Banaras Hindu University Archives

Swasti Bhattacharyya

Dr. Swasti Bhattacharyya (PhD, RN) has taught Philosophy and Religion for over 20 years. She was Visiting Professor Emerita of Women’s Studies and Ethics and a 2021-2022 WSRP Research Associate at the Harvard Divinity School. Her current long-term ethnographic project explores how current generations are living out Vinoba Bhave’s (Gandhi’s disciple, friend, confidant, and spiritual successor) commitments to Sarvodaya (the holistic uplifting of all life). Her latest publication, “Shiva’s Babies: Hindu Perspectives on the Treatment of High-Risk Newborn Infants” in Religion and Ethics in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (Oxford University Press, 2019) and her book Magical Progeny, Modern Technology (SUNY, 2006) combine her experiences as a registered nurse with her expertise in ethics and the study of religion. Dr. Bhattacharyya is the current Director of the Uberoi Teacher Training Workshop – U.S. She also serves on the advisory board for the Center for Understanding World Religions (Loma Linda University), the American Academy of Religion’s Committee on the Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession, and on the board of the Peace and Justice Studies Association.

Dr. Bhattacharyya’s Fulbright-Nehru project intends to explore the lives and work of the Sisters of the Brahma Vidya Mandir Ashram and three generations of people working for Sarvodaya. Coined by M. K. Gandhi and developed by his disciple, confidant, and spiritual successor Vinoba Bhave, Sarvodaya calls for the holistic uplifting of all life. Dr Bhattacharyya brings the stories and insights of those working for a better world, demonstrates their relevance in multiple contexts, and argues that worldviews grounded in Sarvodaya can bring radical ways of addressing contemporary global challenges, and working for a more just, compassionate, and loving world.

Meredith Stinger

Ms. Meredith Stinger has a Bachelor’s in Sociology & Anthropology with a minor in Political Economy from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR. After graduating, Ms. Stinger was an Americorps VISTA member at a Portland nonprofit, building and managing community relationships to broaden educational opportunities for underserved students of color. As an undergraduate, she was an editor for the Synergia Journal of Gender and Thought Expression, studied abroad in India, and was awarded honors for her senior thesis research in 2019.

Prior to the Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship, Ms. Stinger has worked as a Program Coordinator for an equity-focused education nonprofit, specializing in graphic design, marketing and data management. Ms. Stinger enjoys drawing, design, sewing and running in her spare time.

Ms. Stinger’s Fulbright-Nehru research explores the role that India’s Aadhaar biometric identification system has played in accessing healthcare resources throughout the COVID-19 pandemic as well as in efforts to track the virus through contact tracing. The use of biometrics and digital identification for resource allocation and contact-tracing is a topic of international discussion and funding, with high-stakes implications for those navigating these new systems. Ms. Stinger seeks to engage in this international discourse through research on how Indian citizens pursue state healthcare resources in the midst of a major public health crisis, and how their strategies are facilitated and/or impeded by the Aadhaar program.

Markal Kelly

Markal Kelly, a Miami, Florida, native, was raised in Broward County. He is a recent graduate from Morehouse College where he studied international affairs and Portuguese. Previously, he worked for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the Office of Economic and Regional Affairs in the Bureau of African Affairs. He recently concluded his internship with Global Ties where he contributed to the global projects proposed by the exchange alumni.

Markal is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Gilman Scholarship, the Frederick Douglass Global Fellowship, the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange Scholarship, the United States Foreign Service Two-year Internship, and the Charles B. Rangel Scholarship. Additionally, he has been named a Panda Cares Scholar, an Oprah Winfrey Scholar, and an Exchange Alumni Ambassador. Markal aspires to become a diplomat and promote international education. Following his Fulbright experience, he plans to attend Johns Hopkins University in Italy to receive his master’s in international service as a Thomas R. Pickering fellow.

