Academic Ceremony in Honour of Gita Dharampal-Frick
3 July 2018
The South Asia Institute (SAI) of Heidelberg University will host an academic ceremony on 6 July to honour historian Prof. Dr Gita Dharampal-Frick. Countless friends, colleagues and students are expected to attend the celebration marking her retirement. The programme will recognize her many contributions to the university and teaching, and also feature short talks on “Historical Scholarship between South Asia and Europe”. The ceremony includes the presentation of a festschrift to the retiring historian.
Gita Dharampal-Frick completed her undergraduate education in Great Britain, earned her masters and PhD in France, and habilitated in Freiburg. She joined Heidelberg University in 2002 as a full professor and head of the Department for South Asian History at the SAI. From 2005 to 2009, the historian was involved in the work of Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 619, “Ritual Dynamics Socio-Cultural Processes from a Historical and Culturally Comparative Perspective”. As a member of the “Asia and Europe in a Global Context” CRC, she participated in numerous international research projects and made major contributions to German-Indian cooperation. Prof. Dharampal-Frick’s research interests include the economic, social and transcultural history of South Asia, particularly modernization processes and resistance movements in India.
Executive Director of the South Asia Institute Prof. Dr William Sax will open the academic ceremony in honour of Prof. Dharampal-Frick, followed by remarks from Prof. Dr Katja Patzel-Mattern, Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy. The address honouring Gita Dharampal-Frick will be given by Prof. Dr Monika Boehm-Tettelbach, who taught and conducted research at the SAI from 1994 to 2006.
The South Asia Institute at Heidelberg University is an interdisciplinary centre for research and teaching on South Asia and neighbouring cultural regions. It combines social, economic and geographical studies together with cultural studies grounded in history and philology to offer a broad foundation for the study of contemporary South Asia. The SAI has liaison and branch offices in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka and maintains bilateral exchange programmes in the countries of the region.
The celebration will take place on 6 July 2018 from 10am to 5pm in the Heinrich Zimmer Room of the South Asia Institute, Im Neuenheimer Feld 330.
