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British Academy honours Indian-origin experts, Piketty
Established in 1899, the academy is a funding body that supports new research, nationally and internationally and a forum for debate and engagement. The overall current strength of the fellowship is nearly 1,400, comprising prominent UK and international academics.
Prominent experts such as Homi Bhabha and Gurminder Bhambra are among 86 individuals elected to the prestigious fellowship of the British Academy in recognition of their contribution to subjects within the humanities and social sciences.
Established in 1899, the academy is a funding body that supports new research, nationally and internationally and a forum for debate and engagement. The overall current strength of the fellowship is nearly 1,400, comprising prominent UK and international academics.
Based at Harvard University, Bhabha is a leading authority in areas such as cultural studies, literary and aesthetic traditions of postcolonial and minority cultures; race, rights and the ethics of global migration; intellectual innovations and the public recognition of transdisciplinary humanities; cultural citizenship and the arts of inclusion.
Bhambra is at the University of Sussex, specialising in historical sociology and modernity, social theory, epistemology, and the intersection of postcolonial and decolonial studies; and the political economy of race and colonialism.
The new fellows include Sheldon Pollock (Columbia University), whose areas of expertise include Sanskrit philology; Indian literature, intellectual history, history of aesthetics; theory of philology and of comparativism.
Christopher Pinney of University College London has been honoured for his contribution to commercial print cultures of South Asia (especially chromolithography), visual culture of popular politics and religion; anthropological approaches to photography, history of photography in India; Hindu practice in rural central India.
Also honoured in the 2020 fellows list is writer Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics, a widely-read writer whose specialisation includes historical and theoretical work on the interplay between economic development, the distribution of income and wealth, and political conflict.
David Cannadine, president of the British Academy, said: “I would like to extend a warm welcome and hearty congratulations to the individuals who have joined the British Academy Fellowship”.
“This is a time to reflect on the many invaluable contributions these academics have made to their disciplines. It is also a time for celebration, and I hope that, social distancing measures notwithstanding, each of our new Fellows is able to do so in ways great or small.”
