Winston-Salem State University (WSSU) NEH Seminar: 2012-2014
Integrating India into the Liberal Arts Curriculum
WSSU Participating Faculty Information
Project Directors: Dr. Robert Anderson, associate professor of Portuguese; Dr. Rose Sackeyfio,
assistant professor of English; Dr. Joti Sekhon, professor of sociology and director of
international programs
Seminar participants:
Robert Anderson is associate professor of Portuguese in the Department of World Languages
and Cultures. He is campus project director for a US-Brazil Higher Education Consortia
Program, “Legacies of the African Diaspora in Brazil and the United States: Persistent
Inequalities.” His research interests include Afro-Brazilian studies and Brazilian performing arts.
Dr. Anderson is also interested in Lusophone authors, and has published on Luso-Goan writer
Vimala Devi and the literature of Goa, Macau, and East Timor. He has studied Sanskrit for a
year, and read many of the Indian classics in English translation. Dr. Anderson is interested in
researching the Portuguese presence on the West Coast of India, especially influences on
theatrical traditions and Indo-Portuguese literature. He has also “unpacked" the World Literature
course he teaches as part of the new General Education reform at WSSU, titled World Literature:
India and Beyond (ENG 2303), which covers Indian literature from the Vedas to the bhakti poets
before 1650. The NEH seminar experience will allow him to go beyond canonical pre-modern
literature and modern “art house” film to incorporate materials that give students a greater
cultural and global understanding of contemporary India in the historical cultural context.
JoAnne Banks is professor of nursing research in the School of Health Sciences. She uses
information from her experiences in Botswana and elsewhere to incorporate a global and crosscultural perspective into her classes to enhance cultural competence. She plans to infuse
information about India into the undergraduate course Nursing Research. In this course, each
semester, students select a research topic, are assigned studies to understand of the role of culture
in the research, and then select a study of the topic from outside the United States. They also
view videos, which underscore the need to move beyond individual determinants of health and to
look at cultural and social factors influencing health. Dr. Banks also proposes to develop a
Liberal Learning Seminar on the meaning of health for people of Indian descent and people of
African descent in the United States, in India, and globally. Students will use literature, essays,
and films to examine and reflect on cultural similarities and differences and thus expand their
notions on what it means to be healthy. Dr. Banks’s research on the development of culturally
congruent health promotion strategies will also benefit from learning about factors in India and
in the Indian Diaspora.
Donna Benson is a professor of history with a specialization in African American history and
political economy of development. She has administrative experience in higher education
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leadership spanning over 20 years. Her interest in India began in 1991 as a participant in an NEH
seminar in Hawaii on the history of Asia. Dr. Benson will use the opportunity to participate in
the India seminar to develop course modules in three General Education Courses that she
teaches: World Civilization, American History, and African American History. In World
Civilization, she plans to expand her knowledge of world cultures to include course content on
India that would include history, Hinduism, Buddhism, and philosophy and spiritual leadership
of Mohandas Gandhi. With regard to American and African American history courses that she
also teaches, her objective is to strengthen theoretical components through exposing her students
to the rich cultural heritage of India. This is especially important as Winston Salem State
University aims to prepare students to live and work in a global village.
Alison Fleming is an associate professor in the Department of Fine Arts specializing in art
history. The opportunity to participate in the NEH-sponsored seminar would allow Dr. Fleming
to learn more about India in general and Indian art especially, and strengthen teaching of the
two-semester sequence of art history survey courses, both of which have a component on Indian
art. She plans to incorporate a fuller investigation of Indian art in both courses to allow for a
comparison between religious art in India, particularly of the Buddhist and Hindu traditions, and
that of other world religions studied in the courses (paganism, Christianity and Islam). The
significance of holy figures, their relics, and the art created in conjunction with them and their
religious traditions is an important aspect of her teaching and research. This seminar will provide
an opportunity for Dr. Fleming to continue her research on Jesuit art, and to learn more about the
first Jesuit missionary, St. Francis Xavier, who was buried in India. Her overall objective is to
expose students to the relationship between religion, history, and architecture from a crosscultural perspective.
Suresh Gopalan is professor of management and interim associate dean of the School of
Business and Economics. He teaches Global Issues in Management, International Management,
and International Business, in which about 30% of the content is devoted to gaining an
understanding of national cultures. Because of India’s global economic significance, he would
like to develop modules on India for two undergraduate courses, Organizational Behavior and
International Management, and for two MBA courses, Organizational Behavior and Strategic
Management. His research, disseminated in his dissertation, numerous articles and proceedings,
and presentations, has focused on Indian culture and its impact on management and business
practices. His work draws from anthropology, sociology, and psychology, as the study of culture
is multi-disciplinary in nature. By participating in the seminar, he also hopes to gain additional
insights to incorporate in future research projects.
Eric Greaux is an assistant professor of religion and a specialist in New Testament and early
Christian origins. He has published in journals in his field and Christian education publications,
and is the author of To the Elect Exiles of the Dispersion…from Babylon. Dr. Greaux teaches
World Religions, and exposes students Hinduism and Buddhism, in addition to Christianity and
Islam. His aim in participating in the NEH India seminar is to increase his knowledge of the
many ways that religions in India are practiced and mediated in southern Asia and to use this
knowledge as a platform to heighten student international awareness at Winston Salem State
University. He will also propose a new course on the religions of India to allow for a deeper
understanding of the historical, conceptual and ritual dimensions of religious traditions that are
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central to South and Central Asian cultures. The India seminar will build upon his participation
in the 2009 Council on International Education Exchange: International Faculty Development
Seminar in India that enhanced his cross-cultural interests in religion through studies of
Hinduism in Delhi, Hyderabad, and Bangalore, India.
