The Goethe-Institut marks the 200th birth anniversary of the eminent philologist Friedrich Max Mueller on December 6, 2023. This occasion is dedicated to observing the profound contributions of Max Mueller, one of the pivotal figures of Indology, whose inter-cultural sympathies and understanding have left an indelible mark on the intellectual landscape.
Podcast Series - Marking the 200ᵗʰ birth anniversary of Friedrich Max Mueller
Renowned scholars from diverse fields came together to unravel the socio-cultural influence and enduring legacy of Friedrich Max Mueller through a series of podcasts presented by Goethe-Institut Kolkata. Through these talks, they have delved into his contributions, shedding light on his impact on Indo-European perspectives and fostering intercultural dialogue.
The series aims to critically examine Max Mueller's influence from the vantage point of Indo-European perspectives, appreciating the richness of his contributions to linguistics, philosophy, and cultural studies. Join us as we embark on a journey to understand the profound impact Max Mueller has had on the cultural tapestry of our world.
Academic Advisor to the series - Dr. Sayan Chattopadhyay, IIT, Kanpur.
The podcast series has been moderated by Dr. Sayan Chattopadhyay, IIT, Kanpur and Dr. Parnal Chirmuley, Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Dr. Angus Nicholls - Professor, Comparative Literature and German and Director of Research for Comparative Literature and Modern Languages, Queen Mary University of London
Angus Nicholls is interested in the intersections between literary studies, philosophy and other humanities disciplines such as critical theory, anthropology and psychoanalysis, and his work is mainly concerned with the German and Anglophone traditions from the late eighteenth century through to the twentieth century.
Prof. Dr. Arie L. Molendijk - Professor of the History of Christianity and Philosophy, University of Groningen
Arie Molendijk is an expert on the field of history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century German and Dutch Theology and Religious Studies; Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923); History of Liberal Protestantism; Religion and society; Material Christianity; Religion in the Public Domain.
Prof. Dr. Axel Michaels - Senior Professor - Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Josefine and Eduard von Portheim Foundation for Science and Art
Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies (CATS) / South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University
Axel Michaels, the Professor of Classical Indology at the South Asia Institute at the University of Heidelberg, has published widely in the fields of Indology, anthropology, and religious studies. He has also conducted extensive fieldwork in Nepal and Northern India.
Dr. Kris Manjapra - Stearns Trustee Professor of History and Global Studies, Northeastern University, Boston
Kris Manjapra has authored five books, including his comparative study of global emancipation processes and the implications for the reparations movement today: Black Ghost of Empire: The Long Death of Slavery and the Failure of Emancipation (Scribner and Penguin, 2022).
His previous book, Colonialism in Global Perspective (Cambridge, 2020), centrally contributed to the emerging field of Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora Studies, and Age of Entanglement: German and Indian Intellectual across Empire (Harvard, 2014) received the 2019 Merck-Tagore Award, sponsored by Merck Limited, India, and granted by the Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan India.
Dr. Parnal Chirmuley - Associate Professor, Centre of German Studies, School of Language Literature and Culture Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Dr. Patricia Casey Sutcliffe - Editor, German Historical Institute Washington
Patricia "Casey" Sutcliffe joined the German Historical Institute as an editor in 2006 after a fourteen-year career teaching English at German universities and German at American ones. During that span (in December 2000), she received her PhD in Germanic Studies from the University of Texas at Austin with a dissertation based on intellectual history: "Friedrich Max Mueller and William Dwight Whitney as Exporters of Nineteenth-Century German Philology: A Sociological Analysis of the Development of their Linguistic Theories."
Dr. Romila Thapar - Professor Emerita, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Romila Thapar's research into early Indian history has been part of the shift from treating ancient history as Indology to establishing it as a Social Science. The two themes on which she has worked are the social and cultural history of early India, which involved asking new questions of textual data and integrating some archaeological sources, as well as attempting to understand the co-relation of society, economy, and religion, the second theme has been historiography, both the modern perspective of writing the history of early India, as well as how history was recorded in the early past.
Dr. Sayan Chattopadhyay - Associate Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT, Kanpur
Sayan Chattopadhyay teaches English literature, critical theory, and communication studies. He received his doctorate in 2014 from the University of Cambridge and his master's degree from the University of Calcutta. His research has been primarily in the area of Indian middle-class self-fashioning and its literary manifestations. He has been working on twentieth-century Indian writers like Cornelia Sorabji, Nirad C. Chaudhuri, and Dom Moraes. By focussing on a wide variety of texts, which range from autobiographies and travelogues to fiction and poetry, his research explores the innovative attempts of these writers to interpret their personal histories along with the history of India. He published Being English: Indian Middle Class and the Desire for Anglicization. London and New York: Routledge in 2022.
