By Michelle Hines , University Relations
Contact: (336) 334-5371
Posted: 5-16-07
Dr. Mary Ellis Gibson.
GREENSBORO, NC – Dr. Mary Ellis Gibson, English professor and head of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, wanted to know more about the origins of English language literary culture in India.
A $40,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant and a $35,000 National Humanities Center fellowship will supplement her salary so that she can do just that. And write a book about it.
“I’m looking at the creation of English language literary culture, and how that comes to happen outside of the United Kingdom,” said Gibson, who plans to limit her work to the time period between 1780, when English literature was first printed in India, and 1912, when an Indian named Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize for Literature for poetry written in English.
She plans to include British and Indian writers in her study.
“I’m looking at this formative period,” Gibson said. “And I’m really fascinated with how complicated communications were between India and the UK in the 19th century.”
Gibson will visit the British Library and has already explored the Indian archives. So far, she has made several discoveries.
First, only the most educated Indians were the ones reading the British writers and vice versa. “It was one big loop,” Gibson said, “where everyone was imitating everyone else.”
Second, she discovered many writers who were previously unknown—some good, some not so good. She is particularly interested in the works of two female Indian writers, Toru Dutt and Sarojini Naidu.
Finally, she discovered that some of the most popular “British” writers in India were more specifically Scottish or Irish. Think of the poets Robert Burns and Thomas Moore for example. Both were extremely popular in India, and their distinct ethnic identities heavily influenced readers there.
“The monument to Robert Burns in Edinburgh after his death was almost entirely paid for by Scotsmen in Calcutta,” Gibson said. “I’m looking at how identities played out.”
NEH is the only federal agency that regularly funds humanities research. NEH grants are extremely competitive, with only about 11 percent of applicants receiving funding. Gibson’s grant was among 288 new NEH grants totaling $10.7 million awarded nationwide during the grant cycle.
The National Humanities Center awards more than $1.4 million annually in fellowship grants that enable scholars to take leave from their normal academic duties and pursue research at the Center. NHC, located in Research Triangle Park, is a privately incorporated independent institute for advanced study in the humanities.
