2020-21

This sequence concentrates on developing skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing Bangla at the novice and intermediate low levels. It is designed both for scholars who want to do research on Bengal and for those who want to gain proficiency in elementary Bangla for communication purposes. Evaluation will be based on classroom performance, attendance, homework assignments, projects, quizzes and final examination.

Meeting times will be arranged after discussing with students.

This class will introduce students to Tibetan civilization from pre-modernity to the present with an emphasis on literature, society, visual arts, and history. Attention will be paid to Tibet’s relations with neighboring polities in South, East, and Central Asia, as well as distinctive indigenous practices. The course will cover a range of Tibetan cultural forms, highlighting pre-modern sciences of medicine, logic, and meditation, as well as contemporary developments in Tibetan modernity and the diaspora communities. Course materials will include primary sources in translation (e.g. Dunhuang manuscripts and other literature), contemporary scholarship, as well as audio-visual materials.

In addition to informed participation in course meetings/discussions, including regular, timely completion of reading assignments, students are expected to write two short (5–7pg) papers. Students will have the opportunity to work on any topics of Tibetan culture, art and history of their choosing for the final assignment.

Time is fundamental to all ideas about the past and our projections to the future, yet our measures and conceptions of time change constantly. This class investigates how ideas, debates and everyday experiences of time, history and their periodization have taken shape in the intellectual exchange between South Asia and the West. We will explore key concepts and themes pertaining to the temporal cultures of medieval and modern South Asia, the differences and challenges that these ideas posed to the hegemonic Western world-view and how our modern notions and experiences of time and history were forged in this encounter. What can a bored monk writing in medieval India teach us about our hurried digital life? Was the relationship between past and present in premodern South Asia different from ours? What can we learn about colonialism and capitalism studying work schedules of clerks in colonial India? Was medieval South Asia prior a land without history? From medieval to modern and from Mahābhārata to Marx, we will closely analyze a wide range of texts and other media hailing from both South Asia and the West from different ages. Students will discuss and read secondary and primary sources (in translation); religious works, manuals for time keeping, and ethnographic descriptions of time practices, as well as texts describing temporal cultures and personal experiences of time, like novels, diaries, poetry and journals. Students will develop critical tools for comparing, analyzing and interpreting the life-worlds of non-Western regions; our goal is to think of South Asia as an important site where our current concepts and propositions about time, history, and their reckoning were developed. No prior knowledge of South Asian languages or history is necessary. This online class will offer both synchronous and asynchronous components. See the syllabus at https://bit.ly/3gTLHbX

This class introduces students to the modernist movement in 20^th century South Asia. Modernism will be understood here as a radical experimental movement in literature, film, photography and other arts, primarily aimed at critiquing mainstream narratives of history and culture, especially with reference to identity categories such as race, gender, sexuality, class, and caste. The texts reveal the ways in which structures of knowledge and aesthetics circulated between the various parts of the globe, especially under the conditions of colonialism and decolonization. We will analyze a variety of texts over the ten-week duration of the class. These include novels, short stories, manifestos, essays, photographs, and films. The chronological span of the class is from the 1930s to the 1970s. Our aim will be to understand the diverse meanings of modernism as we go through our weekly readings. Was it a global phenomenon that was adopted blindly by postcolonial artists? Or were there specifically South Asian innovations that enable us to think about the local story as formative of a global consciousness? What bearings do such speculations have on genre, gender, and medium, as well as on politics? What effect does sexual politics have on aesthetic innovations? How do these non-mainstream aesthetic traditions contribute towards the formation of knowledge in modern South Asia?

I will help situate the readings of each week in their specific literary and political contexts. Students will be able to evaluate, experiment with, and analyze various forms of modernist literary expressions emerging out of South Asia. This class will provide them with critical tools to interpret, assess, compare, and contrast cultural histories of non-Western locations and peoples, with an eye for literary radicalism. No prior knowledge of any South Asian language or history is necessary.

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.

Spoken by over thirty-five million people in South Asia, Urdu is the national language of Pakistan and one of the official languages of India. It is written in the Perso-Arabic script, which facilitates learning to read and write several other South Asian languages. This three-quarter sequence covers basic grammar and vocabulary. Our text is C. M. Naim's Introductory Urdu, Volumes I and II. Students learn to read and write the Urdu script, as well as to compose/write in Urdu. By the end of three quarters students have covered all the major grammatical structures of the language. We also emphasize aural and oral skills (i.e., listening, pronunciation, speaking). These courses must be taken in sequence, since the script is introduced in the Autumn quarter. Students should also be aware that they need to contact the instructor ahead of time to discuss scheduling if they are planning to take this course.

Please contact staff for a placement exam.

Readings: Advanced Tibetan is for students who have successfully completed third year and fourth year or equivalent with placement test. The sequence is meant to expose students to a range of genres in Tibetan literature, including religious, historical, philosophical, scientific, and literary works. Instruction includes guided readings with continuing grammar review, practice in speaking, and application of philological methods.

The third- and fourth-year sequence is meant to expose students to a range of genres in Tibetan literature, including religious, historical, philosophical, scientific, and literary works. Instruction consists in guided readings, with continuing grammar review, practice in speaking, and application of philological methods.