William Reese (Beaver College)

updated: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 11:00:09 -0500 (EST)

William Reese
Assistant Adjunct Professor of Anthropology
Dept. of Sociology / Anthropology
Beaver College
Glenside, PA

Mailing Address:
126 Arnold Road
Ardmore, PA 19003   USA

phones: 610/642-1765 (residence)
        215/572-4054 (office)
email:  WReese802@aol.com

Description of work:

My research addresses the situation of Bengali literary elites, and their
evolving visions of modernity in contemporary India.  My recently
completed doctoral dissertation depicts a class of writers who aim to be
public intellectuals and social reformers, yet find their traditional
ethics shape their modern literature and constrain their ideas of
effective political revolution (The Writer, The West and the
People: Calcutta's Populist Literary Tradition, the University of
California at San Diego, LA Jolla, CA). This work draws on interviews, and
on field research on Bengali little magazines which I conducted in
1991-1993 in Calcutta.  It was supported by the Institute on Global
Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) and the American Institute of Indian
Studies (AIIS).

Other key words:  
Calcutta, West Bengal, Bengali, India 
scholars, intellectuals, writers 
literature, journals, little magazines, print, press
colonialism, West, Bengali Marxism, populism
anthropology, psychological anthropology