This term's Shivdasani Fellow: Prof. Sushil Mittal

The OCHS is pleased to welcome Prof. Sushil Mittal as this term’s Shivdasani Visitng Fellow.

Prof. Mittal is a Professor of Religion in the Philosophy and Religion department at James Madison University in Virginia, USA.  A cultural anthropologist by training and education, he has previously held positions on the faculty of University of Florida in Gainesville and Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. At JMU, he served as the Founding Director of the Mahatma Gandhi Center for Global Nonviolence, a post he held for five years, from 2005 to 2010.

Prof. Mittal’s focus is primarily Gandhian thought and Hinduism, and he has conducted research in India, Canada, the United States, and South Africa over the last twenty years. He is the (Founding) Editor of the International Journal of Hindu Studies (1997- ) and the International Journal of Gandhi Studies (2012- ). His publications include:

• Development and Change in India (1993)
• Surprising Bedfellows: Hindus and Muslims in Medieval and Early Modern India (2003)
• The Hindu World (2004)
• Religions of South Asia: An Introduction (2006)
• Studying Hinduism: Key Concepts and Methods (2008)

He is currently working on The Living Hindu World, Encyclopedia of Hindu Studies, and The Gandhi Reader. 

While at the OCHS he will lecture on Gandhian Technique for Conflict Resolution: Satyagraha; Comparative Religion: Its Failures and Its Challenges; Communalism, Nationalism and the Limits of Secularism in India; and Hinduism and Peacebuilding