2020-21

From the early 19th century onward, the debate on the status of Indian women was an integral part of the discourse on the state of civilization, Hindu tradition, and social reform in colonial India. This course will explore how Indian authors of the late 19th and early 20th centuries engaged with the so-called "women's question." Caught between middle-class conservatism and the urge for social reform, Hindi and Urdu writers addressed controversial issues such as female education, child marriage, widow remarriage, and prostitution in their fictional and discursive writings. We will explore the tensions of a literary and social agenda that advocated the 'uplift' of women as a necessary precondition for the progress of the nation, while also expressing patriarchal fears about women's rights and freedom. The course is open to both undergraduate and graduate students. Basic knowledge of Hindi and/or Urdu is preferable, but not required. We will read works by Nazir Ahmad, Premcand, Jainendra Kumar, Mirza Hadi Ruswa, and Mahadevi Varma in English translation, and also look at texts used in Indian female education at the time.

This course follows the first module on Indian philosophy by exploring the debates between several classical "schools" or "viewpoints" (darśanas) of Indian philosophy. In addition to expanding upon the methods of systematized reasoning inaugurated by the Nyāya and Buddhist epistemological traditions, particular attention will be given to systems of scriptural hermeneutics -- Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta -- and their consequences for the philosophy of language, theories of cognitive error, and even poetics.

This course is for students who have successfully completed third- and fourth-year Urdu. It is typically tailored to student needs in terms of the selection of texts to be addressed and discussed. Depending on their interest, students may choose to read Urdu texts from any time period, country or genre. Prior consent of instructor is required.

First year Urdu or comparable level of language skills. This sequence is a continuation of URDU 10100-10200-10300. There is increased emphasis on vocabulary building and reading progressively complex texts. Depending on ability levels and interests of the students, readings can include selections from various original sources.

Please contact staff for a placement exam.

An advanced Sanskrit reading course focusing on the development of skills in either classical belles lettres (kāvya) or scholastic, commentarial prose (śāstra). In the former, emphasis is on the ability to re-arrange complex poetic forms into digestible prose word order. In the latter, students learn both the stylistic conventions of scholastic Sanskrit and the technical vocabulary of the relevant intellectual discipline.

The first half (about fifteen weeks) of this sequence is spent mastering the reading and writing of the Devanagari script and studying the grammar of the classical Sanskrit language. The remainder of the sequence is devoted to close analytical reading of simple Sanskrit texts, which are used to reinforce the grammatical study done in the first half of this course. The aim is to bring students to the point where they are comfortably able, with the help of a dictionary, to read simple, narrative Sanskrit. Texts in Sanskrit.