Writer Githa Hariharan and historian Romila Thapar will join the Dartmouth community as Montgomery Fellows during the 2006 Summer and Fall terms, respectively.
The two new Montgomery Fellows, announced Wednesday by Executive Director of the Montgomery Endowment Susan Wright, will take part in the two-term series entitled "Reimagining India."
"I think they're going to introduce their unique writings and scholarship and views into our Hanover Community," Wright said. "They're going to bring a piece of India."
Hariharan, a writer from New Delhi, will be teaching a course in the English department during the 2006 Summer term called "The Edges of Nation-Making: Perspectives on Modern Indian Literatures."
The author of four novels and a collection of stories, Hariharan received the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for her first novel, "The Thousand Faces of Night." Her most recent work, "In Time of Siege," published in 2004, was considered in the final rounds of judging for the same prize.
Hariharan's Montgomery Fellow Lecture, entitled "In Search of Our Other Selves," will take place on July 11 in Filene Auditorium.
Professor Romila Thapar, a historian who specializes in ancient India and is also from New Delhi, will be teaching "The Perception of the Past in Early India" in the history department during her time at Dartmouth.
Thapar first visited Dartmouth in 2003 as the guest speaker for the Robert F. Allabaugh Class of 1934 Memorial Lecture. Following her visit, history professor Gene Garthwaite nominated Thapar as a potential Fellow in 2004.
"She's India's most distinguished historian, period," Garthwaite said. "And she's an extraordinary individual aside from that."
Thapar, a professor emerita in history at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, is the author of a book on the general history of early India, which was recently rewritten and republished under the title "Early India."
Her Montgomery Fellow Lecture, "Interpretations of Early Indian History," will take place on Oct. 10, also in Filene Auditorium.
Established in 1977, the Montgomery Endowment was created to bring distinguished individuals from both the academic and non-academic spheres to campus.
