Doctoral research stay: Anurima Chanda

During the summer term 2016, Anurima Chanda completed a two-month research stay at the chair of English Literature and Cultural Studies. She studied for her dissertation project "Twenty-first Century Indian-English Children's Literature" under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Isabel Karremann.

“One of the most crucial questions that I had to face at my interview for the two-month DAAD exchange programme to the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg was "Why Würzburg?" Because the university library has an amazing collection especially with regard to my research area and because I have heard that its inter-library loan is one of the most efficient system ever - I had replied. Little did I know that Würzburg would turn out to be much more for me. My very first interaction with the entire English department at the University of Würzburg was at their Semester-End dinner and it was an experience I will never forget. I sat there chatting about varied things with a group I was meeting for the first time - but it felt like I was at my own university. That's what the University of Würzburg became for me - a home away from home. This has been an experience of a life time for me - not just because of the research material I accumulated but also because of the people I met. With them I have had the most fruitful academic conversations and in them I have found friends for life. Coming from JNU, which as one of my professors say "is a Way of Life" - where teachers are more like friends and friends are more like companions, Würzburg has been the best place where I could have landed next. Ever helpful people, a picturesque campus and efficient resources - life at the University of Würzburg means these and much more!”