosted a reception to celebrate the recipients of Summer 2022 and Academic Year 2022-23 Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships. The six Centers awarded a total of 83 FLAS Fellowships to students representing 12 departments across the College of Arts and Sciences and 11 professional schools. Awards were made in 19 unique languages, including three (Hindi, Persian, and Urdu) supported by the South Asia Center.
Acclaimed Filmmakers Discuss South Asian Identity in a Changing World
Identities are in flux today. How do individuals and groups make sense of their lives and beliefs in an ever-changing world increasingly in the throes of socioeconomic and religious conflict and environmental crises?
These were some of the topics covered in our discussion with filmmakers Shaunak Sen (Dir. All That Breathes), Vivek Bald and Alaudin Ullah (Dirs. In Search of Bengali Harlem), at this public event held in conjunction with the 2022 Tasveer South Asian Film Festival.
South Asia Center Receives U.S. Department of Education Grants
In September 2022, we were happy to announce that the UW South Asia Center received the Title VI National Resource Center (NRC) and Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships grants from the U.S. Department of Education for 2022–26.
As the core funding source for South Asia Center academic and outreach activities, the grants will ensure that the UW remains a hub for the rich, rigorous, and collegial study of South Asia in the Pacific Northwest and beyond.
FLAS Fellowships will continue to support UW graduate and undergraduate students pursuing South Asia area studies and language training in Bangla, Hindi, Persian, and Urdu.
The South Asia Center received $263,506 for NRC and $289,075 for FLAS in 2022–23, totaling $2.2 million over the four-year grant period.
Workshop Offers Rare Opportunity for Collaborative Study of Hindi Vernaculars
In August 2022, the South Asia Center hosted Braj and Beyond: A Hindavi Reading Workshop. Organized by faculty members Heidi Pauwels (Asian Languages and Literature) and Purnima Dhavan (History) in conjunction with Anne Murphy of the University of British Columbia, this workshop brought together scholars from several universities to collaboratively explore texts of Old Hindi and its associated vernaculars.
This was an exciting and rare opportunity for scholars to read together texts related to their research in the company of other experts in order to widen their interdisciplinary engagements with premodern primary source texts.
Community College Master Teacher Institute (CCMTI) Examines Globalization at a Crossroads
At the turn of the millennium, the world seemed to be moving towards ever closer economic integration matched by the seemingly inevitable spread of liberal democracy. Less than 20 years later, many of the nations that had championed the benefits of global economic integration are experiencing domestic populist backlashes against globalization.
Do these developments presage the erosion of globalization or perhaps a reset on new terms? Is the global system heading towards greater fragmentation, or will the need to meet global challenges like climate change and migration drive further cooperation and integration?
These were the questions nearly 30 community college educators grappled with at CCMTI 2022, which included a presentation from South Asia Center Interim Director Anand Yang on the challenges of globalization in the 21st century.
Read more →
Coming up: CCMTI 2023 →
A note of appreciation for our donors
Our work would not be possible without the generous support of our community donors. Your gifts are testaments to the value of international studies, language knowledge, and cultural understanding in a complex and interdependent world.