Press Release
Syracuse and Cornell Universities win $4 million for International and Area Studies
Syracuse and Cornell Universities have been awarded two grants of $1.6 million and
$2.4 million for joint National Resource Centers in European and South Asian Studies.
These US Department of Education grants cement the two universities’ partnership in
South Asian studies, and inaugurate cooperation on European studies. The grants will
enable the two universities to offer generous graduate fellowships for language and
area studies, as well as supporting curriculum development, library collections, scholarly
conferences, regional workshops in upstate New York, and a range of outreach activities.
Syracuse University has founded a new Center for European Studies to coordinate these
activities. Both the Center for European Studies and the long-standing South Asia Center
are housed within the Moynihan Institute at the Maxwell School.
The Syracuse Center for European Studies will use these new resources to launch a
process of rethinking European studies at Syracuse, in order to prepare students
for a changing Europe whose boundaries and divisions have become more complex.
It will add new languages to the curriculum at Syracuse, starting with Polish and
Turkish in Fall 2003, enhance library collections, and establish Syracuse University
as a regional center for European studies and public affairs.
The new Center for European Studies will work closely with Syracuse's existing European
Union Center, which is funded by a grant from the European Commission. This award makes
Syracuse one of only a handful of American universities with both US- and European-funded
Centers in European studies. Both Centers will now benefit from close cooperation with
Cornell’s Institute for European Studies, with its outstanding faculty, strong working
paper series, and long-standing commitment to instruction in less-commonly taught European
languages.
The South Asia Center at Syracuse University has been recognized as a National Resource
Center since the mid-1980s. Its primary focus in coming years will be on studying
increased religious tensions in South Asia, with new courses on politics and Islam.
The Syracuse South Asia Center has particular strengths in religion and the social
sciences, with numerous scholars focusing on gender issues in South Asia. This year
the Center will sponsor the Ray Smith Symposium in the College of Arts and Sciences
entitled, "Drawing a Line in Water: Religious Boundaries in South Asia". In conjunction
with the Newhouse School and U. Encounter, the Center will also sponsor, for the second
year, a two week workshop "Illuminating Oppression: Human Rights Films from South Asia".
The new Center grant allows the Syracuse Department of Languages, Literatures, and
Linguistics to offer two South Asian languages -- Tamil and Hindi. The Center also
works closely with the South Asia Center at Cornell University, sponsoring workshops
and courses in India's environment, health care, media studies, and other projects.
Winning support for these two centers demonstrates national recognition for Syracuse
University's commitment to international studies. Their activities during the coming
years will move the university strongly towards the Vice Chancellor's goal of making
Syracuse University a more international center of learning.
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