As 2018 draws to a close, as the new president of AIIS, I am delighted to note some exciting highlights that further our mission to promote the understanding of India to the broadest audience in the U.S.
This coming January we are partnering with the Council of American Overseas Research Centers to hold a curriculum development workshop in India for faculty from community colleges and minority-serving institutions around the theme of urban sustainability In India. Participants will be provided with the resources they need to incorporate a sophisticated understanding of India into their courses and inspire their students to further explore topics of relevance for an understanding of our globalizing world.
This past summer AIIS hosted a remarkable fifteen students for its Mughal Persian language program in Lucknow. This program, launched only a few years ago, has been phenomenally successful, providing the intensive language instruction needed by young scholars to pursue research topics in an expanding field of scholarly inquiry involving the greater Persianate world. Building on the success of the program, AIIS will be hosting a Mughal Persian archival workshop at the conclusion of our 2019 summer program, to include local scholars as well as those focusing on Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Our former fellows continue to produce ground-breaking scholarship, based on the research they were able to conduct In India with critical funding from AIIS. For instance, Professor Michael Fisher of Oberlin College just published a monumental work, An Environmental History of India: From Earliest Times to the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge University Press), the research for which was made possible with AIIS financial support.
The above examples serve to illustrate just some of the ways AIIS has been advancing its core mission of training scholars in the study of Indian languages, and support for graduate students and faculty in their early doctoral research as well as field-defining scholarship.
While prudent stewardship and governance have helped grow our endowment, the need to augment it remains urgent in the face of the many challenges we face in our current climate and so that AIIS remains a place to which scholars can come with fresh and innovative ideas. To this end, the Trustees and I are keen to explore new avenues for our investment, including support for Indian digital humanities, drawing especially upon the talents of younger and early career scholars who are doing particularly exciting work in this domain. Investing time, labor and resources in advancing digital scholarship will also enable us to foster undergraduate research on and in India, another initiative that I hope to inaugurate over the course of my tenure. Not least, our wonderful performing and creative arts initiative will also hugely benefit from a new infusion of funds.
Please consider joining me in making a year-end gift to AIIS—to the unrestricted annual fund, or targeted to the Institute’s activity that is most meaningful to you—by writing a check to the address below or by giving online at www.indiastudies.org/make-a-gift. I am confident that, with your help and with our strong and committed academic and administrative leadership, the Institute will continue its record of achievement even in these trying times.
With gratitude, sincere regards, and greetings for the season, Sumathi Ramaswamy
President, AIIS
