Dr. Mary Hanneman

Congratulations to PPPA Associate Professor and Acting Director of UWT’s Asia Center, Dr. Mary Hanneman, on receiving a Fulbright Research Grant!

Dr. Hanneman previously received a teaching Fulbright in 2010, spending five months at a small college in north Bengal. This time she will be conducting research at a larger university, North Bengal University, in a neighboring city. 

Describing her research, Dr. Hanneman says, “No two Bengalis are more revered than poet and social reformer Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) and independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose (1897-1945) whose respective roles in and perspectives on India’s independence movement are central elements in each man’s gigantic stature.  In this project I will examine and compare the contemporaneous ideas of these two men and their impacts on the independence movement and, more broadly, on Indian nationalism; one promising way of exploring these questions is to look at each man’s interactions and engagement with imperial Japanese Pan-Asianism…. Both of these men used Pan-Asianist ideas to counter the British Raj, but they did so from diametrically opposed positions.”

Dr. Hanneman will spend four months at North Bengal University engaging in research and discussion with colleagues, traveling to Kolkata to conduct research on newly opened documents concerning Bose’s activities during WWII, and to Shantiniketan.

Congratulations again!