The American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS), founded in 1961, is a consortium of 90 universities and colleges in the United States that promotes the advancement of knowledge about India in the U.S. It carries out this purpose by: awarding fellowships to scholars and artists to carry out their research and artistic projects in India; by operating intensive programs in a variety of Indian languages in India; by sponsoring conferences, workshops and outreach activities; by supporting U.S. study abroad and service learning programs in India; by assisting and facilitating the research of all U.S. scholars in India; and by operating two research archives, the Archives and Research Center for Ethnomusicology and the Center for Art and Archaeology. The AIIS is a member of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers. AIIS headquarters

Activities

The U.S. headquarter of the AIIS is at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

. The main center in India is at

Gurugram Gurgaon (pronunciation: �ʊɽɡãːw, officially named Gurugram (pronunciation: �ʊɾʊɡɾaːm, is a city located in the northern Indian state of Haryana. It is situated near the Delhi–Haryana border, about southwest of the nationa ...

with an additional center in Defence Colony in New Delhi. The AIIS also has offices in Kolkata and Pune. The AIIS awards junior fellowships to Ph.D. candidates at universities in the U.S. to carry out their doctoral dissertation research in India. Senior fellowships are for scholars holding the doctoral degree to conduct their research in India. AIIS fellows are scholars in a broad range of academic disciplines including Anthropology, Geography, History, Literature, Political Science, Public Health, Regional Planning, Religious Studies and many other fields. AIIS also offers performing and creative arts fellowships to musicians, dancers, visual and multi-media artists to carry out their artistic projects in India. AIIS operates intensive language programs in India for the summer and the academic year. Th
language programs
are located at sites where the language is spoken. The Hindi program is the largest, located in Jaipur. Other programs include Urdu and Mughal Persian (located in Lucknow), Bengali (located in Kolkata), Punjabi (located in Chandigarh), Marathi and Sanskrit (located in Pune), Tamil (located in Madurai), Malayalam (located in Thiruvananthapuram), Telugu (located in Hyderabad) and Gujarati (located in Ahmedabad). AIIS also offers programs in very rarely taught languages such as Oriya and Sindhi, upon request. The AIIS operates the Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu summer language programs for the U.S. State Department's

Critical Language Scholarship Program The Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program is a United States Department of State cultural and educational exchange program which offers approximately 600 undergraduate or graduate level students from the United States the opportunity to parti ...

at its centers in Kolkata, Jaipur, Chandigarh, and Lucknow respectively. AIIS also operates the fall semester Hindi and Urdu programs for the South Asia Flagship Languages Initiative (SAFLI) for Boren Scholar

The AIIS awards annua
book prizes
to young scholars and also holds a dissertation-to-book workshop at th
annual Madison South Asia conference in October
AIIS offers an array of services t
U.S. study abroad programs
including assistance with obtaining student visas as well as logistical support. AIIS is also involved in a project to facilitate American students
service learning internships with Indian NGOs
AIIS also hosts conferences, symposia, and workshops sometimes with other members of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, such as
workshop on Sufi Shrines
held in Aurangabad, India in August 2014. AIIS publishe
semiannual newsletters
reporting on its fellows' research, the activities of its research centers, and events such as conferences and workshops. The AIIS is actively engaged in publishing the ''Encyclopaedia of Indian Temple Architecture'', a multi-volume work.

Funding

The AIIS receives grants from the U.S. State Department through the Council of American Overseas Research Centers and through its Critical Languages Scholarship program; from the National Endowment from the Humanities through its Fellowship Programs at Independent Research Institutions program; from the U.S. Department of Education through its Group Projects Abroad and American Overseas Research Centers program; through language tuition and program fees, institutional membership fees and contributions.

Member Institutions

American University Amherst College Arizona State University

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Duke University

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Florida State University

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Independent Scholars of South Asia

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Kansas State University

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Michigan State University Middlebury College

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Oberlin College

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Pennsylvania State University

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SUNY Stony Brook Syracuse University

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References

External links

American Institute of Indian Studies, Photo Archive
at the Digital South Asia Library
American Institute of Indian Studies, Language Programs
{{Authority control Educational institutions established in 1961 Council of American Overseas Research Centers Gurgaon Indology Organizations based in Chicago India-focused think tanks 1961 establishments in Illinois