CV
POSITIONS HELD
2011-present W-2 Professor of Modern Indian Religions, Center for Modern Indian Studies, University of Göttingen, Germany.
2011-12; 2014-16 Director, Center for Modern Indian Studies, University of Göttingen, Germany.
2008-10 Assistant Professor of History and Religion, Department of South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
2006-08 Sutasoma Trust Postdoctoral Fellow, Faculty of History and Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge.
EDUCATION
PhD (with Distinction), History of South Asian Religions. October 2006, Columbia University, New York.
MPhil (with Distinction), History of South Asian Religions. February 2003, Columbia University, New York.
MA, Creative Writing. May 1997, New York University, New York.
BA (cum laude), Mathematics. May 1995, Columbia University, New York.
FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS
2013-18 Principal Investigator. One of 7 PIs on a grant of ?2.5 M awarded by the German Historical Institute for the study of "Poverty and Education Policy in India." This links the Center for Modern Indian Studies with Jawarharlal Nehru University, Delhi University, King's College London, and the German Historical Institute, London.
The grant funds 14 PhDs, two postdoctoral scholars, and will award visiting faculty fellowships over a five-year period. I will primarily direct theses concerned with two themes "Missionaries, technical and industrial education and the resignification of manual labour," and "Caste and education policy in modern India." Personal allocation: ?154700.
2012-16 Research Group Leader and Co-Founder of CETREN, a transregional research network studying ?The Politics of the New.? Awarded a grant of ?1.1 M to found the network with a core of 7 faculty members on the Goettingen Research Campus; we will serve as the European hub of the Social Science Research Council?s Inter- Asia Project. Funded by the German Research and Education Ministry (BMBF). I will lead the project on ?Disjunction and Translation: Religion and New Forms of Secularity in and between India, China and Europe.? Personal allocation: ?255,750.
2011-12 American Institute of Indian Studies/ National Endowment for the Humanities Senior Research Fellowship. Awarded for research in India. (Postponed to 2013? 14.)
2010 Trustees Council Summer Faculty Research Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania. 2009?10 Faculty Fellow, Penn Humanities Forum, University of Pennsylvania.
2006 Pollard Prize, Institute of Historical Research, University of London. Awarded for the best paper presented at the Institute in the previous year by a recent PhD or graduate student.
2005-6 American Association of University Women Dissertation Fellowship. Awarded to 50 women completing dissertations in the United States from all fields of study.
2004-5 Social Science Research Council International Dissertation Research Fellowship. For archival research in India, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
2004-5 Mellon Fellowship, Institute of Historical Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London. Awarded to five PhD candidates from the United States and Canada for historical research in the UK.
2004-5 Charlotte W. Newcombe Dissertation Writing Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson Foundation. (Declined).
2003-4 Columbia University Traveling Fellowship.
2003 American Institute of Indian Studies Junior Fellowship for Dissertation Research. 2000?1 Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship, Columbia University, New York, NY. Awarded for Tamil study in Chennai, India.
1997 Five-year Mellon Fellowship for Graduate Study, Columbia University, New York, NY.
1995-6 New York Times Fellowship for Creative Writing, New York University, New York, NY.
1995 Cornell-Woolrich Prize for Fiction, Columbia University, New York, NY. Awarded to one student per year.
UNIVERSITY SERVICE
2011-2012 Director, Center for Modern Indian Studies, University of Göttingen 2009?2010 Chair of Graduate Studies, South Asia Studies Department, University of Pennsylvania
2010 Women's Studies Faculty Advisory Board, University of Pennsylvania. Fall 2010 Member of Search Committee for Open Rank Standing Faculty Position, South Asia Studies Department, University of Pennsylvania
2008-2009 Undergraduate Curriculum Committee Member, South Asia Studies Department
SELECTED COURSES TAUGHT
The Emergence of Modern Hinduism
India: Culture, Society and Politics
Religion, Rationality, Politics: India, 1880 to Present Religion and Secularism: Policy, Practices, History Religions and Minorities
Proseminar in South Asian Studies: History and Society The Power of Representation in Politics and Literature Critical Histories
Agrarian History of South Asia
PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS AND SERVICE
Elected Co-Chair of Hinduism Steering Committee, American Academy of Religion, 2011- 2016.
Elected Member of Hinduism Steering Committee, American Academy of Religion, 2008- 2011.
Member of the American Historical Association Member of the Association for Asian Studies
Peer reviewer for Comparative Studies in Society and History, Modern Asian Studies, International Journal of Hindu Studies, Indian Anthropologist, Oxford University Press, Religion Compass, American Ethnologist.