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Faculty Research

September 17, 2015

Selected Faculty Research

Prchalanaofessor Manish Chalana, Assistant Professor in the Urban Design and Planning Department, conducted field work in India through the support of the Senior Research Fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) in 2014 to work on developing a book length manuscript on the history, theory and practice of historic preservation in India from the British Colonial period up to the present. While in India he was affiliated with the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA), where he co-taught the advanced thesis studio for the final year Masters in Architectural Conservation Students. Read more about Professor Chalana’s field work here.

ramamurthyProfessor and Chair of the Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, Priti Ramamurthy is conducting field work in Hyderabad and New Delhi during the 2015-2016 academic year. Professor Ramamurthy, supported by funding from an American Council for Learned Societies Research Collaborative Fellowship (2015-17) and an American Institute of Indian Studies Senior Short Term Fellowships (2016), will be working collaboratively with Vinay Gidwani, associate professor of geography at the University of Minnesota. The research will explore the experiences and social relations of informal sector work, including construction, street vending, petty retail, transportation, waste picking, sex work, and domestic service labor.

Kale

In 2015-16, Sunila Kale, Associate Professor in the Jackson School of International Studies and Chair and Director of the South Asia Center and Program, will start a new research project on the politics of extractive industries in eastern India. Her project, which will be supported by a Fulbright-Nehru Research Fellowship, explores the relationship between corporations and Corporate Social Responsibility, the local state, and local communities as they come together to carry out peripheral development and rural development programs. She continues to work on the politics of infrastructure in India, which formed the basis of her first book project, Electrifying India (Stanford University Press, 2014).

khullar smallWith the support of a Charles A. Ryskamp Fellowship from the American Council for Learned Societies, Sonal Khullar will research a second book project in 2015-2016, The Art of Dislocation: Conflict and Collaboration in Contemporary Art from South Asia. This project identifies collaboration as a hallmark of contemporary art in South Asia and a critical response to globalization since the 1990s. Khullar’s research will take her to the 2015 Venice Biennale, the theme of which is “All the World’s Futures.” She will also travel to the Dhaka Art Summit in 2016, and to various art world centers and sites of art projects in South Asia, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Guwahati, Kopaweda, Lahore, Colombo, and Jaffna. During her time in South Asia, she will study visual art and textual archives, and meet with critics, artists, and academics.