Ashoka Faculty Awarded the Prestigious 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship

Professor Projit B. Mukharji, Visiting Faculty, History at Ashoka University has been chosen among the Guggenheim Fellows for the year 2023 in the category of ‘History of Science, Technology & Economics’. It is a grant given annually by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to individuals who have demonstrated exceptional scholarship or creative ability in the arts, humanities, or natural sciences. Among the list of notable past awardees are Noam Chomsky (linguist and philosopher), Jhumpa Lahiri (writer), John Rawls (philosopher), James D. Watson (Biologist), Manjul Bhargava (mathematician), Edward Said (literary critic), among others.

The Foundation counts more than 125 Nobel Laureates, winners of the Pulitzer Prize, Fields Medal, Turing Award, and other internationally recognised honours, among the list of its awardees.

“Receiving the Guggenheim Fellowship is an incredible honour, and I am thrilled to be among the distinguished group of scholars and artists who have been awarded this prestigious fellowship. I am grateful for the support of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, which will enable me to continue my research into issues of marginality and marginalization within and through science. With this fellowship, I hope to delve deeper into the historical role of science in shaping society”, said Professor Projit B. Mukharji.

“On behalf of the entire Ashoka family, I congratulate Professor Mukharji for receiving the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship for the year 2023. His contributions to the field of history have helped deepen our understanding about the evolution of ideas, innovations and social structures in medicine and sciences in South Asia. His interdisciplinary approach to scholarship is aligned with Ashoka’s academic spirit”, said Professor Somak Raychaudhury, Vice Chancellor, Ashoka University.

Professor Mukharji is one of the 171 fellows chosen this year in the United States and Canada for the 98^th edition of the annual grants announced by the Foundation. He is the author of Nationalising the Body: Medical Market, Print and Daktari Medicine (2009), Doctoring Traditions: Ayurveda, Small Technologies and Braided Sciences (2016), and most recently Brown Skins, White Coats: Race Science in India, 1920-66 (2022). He received his PhD from School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS), University of London.

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was established in 1925 by United States Senator Simon and Olga Guggenheim in memory of their son John Simon with an aim to “further the development of scholars and artists by assisting them to engage in research in any field of knowledge and creation in any of the arts, under the freest possible conditions.”