From December 5 to 7, Dr. Ranjan Bandyopadhyay, a researcher from the DTU Institute of Research and Development, visited the University of Oxford to make a presentation on Religion.
The Oxford Symposium on Religious Studies brought together some of the world’s most famous scholars to discuss their research and views on Religion and Climate Change, Religion and Gender, Religious History, Religious Morality, Secularism, Religious Crisis, Religious Conflict, and Religion and Racism. Dr. Ranjan represented DTU and talked about his paper entitled “Helping the Poorest of the Poor, the Globalization of Suffering, the White Savior Complex, Mother Teresa, Religion and Modernity”
Dr. Ranjan Bandyopadhyay
Dr. Bandyopadhyay’s research findings received good feedback because he mentioned an issue which is of popular concern today but still quite sensitive. He criticized Mother Teresa, considered a Saint and Nobel Peace Prize winner, for the way she spread Roman Catholic thoughts and convinced others to follow her own religion. He pointed out that white people have been overly exploiting others and their natural resources since colonial times.
His research paper was accepted by the Journal of Sustainable Tourism, was listed in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and ranked Q1, with an Impact Factor of 3.3. Dr. Ranjan familiarized himself with all the various programs at Oxford University and met other researchers from the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel, looking for new ways of expanding relationships with other universities around the world.
Dr. Ranjan is a researcher in the fields of Anthropology, Sociology, Political Science, History, Philosophy, Geography and Economics and uses innovative research techniques he learned in India and the United States and the teaching methods he accumulated in the United Kingdom, the United States and Thailand.
Dr. Ranjan Bandyopadhyay
He also conducts research on the political and social impact of tourism, and has papers regularly published in leading journals. He used to be Deputy-Editor-in-Chief of the Swiss journal, Visual Methodologies and, recently, his paper on the socio-cultural impact of tourism in developing countries was published in Newsweek.
Dr. Ranjan said: “I feel that I can no longer research on my own but now want to work with my colleagues and students to improve my results and train future experts at DTU.”
(Media Center)