New Faculty Profiles
If a nice majority of [my students] are inspired by the course content to rethink given categories and critique common assumptions that they encounter in their university life and beyond, then I will feel tremendously rewarded.
Getting to Know Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Hanna Kim
Assistant Professor of Anthropology Hanna Kim completed her doctoral studies at Columbia University in anthropology and previously taught at the McGhee School at New York University. Her research is centered on a contemporary Hindu devotional movement originating in western India that is now a transnational organization and community. Studying this group, known as the Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Sanstha (or “BAPS”) has prompted Dr. Kim to explore and rethink the dichotomous categories that academics commonly use to explain certain communities, in particular the binaries of religious-secular and traditional-modern. Her research, writing, and teaching, while firmly located within cultural anthropology, are interdisciplinary in scope and content. She combines ideas and theories from various sources with fieldwork data and observations to further understand human behavior.
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QUESTIONNAIRE:
What made you choose Adelphi?
I came to Adelphi, as with many fortunate events in our lives, through a combination of factors, ones that matched certain changes in my life with those within the Department of Anthropology.
What has been your experience so far?
The students I have met are very pleasant and pleasantly inquiring. Many are eager to learn much more than what is expected of them in class. A professor could not be happier in these circumstances.
Regarding my research, the University administration and my department have been more than supportive and encouraging of my need to periodically fly away for field research, conferences, and invited presentations. As a grateful recipient of a Faculty Development Grant, I also look forward to learning how to use a digital camera and adding another dimension to my research and teaching. Already I have few students in mind who are wonderfully suited to both wielding the camera and assisting me in field research.
What do you wish to contribute to your field, both in terms of teaching and research?
My contribution to the department is to offer new courses that complement the existing offerings and to give students the opportunity to explore under-represented regions, ethnographic issues, and approaches to the study of culture. I hope to encourage more students to consider anthropology as their choice of discipline. Also, I hope to give students the opportunity to study areas of Asia and analyze pressing issues of religion, modernity, and globalization. Towards these goals, in the near future, it would be wonderful to bring a group of students to India. In this dream, no one would get sick, everyone would be mightily transformed, and the next generation of South Asia anthropologists would be born!
What do you wish to impart to your students?
As an anthropologist, I am not too foolish to assume that most of my students will become anthropologists. However, if a nice majority of them are inspired by the course content to rethink given categories and critique common assumptions that they encounter in their university life and beyond, then I will feel tremendously rewarded. 
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