Long-Term Research Fellowships at American Overseas Research Centers sponsored by CAORC

FAIN: RA-235021-16

CAORC (Washington, DC 20560-0007)
Christopher A. Tuttle (Project Director: August 2015 to December 2017)
Heidi Wiederkehr (Project Director: December 2017 to July 2018)
Glenn Joseph Corbett (Project Director: July 2018 to March 2020)
Katie Jost (Project Director: March 2020 to present)

12 months of stipend support (1-3 fellowships) per year for three years and a contribution to defray costs associated with the selection of fellows.

The Council of American Overseas Centers (CAORC) is a nonprofit consortium of independent overseas research centers which promotes scholarship, education and international dialogue (caorc.org). CAORC requests support from the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship Programs at Independent Research Institutions grant (NEH FPIRI) to establish a long-term research fellowship program to be hosted within the member overseas research centers that currently do not receive NEH FPIRI funding. Eligibility for the program will be limited to postdoctoral fellows conducting research in the humanities for a minimum of four and a maximum of six continuous months at an American overseas research center. (edited by NEH staff)

Associated Products

A Geographer’s Field Notes: The CAORC-NEH Senior Fellow Experience in Senegal (Blog Post)
Title: A Geographer’s Field Notes: The CAORC-NEH Senior Fellow Experience in Senegal
Author: Karen Barton
Abstract: In this essay, CAORC-NEH Senior Research Fellow Karen Barton discusses her research experience in coastal Senegal, where locals meet large scale environmental changes with resilience and optimism.
Date: 11/8/2018
Primary URL: https://www.caorc.org/single-post/2018/11/08/A-Geographers-Field-Notes
Blog Title: A Geographer’s Field Notes: The CAORC-NEH Senior Fellow Experience in Senegal
Website: Council of American Overseas Research Centers

The Joola: The Geographical Dimensions of Africa’s Greatest Shipwreck (Blog Post)
Title: The Joola: The Geographical Dimensions of Africa’s Greatest Shipwreck
Author: Karen Barton
Abstract: This interactive article explores the untold histories and legacies of the 2002 Joola shipwreck in Senegal, which killed an estimated 1,863 people. Despite more casualties than the Titanic, there has been no academic attention to the wide-reaching impact of the Joola. This article explores the incident through a geographic lens and by doing so, allows the traumatic event and the thousands of people affected to be adequately memorialized.
Date: 11/2/2017
Primary URL: https://focusongeography.org/publications/articles/joola/index.html
Blog Title: The Joola: The Geographical Dimensions of Africa’s Greatest Shipwreck
Website: Focus on Geography

Remembering and Remaking Nepal’s Founder: A Visual History of Prithvinarayan Shah (Blog Post)
Title: Remembering and Remaking Nepal’s Founder: A Visual History of Prithvinarayan Shah
Author: Dannah Dennis
Author: Avash Bhandari
Abstract: In this essay, we show that among the various images of Prithvinarayan Shah drawn in different styles and across media in different historical periods, a painting by Amar Chitrakar came to acquire a hegemonic status as the most recognized and reprinted image of the king after the 1960s, becoming a visual trope that represents Nepali national unity under the tutelage of the Shah monarch.
Date: 03/18/2019
Primary URL: http://www.tasveergharindia.net/essay/nepal-visual-prithvinarayan.html
Blog Title: Remembering and Remaking Nepal’s Founder: A Visual History of Prithvinarayan Shah
Website: Tasveer Ghar: A Digital Archive of South Asian Popular Visual Culture

Under the Sovereignty of Lok Ta - Spirit Owners, Climate Change, and Collaborative Management in Cambodia’s Prey Lang Forest (Blog Post)
Title: Under the Sovereignty of Lok Ta - Spirit Owners, Climate Change, and Collaborative Management in Cambodia’s Prey Lang Forest
Author: Courtney Work
Abstract: In this essay, CAORC-NEH Senior Research Fellow Courtney Work discusses the intertwined economies of development and environmental conservation in Cambodia’s Prey Lang Forest.
Date: 05/14/2018
Primary URL: https://www.caorc.org/single-post/2018/05/14/Under-the-Sovereignty-of-Lok-Ta
Blog Title: Under the Sovereignty of Lok Ta - Spirit Owners, Climate Change, and Collaborative Management in Cambodia’s Prey Lang Forest
Website: Council of American Overseas Research Centers

“There Was So Much”: Violence, Sovereignty, and States of Extraction in Cambodia (Article)
Title: “There Was So Much”: Violence, Sovereignty, and States of Extraction in Cambodia
Author: Courtney Work
Abstract: Anthropologists debate the usefulness of an “Ontological Turn” in theory and practice as a way to confront the social and ecological disjuncture at the heart of the Anthropocene. Is it possible, scholars wonder, to validate rather than rationalize the idea that mountains, rivers, and trees are social interlocutors as well as arbiters of justice, resource access, and societal well-being? In a twist of monumental irony, previously market-independent Cambodians are facing, in an odious confluence of fear, need, and desire, an ontological turn toward the rationalized notion that trees, mountains, rivers and all their inhabitants are important primarily as commodities that can be converted to money. This paper explores part of that nexus of fear, need, and desire through accounts of social relationships with the “owner of the water and the land,” whose permission is sought for territorial access and resource use. Successful navigation of relationships with the original owner of the territory require respect, solidarity, conservation, and offerings of gratitude. In return people enjoy resource abundance, ritual/technical knowledge, and good health. Improper comportment results in illness, loss of access to forest and water resources, and knowledge loss. In yet another ironic twist, the Development State (defined within) promises poverty alleviation, education, and health care for all those who master the extractive market economy. The paper explores how different ontologies give rise to particular social, political, and economic possibilities, and demonstrates that the punishments of the Original owner of the water and the land are visited upon those who either will not or cannot successfully navigate the extractive market system.
Year: 2018
Primary URL: https://www.pdcnet.org/jrv/content/jrv_2018_0999_5_14_51
Access Model: subscription only
Format: Journal
Format: Other
Periodical Title: Journal of Religion and Violence
Publisher: Philosophy Documentation Center

