Tag: fulbright program

Congratulations, Indira Tiwari

An overdue congratulations to my good friend Indira Tiwari on making her first film outside of India. We met by chance in a theatre lobby when she was in Kolkata shooting Suman Mukhopadyay‘s amazing indie film Nazarband and I was completing my Fulbright research in 2019. We quickly became friends.

She was on her way to audition in Mumbai for Serious Men and got the role, a major break for her co-starring alongside Nawaz Sidiqqui, which premiered on Netflix in 2020. I’m looking forward to watching her as the female lead in Cannes Prizewinner Vimukthi Jayasundara’s Turtle’s Gaze on Spying Stars, as covered in Variety, an international collaboration between India, Sri Lanka and France. Go, Indira!

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FIIGin’ Awesome

Attention current or former Fulbrighters who have made a film about South Asia: we’ve launched a film festival just for you. Your Fulbright research/teaching award doesn’t have to have been in South Asia for you to submit your film. See full details on the FIIG Film Festival below. Deadline 1/15/25!

Liaising Around

I’m happy to share that I’ve accepted a new role as a Fulbright Scholar Liaison at Drexel University as part of the Drexel Global office, working closely with Dr. Rogelio Miñana, PhD, Vice Provost for Drexel Global and Professor of Spanish and Global Studies, and my fellow Fulbright Scholar Liaison Dan Kampsen, Senior Director of Global Safety and Operations.

As a Fulbright Scholar Liason I serve as a main point of contact for the Fulbright Scholar Program at Drexel University, facilitating increased participation in the Fulbright Scholar Program via institutional level support and peer to peer engagement, promoting Fulbright Scholar Programs, educating faculty & administrators about opportunities, encouraging candidates on campus, recognizing returned Fulbright grantees and supporting the development of Fulbright-friendly institutional policies.

There are over 1,600 designated Fulbright Scholar Liaisons on college and university campuses throughout the United States, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

Fulbright Talk at Drexel

I had an absolutely wonderful time yesterday at Drexel University introducing Dr. Steven Butterman, Professor of Languages at the University of Miami and Fulbright Scholar Alumni Ambassador, for his Fulbright Talk.

His discussion of his experiences in Brazil as a Fulbrighter researching his topic LGBT+ Brazilians Out / Inside Brazil: Cultural Representations of Human Rights Discourses, Identity Reconstruction, and Political Asylum was eye-opening, heart-wrenching and even sometimes funny. He’s a masterful storyteller and gave our faculty a lot of sound advice on how to start their own Fulbright journeys.

Thank you, Tisch Open Arts

Wow. Thank you so much NYU Tisch School of the Arts Open Arts Program for sharing the doubly good news in their article about The Jeff & Shuvam Show, which I’m happy to say seems to be really taking off, and separately celebrating my article in UK peer-reviewed journal Race & Class. I’m grateful that they mentioned my youtube channel (not really a podcast) collaborators Shuvam Dasgupta and my fellow Fulbright alum, film director Abhijit Chowdhury, whose idea this was, and his India-based media production company Concept Cube which launched the podcast, not me solely.

My grant to attend the Fulbright Association conference last October, as mentioned in the article, was provided by our terrific adjunct faculty union ACT-UAW Local 7902.