The international advisory board has been constituted to assist in the maintenance of high standards in academics at the Nepā School of Social Sciences and Humanities. The board members will review the curricula and give recommendations on the structure of the courses.
The board consists of eminent social scientists from around the world who have academic and research links with Nepal.
The current advisory board comprises:
- David Gellner (Chair), University of Oxford, Oxford
- David Holmberg, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
- Michael Hutt, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London
- Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
- Gérard Toffin, National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris
David Gellner is Professor of Social Anthropology at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, and Head of the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford. He is also a Fellow of All Souls College. His research interests include the anthropology of South Asia, Buddhism, Hinduism, traditional urbanism, healers and their relation to religion, ritual and symbolism, politics, and ethnicity and activism. He was involved in the EU Asialink project 'The (Micro-)politics of Democratisation: European-South Asian Exchanges on Governance, Conflict and Civic Action' (see http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/midea).
Among his recent publications are (with Sarah LeVine) Rebuilding Buddhism: The Theravada Movement in Twentieth-Century Nepal (Harvard 2005), (ed.) Resistance and the State: Nepalese Experiences (Delhi 2003; Oxford 2006), and (ed.) Ethnic Activism and Civil Society in South Asia (Delhi 2009).
David Holmberg
David Holmberg is Professor and former Chair of the Department of Anthropology, Cornell University. His major publications include (with Kathryn S. March, Surya Man Tamang and Bhim Bahadur Tamang) Mutual Regards: America and Nepal Seen through Each Other's Eyes (Kathmandu 1995) and Order in Paradox: Myth, Ritual, and Exchange among Nepal's Tamang (Ithaca 1989).
Michael Hutt
Michael Hutt is the Dean, Faculty of Languages and Cultures, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. His publications include (with Lil Bahadur Chettri) Mountains Painted with Turmeric (New York 2008), Unbecoming Citizens: Culture, Nationhood, and the Flight of Refugees from Bhutan (Oxford 2003), Voices from Asia (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1991), and the edited books Himalayan ‘People’s War’: Nepal’s Maoist Rebellion (London 2004), Bhutan: Perspectives on Conflict and Dissent (Gartmore 1994) and Nepal in the Nineties: Versions of the Past, Visions of the Future (New Delhi 1994).
Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka
Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka is Professor of Social Anthropology at the Faculty of Sociology at Bielefeld University, Germany. She acted as Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the same university from 2007 to 2009. Her PhD thesis focused on the ‘Power and Ritual Unity: The Hindu caste System and Ethnic Relations in the Process of State-formation in Nepal.’ Her current research interests include political anthropology, ethnicity, integration and minority research, democratization processes in sub-national contexts, legal anthropology (in particular, human and minority rights), cultural change and inter-cultural communication, and social anthropological perspectives on processes of globalization.
Her recent publications include the articles ‘No end to Nepal’s Maoist rebellion’, Focaal, European Journal of Anthropology, 2005, and ‘Democratisation and Nation-building in Divided Societies’ in Jochen Hippler (ed.) Nation-Building: A Key Concept for Peaceful Conflict Transformation? (London and Ann Arbor 2005). Her published books and edited volumes include (ed. with A. Nandy, D. Rajasingham and T. Gomez) Ethnic Futures. State and Identity in Four Asian Countries (New Delhi 1999) and (ed. with D. Gellner and J. Whelpton) Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom: The Politics of Culture in Contemporary Nepal (Amsterdam 1997).
Gérard Toffin is Director of Research at CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research, Paris), and Professor of Nepali Civilization in the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilisations, Paris. He is also a member of the Scientific Committee for the French Research Centres in Asia under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of France. He has lectured at Harvard, Oxford and SOAS, among other institutions. In 2000 he delivered the Radhakrishnan Memorial Lecture at All Souls College, Oxford University. Prof. Toffin has written a dozen books and numerous articles, mostly in French, and also edited important anthropological journals and books. His publications have focussed on material culture, kinship, politics, economy, religion, and the writing of social anthropology.
His important works include Pyangaon, une Communauté Newar de la Vallée de Katmandou (Paris 1977), Societé et Religion chez les Newars de la Vallée de Katmandou (Paris 1984), Le Palais et le Temple: La Fonction Royale dans l'ancienne Vallée du Népal (Paris 1993), La quête de l'Autre: L'ethnologie d'Hier à Aujourd'hui (Solar 2005), Newar Society: City, Village and Periphery (Kathmandu 2007) and the edited volume Nepal: Past and Present (Delhi 1993). His research currently focuses on the anthropology of performance and theatre, the construction of democracy in Nepal, and a Krishnaite sect found both in Nepal and India (particularly Gujarat and North Bengal).