A Shippensburg University professor will be spending five months in India after becoming a recipient of the Fulbright Award over the summer, for his research of Indian literature.
The Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship in India was a goal of SU English professor Robert Zumkhawala-Cook’s for several years now. According to Zumkhawala-Cook, it became a reality following years of extensive research into a type of Indian novels in English that have been marketed toward Indian readers.
“I’ve been teaching an Indian novel course for English majors for over a decade at Shippensburg, and while doing my research for this course, I became fascinated by the explosion of popular or ‘pulp’ Indian novels in English primarily for a non-literary Indian readership,” Zumkhawala-Cook said, according to an SU news release.
Zumkhawala-Cook submitted an in-depth proposal outlining his research, teaching philosophy and course suggestions, after receiving encouragement from colleagues at other universities. He proposal also included letters of recommendation from several of his peers.
Zumkhawala-Cook said he has always had an interest in teaching abroad, and studied abroad twice during his college years. He believes that the experience of living in another country will be just as beneficial now as a college professor as it was then as a student.
“This experience will certainly give me a fuller appreciation of the differing ways that students globally interact with the books they read and help me strengthen the international scope of my teaching,” Zumkhawala-Cook said.
A professor at SU since 2001, Zumkhawala-Cook, who has been a professor at SU since 2001, has previously taught at Kenyon College, Miami University, Phillips Andover Academy and the Los Angeles Unified School District as a charter member of the Teach for America national teaching corps.
Zumkhawala-Cook will begin his fellowship in January 2017 and will be teaching literature at the Maharaja Sayajirao University, an English medium university in Vadodara, Gujarat. According to an SU news release, he is one of 16 SU faculty members to receive a Fulbright Award since 1998.
“We’ve been fortunate at Shippensburg to have other faculty members who have been Fulbright scholars, so of course I took advantage of their expertise to help review my materials to ensure the application was tight,” Zumkhawala-Cook said. “In many ways my application was a team effort.”
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