Zagros Madjd-Sadjadi is professor of economics and Chair of the Economics and Finance
Department at WSSU. He has published widely in leading economics and political science
journals and is the editor-in-chief and publisher of the American Review of Political Economy.
His research interests interrogate the ways that governments respond to globalization and the
economics of crime. Dr. Majd-Sadjadi teaches Comparative Economic Systems, Principles of
Macroeconomics, and Moral and Ethical Foundations of capitalism. In these courses, a major
objective is to increase global awareness through exploration of the dynamics of business and
finance across cultures. His participation in the India seminar would facilitate the infusion of
knowledge about India into these courses to expand his current comparative expertise on Canada.
The India seminar would strengthen Dr. Madjd-Sadjadi’s professional expertise through
learning about India’s philosophical and religious traditions, and how they might inform the
political economy of the country.
Sathasivam Mathiyalakan is an associate professor of management information systems (MIS)
and teaches MIS and Healthcare Informatics courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
His research focuses on the use of information technology in education and workforce
development. His research articles have appeared in several journals. The NEH seminar will allow
him to enhance student learning by adding a global component to MIS courses, as well as expand
his research on information technology (IT) in education and workforce development. A deeper
knowledge of the Indian culture, society, and business practices would enable Dr. Mathiyalakan
to incorporate global dimensions into the courses that he teaches, especially as India has
transformed itself to a more knowledge based society and provider of IT sourcing and services. He
plans to introduce a module on global IT into the course, Information Technology and
Management. The focus of this module will be on managing IT professionals and workforce in a
global environment with an emphasis on India. He is also interested in identifying factors that lead
to the production of versatile graduates in computer related fields in India that contribute to the
success of India in the global IT environment.
Mueni Wa Muiu is associate professor of political science in the Department of Social Sciences.
Dr. Muiu's research focus is comparative politics/international relations with specific emphasis
on state-citizen relations. She is the author of several books and journal articles, and is currently
working on a manuscript on Lessons on Democracy: Case Studies from Kenya and Zimbabwe.
Dr. Muiu teaches courses on American Government; Global Conflict; Middle East; International
Relations, and War. She plans to develop a new course focusing on a comparative study of China
and India’s politics and economies with a specific emphasis on both countries’ foreign relations.
Dr. Muiu believes it is crucial to expand her own and students’ understanding about other parts
of the world, especially of India and China’s role in the world. The NEH seminar will allow her
to deepen her knowledge about India as she examines pertinent historical, cultural and
contemporary issues that continue to shape its foreign policy.
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Rose A. Sackeyfio is assistant professor of English, and specializes in the literature of African
and African-American women. She teaches World Literature, African-American Culture,
African women’s literature, and more recently she has developed General Education courses in
Women’s Literature in a Global Context, and Black Women’s Identity through Time. Dr.
Sackeyfio’s scholarship explores various aspects of the lives of African women in a global arena,
including an article titled “Feminist Perspectives in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple
Hibiscus and Everything Good will Come by Sefi Atta.” She plans to integrate course content on
India into her courses in World Literature, Women’s Literature in Global Context, and Freshman
Composition. This would build upon her expertise in African Women’s Literature and recent
interest in writing by and about Tibetan women in literary and Buddhist texts. The India seminar
would facilitate an examination of the role of gendered identities in modern India, and enhance
interdisciplinary knowledge and pedagogical perspectives on women across cultures. Dr.
Sackeyfio also plans to develop a new course: An Introduction to 20th and 21st Century India
through Literature and Film that will allow a closer look at how writers and filmmakers represent
historical events and current issues.
Russell Smith is an assistant professor of geography with research interests in urban and
political geography. Dr. Smith is the author of several research publications, contracted reports,
and presentations. Currently, Dr. Smith is working on a $100,000 HUD Sustainable
Communities Regional Planning Grant in the Western Piedmont of North Carolina. With India
posed to be the most populated country in the world, he believes it is vital for students to be
exposed to India's rapidly growing population, increasing levels of urbanization, growing
economic importance, and environmental conditions. The knowledge obtained through the NEH
India seminar will allow him to incorporate modules specifically focused on India to be
embedded into existing geography courses, such as Introduction to Geography and Urban
Geography, and for the potential development of a new Geography of India course. It would
allow him to explore the physical, cultural, economic, political, and urban geography of India to
provide a detailed analysis of this emerging country. Exposure to India through this program
would help expand his understanding of political and urban geography in a developing country,
and add a crucial global dimension to the geography curriculum at WSSU.
Tanya Walker is an assistant professor in the Department of English and Foreign Languages.
She hopes to add a global aspect to two existing courses that she teaches as well as to her
research on rape narratives by black female playwrights. One course, Black Speculative Fiction,
examines the depiction of race and/or Blackness in Black-authored texts as well as popular films.
Works of science fiction and fantasy by Indian authors may prove to have a similar effect of
drawing the culture-defining corpus of oral stories, legends, and myths into the ‘literary’ realm.
The other course is Modern Drama. Although it places emphasis on African American drama,
the course could include comparative analyses between Indian drama and other dramas. Infusion
of Indian content into these courses will allow students to look beyond the familiar and make
cross-cultural connections. Dr. Walker also plans to expand her research on rape tragedies
written by black female playwrights by examining rape narratives by contemporary Indian
female playwrights.
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