[INDOLOGY] Trump government cancelling NEH grants

[Jonathan Peterson]

Dear colleagues,

I’ve refrained from talking about government actions against our universities, departments, and our field because of the public scrutiny that my department is under. That said, I will just add that beyond the cancelling of individual grants, the government is exacting a profound material effect on our ability to train students, host academic events, and engage in fieldwork. Several area studies institutes at Columbia, including the South Asia Institute, have been impacted by stop work orders on various federal grants, and I know the same is true at other universities across the country.

The scale of the government’s efforts against the university is national, and therefore resistance needs to be national in scale. There are several national organizations currently working to address funding cuts and encroachments on academic freedom, including the American Association of University Professors (https://www.aaup.org/about-aaup) (AAUP), which announced several lawsuits (https://www.aaup.org/news/faculty-unions-sue-trump-administration-no-halting-science-research-suppress-speech) against the government. 

The AAUP is an academic organization like the AOS or AAR, which means that most universities will allow membership dues to be paid from research funds. If your university has a chapter, consider joining. If not, consider starting one.

Regardless of our personal positions on U.S. imperialism, those of us in area studies in the U.S. have benefitted from an agreement amongst our elected leaders in Washington that American soft power depends in part on linguistic and cultural competence in different parts of the world. That logic no longer holds true. Beyond these funding cuts, those of us committed to area studies beyond strategic or foreign policy interests ought to be working to communicate the importance of what we do to our elected leaders and the general public. 

Best wishes,
Jonathan Peterson
Assistant Professor of Sanskrit and Premodern South Asia
Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies
Columbia University



> On Apr 9, 2025, at 8:00 AM, indology-request at list.indology.info wrote:
> 
> Re: Trump government cancelling NEH grants