People
Co-Directors
Prof. Dr. Srirupa Roy
Professor of State and Democracy in Modern India and Director, Centre for Modern Indian Studies (CeMIS)
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Centre for Modern Indian Studies, Waldweg 26, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
+49 (0)551 39 28952
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Srirupa Roy is Chair of State and Democracy in Modern India and Director of the Centre for Modern Indian Studies (CeMIS), at the University of Göttingen Her research and publications have focused on two different aspects of the "Politics of the New": (1) the institutional and cultural practices of postwar "nation-building” undertaken in decolonizing nation-states such as India and (2) the politics of "curative democracy" or democratic reform and the growing importance of non-electoral actors and institutions such as the media, judiciary, and civil society activism in democratic political life.
She is the author of Beyond Belief: India and the Politics of Postcolonial Nationalism (Duke University Press, 2007); co-editor of Visualizing Secularism and Religion: Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, India (University of Michigan Press, 2012) and Violence and Democracy (Seagull, 2006); numerous chapters in edited volumes and journal articles in Comparative Studies in Society and History; Political Communication; Journal of Asian Studies; South Asia; Interventions; Contributions to Indian Sociology.
Professor Roy has substantive experience in transregional research. She has been a co-recipient of an international collaborative research grant from the Social Science Research Council, which enabled a two-year collaborative transregional research project on the politics of secularism in the Middle East and South Asia. She has also co-directed two transregional research workshops at the European University Institute’s Mediterranean Research programme, which brought together scholars of South Asia and the Middle East. At an institutional level, Professor Roy served as the Senior Advisor for International Collaboration at the Social Science Research Council, where she helped to conceptualize and launch the Inter-Asia initiative for the promotion of transregional research among scholars of Asia. She continues to participate in institution and capacity-building initiatives for advancing transregional research, as a member of International Advisory Board for the Asia Research Institute (ARI) at the National University of Singapore; the senior researcher on the SSRC's Transregional Virtual Research Institute on "Media, Activism, and the New Political"; member of the SSRC's InterAsia Program Steering Committee and Postdoctoral Fellowship Selection Committee; member of the International Advisory Team of the World Social Science Fellows Program, International Social Science Council; and an editorial board member of the journal Critical Asian Studies.
Prof. Dr. Rupa Viswanath
Professor of Indian Religions Centre for Modern Indian Studies (CeMIS)
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Centre for Modern Indian Studies, Waldweg 26, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
+49 (0)551 39 28942
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Rupa Viswanath is Professor of Indian Religions at the Centre for Modern Indian Studies, University of Göttingen. She previously taught in the South Asia Studies Department at the University of Pennsylvania, where she was assistant professor and Director of Graduate Studies, and she is a lifelong Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge. Her research addresses secularism, social exclusion, minorities and processes of minoritisation, the political economy of caste, and democracy and political struggle in South Asia. Her manuscript, The Pariah Problem: Religion, Caste and Welfare in Modern India is under preparation at Columbia University Press. She has received fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, the American Institute of Indian Studies, the Mellon Foundation, and the American Association of University Women. She is currently Chair of the Steering Committee for the Hinduism Group of the American Academy of Religion.
Prof. Dr. Axel Schneider
Director, Centre for Modern East Asian Studies (CeMEAS)
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Centre for Modern East Asian Studies, Heinrich-Düker-Weg 14, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
+49 (0)551 39 27033
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Axel Schneider is Director of Centre for Modern East Asian Studies (CeMEAS) at the University of Göttingen. His research and publications have focused on the history of historical thinking and writing in 19th and 20th century China investigating how the traditionally central field of historiography has developed and changed under the impact of the historical experience of imperialism and in exchange with Western philosophical and historiographical influences. His research has analyzed how aspects of modern nation-building, identity politics and academic history have interacted with philosophical and religious concerns. Publishing in English and Chinese and editor of several series shaping the field of research in comparative historiography and historical writing, his most recent work continues and expands this line of inquiry into the field of modern Chinese critiques of Western modernity. Currently he is writing a monograph on Chinese critiques of progressivism and modern concepts of time motivated by ethical and religious considerations.