Pakistani Fulbright scholar to visit Texas State

By Ann Friou
University News Service
February 9, 2011

A Fulbright Scholar from Islamabad, Pakistan, will visit English classes at Texas State March 29-30.

Shaheena Bhatti, associate professor of English at the National University of Modern Languages in Islamabad, will speak to students of Robert Tally (American romantic literature), Nancy Wilson (South Asian literature), and Karen Wood (first-year writing).

Bhatti teaches contemporary American literature at the master’s and doctoral degree levels, at the National University of Modern Languages. Her host institution during her Fulbright fellowship is the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Arizona-Tucson.

“It’s important for our students to see the different perspectives that foreign scholars bring to their studies, perhaps even moreso to subjects that explore American culture and values,” said Steve Wilson, associate chair of English and a former Fulbright scholar. “It will be a useful and enlightening discussion to explore Dr. Bhatti's interest in, for instance, Melville. Cultures do not own the artifacts their citizens create; they merely provide a context out of which human ideas arise so that we can all examine them, reaching a deeper sense of who we are as people rather than as merely products of a particular culture or tradition.”

The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The program has provided almost 300,000 participants—chosen for their academic merit and leadership potential—with the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.

Texas State has sent some 26 faculty as Fulbrights to foreign countries over the past 15 years. For more information on Bhatti’s visit and on Texas State's Fulbright Program, contact Steve Wilson, campus Fulbright representative, at sw13@txstate.edu.