Current Chairholder

Professor George L. Hart has been named to the endowed Chair in Tamil Studies by University of California, Berkeley Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien. Chancellor Tien's letter of appointment reads in part "Please accept the appointment of this endowed chair as an indication of my gratitude for your many years of teaching and service and for your scholarship which has reflected so favorably on the Berkeley campus."
George Hart has been a Berkeley faculty member since 1973. He was promoted to full professor in 1981. A Harvard B.A., M.A. and Ph.D., Professor Hart is a graduate of the Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, where his studies included both Tamil and Sanskrit. At Berkeley Professor Hart has developed the Tamil program of language, literature and cultural studies to be the most important of its kind in North America.
Professor Hart is the author of textbooks for both Tamil and Sanskrit, and of translations of classical Tamil poetry, and the Tamil Ramayana of Kampan. George Hart is married to Tamil lecturer Kausalya Hart who is also an author of several Tamil language textbooks.