FROM
THE DIRECTOR
Greetings
from the Center for South Asia. This past year has been a very
busy time as I finished my fourth term as Chair of the Department
of Anthropology in the Summer of 2004 and took on my new duties
as Director for the Center for South Asia. I want to thank all
of my Center affiliated colleagues for their confidence in electing
me to serve as the new Director. I especially want to thank the
outgoing director Vinay Dharwadker for his prior leadership in
the Center and his valuable suggestions as I took over my new
administrative role. I also want to thank the Center staff, Sharon
Dickson, Cathy Schmidt, Rachel Weiss, Bob Deussler, Emma Beretta,
and Laura Hammond for their welcome cooperation and assistance
as I have gradually settled in to my new job. I especially want
to thank the Center Advisory Committee, Charles Hallisey, Kirin
Narayan, Hemant Shah, and Andre Wink, as well as ex-officio members,
V. Narayana Rao (Chair, LCA), Sharon Dickson (Administration),
Rachel Weiss (Outreach), and Mary Rader (Library) for helping
to share the burden of leading the Center. The current and future
success of the Center rests on the generosity, cooperation, and
efforts of the larger Center community, and I want to take this
opportunity to thank you all for your collegiality.
Before talking any more about
the Center I want to extend a warm welcome to three new members
who joined our Center community: Assistant Professor Don Davis
has joined the faculty of the Department of Languages and Cultures
of Asia with a joint appointment in Religious Studies; Assistant
Professor Christine Garlow is in the Department of Communication
Arts; and Mary Rader, who has joined the Memorial Library staff
as the South Asian Bibliographer.
While it is always nice to be
able to welcome new faculty, we also must say farewell and congratulations
to Assistant Professor John Dunne and Sara McClintock who have
both taken new positions in the Department of Religion at Emory
University. As so eloquently stated by our colleague Charles Hallisey,
“Both John and Sara have been centrally visible in our Program
at every level of instruction, and as individuals, they have been
dynamic presences in our collective intellectual life. They have
constantly 'stepped up to the plate' to do the needful for the
Religious Studies Program and we will sorely miss their energy,
generosity, and scholarship.” We wish them all the best
in their new positions.
One of the first gatherings of
the Fall semester was a Center Retreat that was attended by most
affiliated faculty and staff. I plan to hold another Center Retreat
in the Fall 2005 to discuss directions for the upcoming year.
One of the most important topics raised at the retreat was the
need to develop a Mission Statement (see below) and create a community
of South Asian scholars here at Madison. The Mission Statement
approved by the Advisory Committee is presented below and the
very successful lecture series during the Summer, Fall, and Spring
have begun to help pull the diverse community of South Asianists
together.
I want to thank all of those who have been working with Rachel
Weiss to fill each of the lecture series. I also want to thank
Rachel for her persistence in getting this organized and finalized.
Next Fall we will continue to arrange Thursday noon as the official
Center Brown Bag lecture series (except where noted) and I would
like to encourage all Center Faculty and Staff to reserve this
time for participating in this important Center activity. I do
hope that all of you will encourage your students to attend as
many of these lectures as possible. The best encouragement to
students if is for the Faculty to be involved.
Another topic raised at the Retreat
was fundraising. I have begun to make contacts with South Asian
community members to discuss the establishment of endowments for
various aspects of South Asian Studies. One of my goals as Center
Director is to establish endowments through the Center to help
support South Asian Studies in general and to support specific
projects and study areas. If you know of potential donors and
are willing to assist in the establishment of an endowment, through
fund raising or other means, please let me know. In addition to
Endowments and Federal funding we also need to think about how
to get our home departments and colleges to begin taking more
responsibility for supporting South Asian studies.
Many of the other topics raised at the retreat have begun to be
addressed as can be seen in the following Newsletter. The Undergraduate
Certificate Program has been a great success and we are still
working on developing the South Asian studies Master’s Degree
through the Center. The Center is working with the Language Committee
of LCA to provide funding for all currently taught languages during
the academic year as well as developing a long range plan for
funding new languages. There is always much more that can be done
to improve South Asian studies on the Madison campus and I am
counting on the continued collaboration and support of the larger
Center community as we prepare for the 2005-06 academic year.
Finally it is important not to forget the continuing needs of
the tsunami victims in South Asia and adjacent regions. Immediately
after the devastating event, the Center for South Asia began collaborating
with the Center for Southeast Asia and the Dean of International
Studies to work with the larger University community to set up
a centralized information web page to provide guidance on how
individuals can help, as well as how to get help. Although the
media is no longer covering the everyday reconstruction events
in South Asia, the Center will continue to post important fundraising
events and information sessions for the foreseeable future. This
information is available on the Center
website as well as the University
run website. If you want to donate money, resources or time,
please go to these web addresses and find the group most suited
to your means.
