Assistant Professor Mitch Hendrickson Awarded ACLS Fellowship
Assistant Professor Mitch Hendrickson, from the LAS Department of Anthropology, is the recipient of a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). Hendrickson was awarded the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Collaborative Research Fellowships in Buddhist Studies 2014 for a project entitled The Two Buddhist Towers, A multi-scalar evaluation of the practice, change, and function of Buddhism at the regional Angkorian center of Preah Khan of Kompong Svay, Cambodia (10th to 17th c. CE).
The ACLS website notes the following of the project:
Buddhism is an integral part of Cambodia’s rich cultural past however we lack critical understanding of the religion’s practice, function, and transitions during the Angkorian and Middle periods (9th-18th c. CE) periods. Preah Khan of Kompong Svay, a singularly Buddhist site occupied from the 10th to 17th centuries and home to the Mahayana Preah Thkol and Theravadin Preah Chatomukh towers, represents a unique location to investigate such internal and external dynamics. Combining archaeological, epigraphic and material science this project seeks to conduct a rigorous, multi-scalar assessment of monastic lifeways through time and the intriguing state-level decision of Angkor’s traditionally Brahmanic kings to devote this regional center to Buddhism.
This is Assistant Professor Hendrickson’s second ACLS fellowship, for he was previously awarded the Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS Grants to Individuals in East and Southeast Asian Archaeology and Early History Postdoctoral Fellowships (North America) in 2007. Granted as doctoral candidate at the University of Sidney, his work centered on a project called the Angkorian Dharmasala Project: Research on Medieval Southeast Asian Transport Infrastructure.