Presidency Univ prof wins ‘Annemarie Schimmel’ Fellowship 2023
Kolkata: The assistant professor of Presidency University’s History department Dr Soumen Mukherjee has become the first Indian to be awarded the prestigious Annemarie Schimmel Fellowship 2023 of the Institute of Ismaili Studies.
This Fellowship is awarded every three years to scholars specialising in the fields of Islamic mysticism, Sufism, and devotional literature. Dr Mukherjee explores the intersectionality of religion, philosophy and mysticism in South Asia and beyond. His research interests and publications are in the fields of the religious and intellectual history of modern South Asia, with a particular focus on their global entanglements.
He is the author of Ismailism and Islam in Modern South Asia: Community and Identity in the Age of Religious Internationals, which received the 2021 Karim and Rosemin Karim Prize for its contribution to understudied areas of Ismaili studies.
The Fellowship will help Dr Mukherjee further expand upon key aspects of his current research on the study of religion, religious thought and mysticism in modern South Asia, with a special focus on select scholars, their ideas and methods, and the institutional frameworks they built or within which they navigated.
Prior to him, Professor Mohammed Rustom of Carleton University was awarded the fellowship in 2018. The other recipients include Dr Lloyd Ridgeon of Glasgow University in 2013, Dr Dina Le Gall of City University of New York in 2010, Professor Rahile Dawut of Xinjiang University, China in 2007 and Professor Ahmet Karamustafa of Washington University in St Louis in 2004.
“Entire department is happy and proud of him,” the head of History department Sajjad Alam Rizvi said, while adding that these kinds of endeavours are always encouraged as it is not only an academic contribution by the professor but also bring fame to the university.
He feels that many more such opportunities are needed. However, sometimes due to shortage of faculty one has to think of the department as well, although he said that such endeavours are always encouraged and supported by the university authorities as well.