Explorations in the Transmission of the Ramayana in Sri Lanka (Article)
Title: Explorations in the Transmission of the Ramayana in Sri Lanka
Author: Justin Henry
Abstract: To be added
Year: 2019
Primary URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/csas20/current
Access Model: subscription
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies
Publisher: South Asian Studies Association of Australia

Reclaiming Ravana: Tamil Perspectives on Ravana’s Apotheosis in Sri Lanka (Article)
Title: Reclaiming Ravana: Tamil Perspectives on Ravana’s Apotheosis in Sri Lanka
Author: Justin Henry
Author: S. Pathmanesan
Author: Krishantha Fedricks
Abstract: To be added
Year: 2019
Primary URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/csas20/current
Access Model: subscription
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies
Publisher: South Asian Studies Association of Australia

Ravana’s Mechanical Flying Peacock (Blog Post)
Title: Ravana’s Mechanical Flying Peacock
Author: Justin Henry
Abstract: In this essay, Justin Henry, a 2017-18 CAORC NEH Senior Research Fellow, discusses the origins and implications of Ravana's flying machine, a popular figure in Sri Lankan versions of the Ramayana epic.
Date: 06/10/2019
Primary URL: https://www.caorc.org/single-post/2019/06/10/Ravanas-Mechanical-Flying-Peacock
Website: CAORC

Ravana’s Kingdom: The Ramayana and Sri Lankan History from Below (Book)
Title: Ravana’s Kingdom: The Ramayana and Sri Lankan History from Below
Author: Justin Henry
Abstract: Ravana, the demon-king antagonist from the Ramayana, the ancient Hindu epic poem, has become an unlikely cultural hero among Sinhala Buddhists over the past decade. In Ravana's Kingdom, Justin W. Henry delves into the historical literary reception of the epic in Sri Lanka, charting the adaptions of its themes and characters from the 14th century onwards, as many Sri Lankan Hindus and Buddhists developed a sympathetic impression of Ravana's character, and through the contemporary Ravana revival, which has resulted in the development of an alternative mythological history, depicting Ravana as king of the Sri Lanka's indigenous inhabitants, a formative figure of civilizational antiquity, and the direct ancestor of the Sinhala Buddhist people. Henry offers a careful study of the literary history of the Ramayana in Sri Lanka, employing numerous sources and archives that have until now received little to no scholarly attention, as well as the 21st century revision of a narrative of the Sri Lankan people-a narrative incubated by the general public online, facilitated by social media and by the speed of travel of information in the digital age. Ravana's Kingdom offers a glimpse into a centuries-old, living Ramayana tradition among Hindus and Buddhists in Sri Lanka-a case study of the myth-making process in the digital age.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/title/1344332849
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Type: Single author monograph

Experiencing Locally, Thinking Globally: Smallpox Vaccination as a Framework for Understanding the Global Early Modern (Article)
Title: Experiencing Locally, Thinking Globally: Smallpox Vaccination as a Framework for Understanding the Global Early Modern
Author: Allyson M. Poska
Abstract: N/A
Year: 2021
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Modern Philology special issue “Multiplicities: Recasting the Early Modern Global,” 119, no. 1

Narrating a Revolutionary Life Through Song: Personal, Political, and Musical Choices in Making Singing A Great Dream (Book Section)
Title: Narrating a Revolutionary Life Through Song: Personal, Political, and Musical Choices in Making Singing A Great Dream
Author: Bhakta Syangtan
Author: Anna Stirr
Editor: Christopher Ballengee
Abstract: N/A
Year: 2022
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Book Title: Music, Sound, and Documentary Film in the Global South

COVID-19 and documentary linguistics: Some ways forward (Article)
Title: COVID-19 and documentary linguistics: Some ways forward
Author: J. Good
Author: Nicholas Williams
Author: W.D.L. Silva
Author: L. McPherson
Abstract: N/A
Year: 2021
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Language Documentation and Description, 20

Preliminary Documentation of Leukon Language (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: Preliminary Documentation of Leukon Language
Author: Tasnim Williams
Author: Nicholas Williams
Abstract: Endangered Languages Archive
Year: 2022

Under the Canopy of Development Aid: Illegal Logging and the Shadow State (Article)
Title: Under the Canopy of Development Aid: Illegal Logging and the Shadow State
Author: Try Thuon
Author: Courtney Work
Author: Ida Theilade
Abstract: N/A
Year: 2022
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of Peasant Studies 0 (0): 1–23

The Dance of Life and Death: Social relationships with elemental power (Book Section)
Title: The Dance of Life and Death: Social relationships with elemental power
Author: Courtney Work
Editor: Holly High
Abstract: N/A
Year: 2022
Publisher: NUS Press
Book Title: Stone Masters: Territory cults of Southeast Asia

Stones of Spirits and Kings: Negotiating Land Grabs in Contemporary Cambodia (Book Section)
Title: Stones of Spirits and Kings: Negotiating Land Grabs in Contemporary Cambodia
Author: Courtney Work
Editor: Erik Davis
Editor: Jason Carbine
Abstract: N/A
Year: 2022
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Book Title: Sima Boundaries in Buddhist Southeast Asia

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