University of Connecticut
Visva Bharati Scholar Exchange ProgramINTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIPS AND VISITING SCHOLARSFounded by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore in 1921 to provide a global, humane education, Visva Bharati University in West Bengal, is one of India’s leading, public research institutions. In 2002, the Asian American Studies Institute at the University of Connecticut executed a Memorandum of Understanding with Visva Bharati to sponsor a Scholar Exchange Program between them. The first scholar from the United States, Asian American Studies and Sociology professor Bandana Purkayastha, traveled to India in January 2005 to gather data on the construction of pan Asianism in the early 20th century. In October 2005, Kumkum Bhattacharya, Head of Social Work at VB, visited UConn to conduct research on “Public Space and Women’s Rights.” She gave two lectures, co-sponsored with the India Studies Program at UConn. In February 2008, Somdatta Mandal, Associate Professor in English and a scholar of Multi-Ethnic Literature of the U.S. was in residence. She conducted research at UConn’s Libraries and in the Institute’s Archives and Documents Collection on “Pearl Harbor Echoes: Japanese American Internment Experiences through American Literature and Culture.” Dr. Mandal gave a public lecture, “Of Wars, Relocation and Documentation: Surveying Japanese American Internment and the 1947 Partition of India” on February 19, 2008, which is available for download as a PDF.
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