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India has emerged
as a source of great
fascination and growing
interest
for Dr. Harbold in
recent years. With
the
help
of a
Niebuhr Faculty Travel
Grant, he first traveled
to
India with Dr. Paul
Parker’s Peoples
and Religions of
India course
in 2005. In 2006,
he won a UMAIE Faculty
Travel Grant to lay
the
groundwork for an
Indian music course.
That summer he visited
sites
in Chennai,
Thanjavur,
Tiruvaiyaru, and
Jaipur and made contacts
with Indian musicians.
In January 2007,
Dr. Harbold and Dr.
Mladen Turk took
a group of 23 UMAIE
students to India
for a month-long
course on Indian
music, religions,
and culture. Good
friends at Madras
Christian College
arranged
for
sessions with leading
scholars, musicians,
and dancers and coordinated
site visits to the
famous Tyagaraja
Festival in Tiruvaiyaru,
the Great Temple
in Thanjavur, the
Shore Temple
and Dance Festival
in Mamallapuram,
and December Season
concerts in Chennai.
The final week was
spent in the north,
visiting the Amber
Fort and City Palace
complex in Jaipur,
the Taj Mahal and
Red Fort in Agra,
and various cultural
and historic sites
in Delhi (visit
our course blog!).
In 2008, Harbold
was accepted to the
National Endowment
for the Humanities
Summer
Institute in India—Bharata
Darshan: Past and
Present in the Study
of Indian History
and Culture.
Last July, institute
fellows spent two
weeks in Shimla,
in the foothills
of the Himalayas,
followed by another
two weeks in Delhi.
This opportunity
to study with world-class
scholars such as
Romila Thapar helped
prepare
him for his Fall
2009 stint as Visiting
Professor at Madras
Christian College
(visit
my blog!)
and for his January
2010 course on Indian
art and music with
co-leader Lynn Hill
(visit
our course website).
He is also part of
a team investigating
the possibility of
a South Asian Studies
minor at Elmhurst
College. Harbold
recently traveled
to Japan, using funds
from a UMIAE
Faculty Travel
Grant to explore
the possibility of
a future UMAIE course
in Japan.
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