Faculty reflect, reveal, record impressions of India

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In a recent post on the Reflections from India blog, an English professor described feeling marginally literate when attempting to read road signs.

A religion scholar wondered what Hindus might make of [Auroville’s] claim that religions divide the people of the world.


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An art historian compared a performance of the Ramayana to the way Homeric epics circulated in antiquity.

And a geographer reported breakfasting on nan and goat curd at home with a family in Bharatpur while they recorded his visit with  their cell phones. (Pictured at right)

These observations and more, written by some of the 27 professors who are traveling in India for two weeks, have attracted some 19,000 page views to date.

Along with faculty-shot photos and videos, the posts show the unfolding of an intellectual experience that will pay dividends for generations of Colgate students and for the travelers themselves.

The trip, intended to further internationalize Colgate’s Liberal Arts Core Curriculum, was initiated by faculty and is being funded in part by a $100,000 Mellon Foundation new-president’s grant awarded to President Jeffrey Herbst for his discretionary use.

Before the group departed, Professor Eliza Kent talked about what was planned.