Grant Will Send Prof. Michael Mackenzie to India This Summer

February 21, 2011

February 21, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — Michael P. "Mac" Mackenzie, associate professor of art at DePauw and coordinator of the University's European Studies program, has been awarded a grant from ASIANetwork's Faculty Enhancement Program to attend a workshop in India this summer.  The program "India: Religion, Globalization, and the Environment in the 21st century," is part of a seminar series, "Deepening Asian Studies in the Liberal Arts", which is funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Professor Mackenzie and the seven other grant recipients will be traveling to Delhi, Agra, Amritsar, Dehradun, Mussoorie, Lucknow, Varanasi and Bodh Gaya for three weeks (June 14 through July 5) in order to further their understanding of the connections between art, architecture and religion in India.

According to ASIANetwork, participants "will visit North Indian religious and historical sites connected with contemporary Indian religious communities -- Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Buddhists ... Traveling to eight sites in north India, (they) will meet faculty at Indian universities, visit religious sites and observe the religious life there, and speak with people who work in social service organizations and lobby for environmental protections. The study tour will encourage participants from all academic disciplines to follow their own research interests and to investigate areas relating to their teaching specializations."

"Mac's grant will bear curricular fruit for his students," says Hiroko M. Chiba, Marguerite Andrade Professor of Modern Languages, associate professor of modern languages (Japanese) and director of DePauw's Asian Studies program. "His participation in these sessions in India will yield more in-depth coverage of socio-religious themes in Professor Mackenzie's Indian art survey course as well as the development of a new upper-level Indian art seminar dealing with the modern period from the Mughals to the present day. It will help to strengthen DePauw's Asian Studies program through the expansion of his expertise and the development of new courses related to South Asia."

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