Department of Religious Studies

Rebecca Manring has just been elected to serve a second 4-year term as Vice President of the American Institute of Bangladesh Studies.

The Board of Trustees of the American Institute of Bangladesh Studies (AIBS) recently re-elected Professor Ali Riaz as President and Professor Rebecca Manring as Vice President of the organization’s Executive Committee for the 2024-2028 term. Both leaders have successfully completed their first terms in these roles and were re-elected in participatory elections, with the Presidential election held in May and the Vice-Presidential election taking place in August of this year. The elections were conducted by AIBS Secretary Professor Dina Siddiqi, who chaired the Nomination Committee.

Professor Rebecca Manring, a Professor of India Studies and Religious Studies at Indiana University-Bloomington and Director of Language Instruction at the Dhar India Studies Program, will continue as Vice President of AIBS. She also chairs the Language Committee of the American Institute of Indian Studies and the South Asian Summer Language Institute. With extensive experience in Bangla language programs and research in Bangladesh, Professor Manring's work has included preserving the Sukumar Sen manuscript collection and producing scholarly publications such as Reconstructing Tradition: Advaita Acarya and Gaudiya Vaisnavism at the Cusp of the Twentieth Century (2005) and The Fading Light of Advaita Acarya (2011). Her recent translation of Rūprām Cakravartī’s Dharma-maṅgala will be published in the Texts and Translation series of Oxford University Press.