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Six Hamilton students spent the fall semester on the New York State Independent College Consortium for Study in India (NYSICCSI) program. Katie Barth ’12, Katherine Costa ’12, Beth Foster ’12, Kate Harloe ’12, Elsie Love ’12 and Charlotte Munson ’11 are part of the group, led this semester by faculty director Hamilton Associate Professor of History Lisa Trivedi and assistant director Hamilton alumnus Jack Reigeluth '07. The students traveled throughout northern India, took academic courses and conducted various independent fieldwork research projects.

Observed from the West, Hinduism appears as a complex, heterogeneous, polytheistic amalgamation of religious practices. But just below its multifaceted interior lies a concept that Westerners understand only too well: the control of colonization. Through an Emerson grant and the guidance of Associate Professor of History Lisa Trivedi, Kate Harloe ’12 will spend the summer investigating the roots of Hinduism as well as its contemporary incarnations in Indian society.

Watching a Bollywood film in India is more like a screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show than a typical American viewing experience. Viewers participate: they yell, dance and sing along during the three-hour spectacle. But for Kirkland Summer Research Associate Jori Belkin ’11, her interest extends far beyond the theater; Belkin is researching the role and perception of women in Bollywood films.