Michael Witzel
Wales Professor of Sanskrit
Department of South Asian Studies (until July 2011: Dept. of Sanskrit and Indian Studies), Harvard University
1 Bow Street, 3rd fl., Cambridge MA 02138, USA
phones 617 - 496 2990 (direct line) ; 495 3295, 496 8570, fax 617 - 496 8571
email: witzel@fas.harvard.edu
Election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2003
Election as Honorary member, German Oriental Society (Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft) (2009)
Education
Born: 1943 at Schwiebus, Germany (now: Swiebodzin, Poland)
University of Tübingen (Germany), 1965-1967 (P.Thieme, H.-P. Schmidt): Indology, Indo-European, Japanology
University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, (Germany), 1967-1971 (K.Hoffmann, J.Narten, B.Forssman, G.Klingenschmitt) concentration: Indology, Indo-Iranian philology and linguistics; Indo-European linguistics, Japanology
M.A. 1971, Erlangen; Ph.D. 1972, Erlangen : Dissertation: Das Katha-Aranyaka, textkritische Edition mit Uebersetzung und Kommentar. Erlangen 1972; Advisor (Promotor): K. Hoffmann
Maharsi Balmiki (Sanskrit) Campus, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal, 1972/1973: Mimamsa philosophy (teaching medium Sanskrit, under Nayib Gurujyu Jununath Pandit)
Teaching positions held
1972 Assistant Professor of Indology, University of Tübingen, Germany
1978-1980 Associate Professor of Sanskrit ("gewoon lector in het Sanskriet"), Instituut Kern, University of Leiden, The Netherlands
1981-1986 Professor of Sanskrit language and literature ("hoogleraar in het Sanskriet en zijn letterkunde") University of Leiden,The Netherlands
1986-1987 Visiting Professor of Sanskrit, Harvard University
1987- Harvard University, Wales Professor of Sanskrit, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University
1997 Invitation to become Prof. of Indology and head of the Department for Indology and Iranian Studies, Munich University, Germany; declined, as to remain at Harvard. (http://www.indologie.info/ )
Other Employment/Visiting Positions
1972-1977 Director of the "Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project", a joint venture of the Department of Archeology, (Ministry of Education, His Majesty's Government of Nepal) and the German Oriental Society (Deutsche Morgenlaendische Gesellschaft) and the German Research Association (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Bonn), at Kathmandu
continued by NGMCP, online catalogue
1974-1977 Director of the Nepal Research Centre of the German Oriental Society, Kathmandu
May 1989 Collège de France, Paris
Sept. 1989 - Aug.1990 Research Fellow, Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University
January 2001 Collège de France, Paris
Sept. 2004 - Aug. 2005: Visiting Professor, Institute for the Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (TUFS), Tokyo,
SARVA Project
Fall/Winter 2008-9 Visiting Professor, Institute for the Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (TUFS), Tokyo.
Summer 2009 Visiting Researcher, National Research Institute for Humanities and Nature (RIHN), Kyoto.
Professional services
1979-1981 Chairman, Department of South & Central Asian and Old- and Middle Iranian, University of Leiden
1982-1986 Chairman, Dutch Indological Association
1987-95 Chair, Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University
1992-1996 Founding Chair, Committee on South Asian Studies, Harvard University
1999- President, Association for the Study of Language in Prehistory, Boston
2006- President, International Association for Comparative Mythology, Boston
Editorial work
1975- Founding editor (with four colleagues) of: Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik (Journal, and monograph series) @ Amazon
1979-1983, Joint Editor; 1983- Editor-in-chief (with J. W. de Jong,; -- since 1990, H.W. Bodewitz, O. von Hinüber, H. Bakke, J.Silk), Indo-Iranian Journal
1985- Editor (together with J.C. Heesterman): Memoirs of the Kern Institute, Leiden (No.3 sqq.)
1990- Editor, Harvard Oriental Series
1990 Ed. of: W. Caland, Kleine Schriften (= Glasenapp-Stiftung, Bd. 27, Wiesbaden 1990. Link (also for orders).
1995- Founder and Editor-in-Chief of: Electronic Jounal for Vedic Studies (EJVS), relocated to: http://ejvs.laurasianacademy.com/
1995- Indian Philology and South Asian Studies, ed. Albrecht Wezler and Michael Witzel. Berlin/New York (de Gruyter). (Vol. 1: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity. The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia, ed. G. Erdosy)
1995- Managing Editor, International Journal of Tantric Studies (IJTS) http://www.asiatica.org/ijts
1997 Ed. of: F.B.J.Kuiper, Selected Writings on Indian Philology and Linguistics, New Delhi, 1997, pp. 556
1997 Ed. of: Inside the Texts - Beyond the Texts. Proceedings of the First International Vedic Workshop, June 1989, Harvard University, Cambridge (HOS-Opera Minora)
2011 Ed. (with T. Osada) of: Cultural Relations between the Indus and the Iranian Plateau during the Third Millennium BCE
Indus Project, Research Institute for Humanities and Nature June 7-8, 2008. HARVARD ORIENTAL SERIES, OPERA MINORA vol .7, Cambridge 2011
For PUBLICATIONS. see: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwbib.pdf