English Professor Named Frederick Burkhardt Fellow

English professor James Mulholland has been named a 2016 recipient of the American Council of Learned Societies Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellowship.

Mulholland, an associate professor of 18^th-century British poetry and Anglo-Indian literature, will spend the 2016-17 academic year in residency at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park. There, he’ll focus on an ongoing book project documenting the rich and unique literary culture of 18^th-century British India.

By the 1790s, Mulholland said, India had developed an archive of English-language authors who were writing locally, contrary to the more well-known and studied writers who were based in Britain. Mulholland said he’s looking to recover those lesser-known authors and place their work in the proper context.

“I’m hoping to alter our current sense that English-language writing in India merely imitated British fashions by explaining the social relationships and local infrastructure that made this writing possible,” Mulholland said. “It’s important to show how this writing was distinct, self-directed, and often ambivalent toward its European influences.”

The Frederick Burkhardt Fellowship provides scholars funding for residency at one of 13 humanities centers around the world, including the National Humanities Center. It also provides funding for research, which Mulholland will use for visits to historical archives at the British Library in London and the Academy Library at the Australian Defence Force Academy.

For more information on Mulholland, visit his faculty page.