Prof. Arjun Appadurai
Goddard Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication, Steinhardt, New York University, USA
Prof. Appadurai's current research focuses on ethnic violence in the context of globalization, a longer term collaborative project on the cultural dimensions of social crisis in Mumbai and a comparative ethnographic project on grass-roots globalization. He was the founding Director of the Chicago Humanities Institute at the University of Chicago. He has served on numerous international advisory bodies, including the advisory councils of the Smithsonian Institute, the Center for Arts and Culture (Washington), the Institute for Cultural Pluralism (Rio de Janeiro), the Research Center for Religion and Society (Amsterdam), Amsterdam School for Social Science Research, and the Social Science Research Council (New York). He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has served as a consultant to a wide range of public and private organizations, including many major foundations (Ford, MacArthur, and Rockefeller), UNESCO, UNDP, WIDER (World Institute for Development Economics Research), the World Bank, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation.