Mallampalli Awarded Foundation Chair
Chandra Mallampalli, Westmont professor of history, has been selected as the second recipient of the Fletcher Jones Foundation Endowed Chair in Social Science. The Fletcher Jones Foundation created the chair to rotate among deserving faculty within the social science division. Professor Mallampalli succeeds Rick Pointer, professor of history, who has held the chair since its inception in 2010. The position includes an annual stipend for research and allows the professor to teach one less class each year.
“We’re delighted to announce Professor Mallampalli’s appointment,” says Westmont President Gayle D. Beebe. “An author of three books and 17 book chapters or articles in refereed journals, he has delivered more than 35 scholarly presentations. Not only has he excelled as a specialist in modern South Asia, but he is also a popular and effective teacher who enjoys working with students both at Westmont and during his extensive travels in Asia.
Mallampalli studies a range of interests at the intersection of religion, law and society in colonial India with articles appearing in some of the most selective journals of his field. His books include: “A Muslim Conspiracy in British India? Politics and Paranoia in the Early Nineteenth Century Deccan” (forthcoming with Cambridge University Press, June 2017); “Race, Religion and Law in Colonial India: Trials of an Interracial Family” (Cambridge University Press, 2011); and “Christians and Public Life in Colonial South India, 1863-1937: Contending with Marginality” (Routledge, 2004). He is currently under contract with Oxford University Press to write “Between Hindu and Muslim: Christians of Modern South Asia.”
The National Endowment for the Humanities funded his research in India and the United Kingdom for “Race, Religion and Law in Colonial India.” Mallampalli recently received a networking grant from the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities for a three year project, “South Asian Christianity in Transition: Identity, Theological Education, and the Plight of the Marginal.”
Professor Mallampalli joined Westmont’s history department in fall 2001 and teaches courses in world history, modern South Asia, British Empire and comparative Asian history. He completed his doctorate in modern South Asian history at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Previously, he studied theology and worked as a journalist in South Asia. He is a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University, and is married to Beverly Chen, a licensed clinical social worker and therapist.