Humboldt Foundation awarded Sumathi Ramaswamy

Prof. Ramaswamy will be involved in the HCTS and the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context” at Heidelberg University. The cultural historian will collaborate with the Chairs of Visual and Media Anthropology, Prof. Christiane Brosius, Chinese Studies, Prof. Barbara Mittler, and Global Art History, Prof. Monica Juneja. They will work together in the digital humanities project “No Parallels: the Fatherly Bodies of Gandhi and Mao”. This project will foster a strong collaboration with students through seminars and teaching modules as well as with scholars through workshops and discussions. The researchers and their team will develop a digital database and an online exhibition as an outcome of the project. The collaboration aims to promote critical Asian Studies in Germany. Sumathi Ramaswamy is Professor of History and International Comparative Studies at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, USA. She studied ancient Indian history at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, before taking her Ph.D. in History from University of California, Berkeley. She is a cultural historian of South Asia and the British Empire with a research focus on visual studies, the history of cartography, and gender. Her work in popular visual history has led her to co-establish a trans-national digital network for popular South Asian visual culture called Tasveer Ghar together with Christiane Brosius and Yousuf Saeed. To honor the award winners, an international colloquium was held in Berlin from September 7 to 10, 2016. The three-day event started with welcoming words by Prof. Helmut Schwarz, President of the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation and followed by a talk from Dr. Daniel Müllensiefen (University of London). Prof. Ramaswamy gave a speech on “Gandhi in the Gallery: The Art of Disobedience”, prior to the award ceremony. The ceremony was opened by Johanna Wanka, Federal Minister of Education and Research and the program comprised laudations, the presetation of the price certificates, a speech by Prof. Ève Chiapello (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris) as well as a reception. The Anneliese Maier Research Award is a collaboration award to promote the internationalisation of the humanities and social sciences in Germany. It addresses researchers from abroad from the fields of the humanities and social sciences whose scientific achievements have been internationally recognised in their research area. Award winners are expected to spend a period of up to five years cooperating on a long-term research project with the nominator and specialist colleagues at a research institution in Germany. An award is valued at €250,000. It is awarded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The Foundation promotes academic cooperation between excellent scientists and scholars from abroad and from Germany.
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Press Release by Heidelberg University