Faculty and staff
Peter Schmitthenner
Title |
Address |
Phone |
E-mail |
| Associate Professor/Department Chair | 111 Lane Hall | 231-8377
|
pschmitt@vt.edu |
Ph.D. in History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1991.
Peter Schmitthenner is an Associate Professor, jointly appointed by the Department of Religion and Culture and the Department of History. He earned both an M.A. in South Asian Studies and a Ph.D. in modern South Asian History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research focuses on the cultural history of southern India during British colonial rule. Dr. Schmitthenner’s first book, Telugu Resurgence: C.P. Brown and Cultural Consolidation in Nineteenth-Century South India (New Delhi: Monohar, 2001) examines the impact of a British civil servant’s scholarship on fostering a modern linguistic-based cultural identity. His current research examines hydraulic engineering in nineteenth-century south India, its development, connections to colonial rule, and impact on society and culture. He conducted research on this topic in India in 2001-2002 under fellowships received from the American Institute of Indian Studies and the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars (Fulbright). He has contributed a chapter, “The Environmental and Cultural Legacy of Colonial Hydraulic Projects in Two South Indian Deltas,” to a forthcoming edited book, The British Empire and the Natural World: Environmental Encounters in South Asia (New Delhi: Oxford University Press).
Dr. Schmitthenner has taught at Virginia Tech since 1993. He regularly teaches introductory Humanities courses on Asian Cultures (Traditional and Modern) and an introductory sequence on the History of India. He incorporates an optional experiential, service-learning component in these courses. He has also taught courses for History, Humanities, and Interdisciplinary Studies on the following topics: Colonialism and Culture; Explorations in Asian American Cultures; Technology, the Environment, and Cultural Change in Asia and Africa; and the Life and Legacy of Mohandas Gandhi. Dr. Schmitthenner is the Coordinator of the Asian Area Studies minor. Dr. Schmitthenner is an active member of the Association for Asian Studies and has served as Executive Director for the Southern Atlantic States Association for Asian and African Studies (SASASAAS).