Contact: Sammy McDavid
STARKVILLE, Miss.--An assistant professor of religion at Mississippi State University is being honored twice this year by the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.
Eve Mullen, a Harvard Divinity School graduate, recently was selected for the Fulbright Senior Specialist and traditional Fulbright Scholars Lecture grants. An MSU department of philosophy and religion faculty member since 2001, she will complete both at the Center for Cross-Cultural and Religious Studies at Universitas Gadjah Mada.
Gadjah Mada is located on the main island of Java in the Pacific nation of Indonesia.
The first grant supports her work from June through August. In addition to curriculum development, she will be assessing teaching materials, planning academic programs and conferences, and teaching and advising graduate students. Her instructional topics will include Chinese philosophies and religions, and Chinese gender roles.
From February to June of next year, she returns to teach and advise graduate students in comparative religions, Asian religious traditions, world religions in modernity, and methodology.
"Developing international understanding requires a commitment on the part of Fulbright grantees to establish open communication and long-term cooperative relationships," said Steven J. Uhfelder in announcing Mullen's selection. "In that way, Fulbrighters enrich the educational, political, economic, social, and cultural lives of countries around the world."
Uhfelder is chair of the Washington, D.C.,-based Fulbright scholarship board.
Named for the long-serving U.S. senator from Arkansas, the scholars program was created by Congress in 1946 to support academic work and study abroad by Americans, as well as to enable overseas students and educators to do the same here.
Both of Mullen's Fulbrights to Indonesia are co-sponsored by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars' U.S. Scholars Program.
Mullen has previous experience at Gadjah Mada, having been among a team of scholars and researchers working there in 2001 under a U.S. Department of State grant. Teaching world religions in an Islamic context was the team's focus during that period.
Before first working in Java, Mullen taught courses on world religions at Hamburg University in Germany. The two-year European experience was supported by a private foundation.
In addition to a master's degree in theological studies from Harvard, Mullen holds a bachelor's in religion from Washington and Lee University, and master's and doctoral degrees in religion from Temple University. Beyond English, she is skilled in Tibetan, Sanskrit, French, and German.
At MSU, she teaches courses on world religions, the philosophy of religion, and Hinduism and Buddhism, among others. She is a member of the American Academy of Religion, Association for the Sociology of Religion and Society for Indian Philosophy and Religion, as well as other professional organizations.
Mullen is among several MSU faculty members recently notified of their selections for Fulbrights during the 2005-06 school year.
NEWS EDITORS/DIRECTORS: For additional information on her upcoming work in Indonesia, contact Dr. Mullen at (662) 325-4724.