Since Markal believes that “how we live” is intrinsically related to “how we die”, his Fulbright-Nehru study relates the notions of life and death. His research is examining how social systems like religion were created to answer life’s existential problems and how sacred religious rituals are to different civilizations. Markal’s research in India is set to provide a deep understanding of Hinduism, its ethical–philosophical discourses, and the economic implications of Indian death rites. He is also investigating how societal systems, such as India’s caste hierarchy, influence how and what behaviors people engage in, based on their financial and social standing. Besides, he is evaluating how globalization, changes inside India, and even global conflicts have affected traditions and practices. Through this research, he will also be concluding his narrative about one of the holiest towns in the world for Hindus, Varanasi, which is ironically regarded as a place where people come to both “live” and “die”. By the end of his research, Markal hopes to have properly identified and comprehended the narratives of death rites that are inherent to the Hindu scriptures.

Natalie Callahan

Natalie Callahan graduated from Chatham University in 2023 with a degree in arts management and a degree in international studies. She also has a certificate in women’s leadership from the university. Natalie is particularly interested in matters of arts accessibility and community engagement in the arts. She loves to work with members of the public, especially in ways that help to excite them about the arts and encourage them to feel as though they are a part of the artistic community. She has explored many ways to increase arts exposure that go beyond traditional arts institutions. As the arts editor of her university’s literary magazine, she experimented with the idea of free, printed art through her curation of artists’ work in the magazine. She also explored how other media such as posters and stickers interacted with the university’s micro community. Besides, Natalie co-founded a fashion club on campus, framing fashion as the ultimate form of accessible art because, after all, everybody wears clothes. The fashion club offered affordable ways to create wearable items, funded trips to fashion history exhibitions, and contributed to the success of a campus-wide Sustainable Fashion Fair clothing swap. Following her graduation, Natalie worked at the Pittsburgh Glass Center, an arts nonprofit of the city. Here, she was able to engage in the many different glass art-making processes (including blown glass, flameworked glass, and fused glass) while helping the center carry out its mission of public access education and community building.

In her Fulbright-Nehru program, Natalie is creating a body of work emphasizing the beauty of the physical labor and skill involved in the Banarasi weaving process and, by extension, in art-making in general. She is creating a series of graphite drawings and complementary sketches illustrating the physical components of the weaving process. By calling attention to the beauty of the labor involved both in her own artistic processes and in the processes of the weavers, her project is a departure from the arguable inaccessibility of contemporary art due to the intellectual aura associated with it.

Chawky Frenn

Born in Lebanon, Mr. Chawky Frenn emigrated to the United States in 1981. He is currently an associate professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He received a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston in 1985 and an MFA from the Tyler School of Art of Temple University in Philadelphia and Temple Abroad in Rome in 1988.

Mr. Frenn has exhibited his works in the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Lebanon, Paraguay, and India. He has participated in several museum exhibitions and his work is part of collections in places like MARe (Museum of Recent Art) in Bucharest and the Housatonic Museum of Art in Connecticut; it is also part of private collections.

Mr. Frenn has received numerous awards, including the Teaching Excellence Award from George Mason University and the Blanche E. Colman Award from the Mellon Trust in Boston. His work has received critical acclaim in publications like The New York Times, Art New England, and Boston Globe in the United States, and in An-Nahar, L’Orient-Le Jour, and The Daily Star in Lebanon.

Mr. Frenn is the author of two books, 100 Boston Artists (2013) and 100 Boston Painters (2012). His work has also appeared in 100 Artists of Washington, D.C, Male Nude Now, and Encyclopedia of Arab American Artists. Besides, there’s a monograph on his work, titled Art for Life’s Sake.

This is Mr. Frenn’s second Fulbright-Nehru Award; the first one was in 2017. In his current project, he is expanding cultural bridges initiated during his 2017 stint. The project involves: cultivating art as a voice for mutual understanding, social justice, and peace; teaching at Banaras Hindu University and building partnerships with artists; collaborating with students and colleagues to create an exhibit communicating individual voices on collective concerns; presenting lectures, panel discussions, and workshops at universities and art centers; guiding art education forward into new interdisciplinary perspectives; fostering global educational connections and artistic collaborations; and promoting student engagement and multicultural teaching opportunities between India and the United States.