Ph.D. student Rohini Shukla writes about B. R. Ambedkar's study of religion and related fields at Columbia University in the 1910's. Drawing on her archival research at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University, she shows how ideas and debates about primitivity, gender, and social evolution shaped Ambedkar's earliest writings on caste--'Castes in India: their Mechanisms, Genesis, and Development.' Read her full article in Borderlines.

The Departments of Religion at Columbia and Barnard are now welcoming submissions for the first annual Peter Awn Undergraduate Paper Prize. This prize of $500 will be given to the best paper written by an undergraduate for any course or seminar in Religion in the year prior. This prize honors our colleague Peter Awn’s inspired teaching and his dedication to promoting and celebrating creative inquiry.

Submissions will be accepted until March 13 at 5 p.m. Prize will be announced in mid-April.

Eligibility: Submissions must be

PhD student and psychoanalyst Zehra Mehdi is connecting hundreds of college students across India to mental health practitioner offering free services to help them cope with the stresses of the recent unrest. Read more about Zehra’s incredible work in the Times of India.