SALC

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.

The central aim of this course will be to closely read and discuss read four recent monographs in the field, with an eye towards thinking through questions of their place in the history of the field and (as is inevitably the case a heterogeneous discipline like area studies) of the connections with other fields or bodies of scholarship. During the even weeks of the quarter we will read these four books in their entirety; in the odd-numbered weeks (except week 1), groups of the students, working in collaboration with the instructor, will generate and present a selection of articles that contextualize the preceding week's monograph both within and without South Asian studies. The course is therefore collaborative and somewhat experimental: the instructor will arrange to meet with the class participants collectively in the beginning of the Fall quarter to get them organized into groups for preparing these selections. These groups will be responsible for leading discussion for their sessions, while a different group will be responsible for presenting and leading discussion for each monograph. Everyone will thus participate in two group presentations, which will be part of the assessment. The remaining part of the grade will be determined by an end-of-quarter essay, based on either of these presentations.

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.

South Asia was a major source of narrative matter for the development of literary prose in the Islamicate world. For instance, literary prose in Arabic, but also in Persian (and Castilian) were fashioned through successive renderings of the Sanskrit Pan͂catantra. Later, in the post-Timurid period, South Asian Persianate literati, and munshis in particular, contributed to elevate the status of Persian prose to that of poetry.

This course offers a survey of a variety of Indo-Persian prose texts such as tales, premodern translations of Indian romances and epics (Mahābhārata, Rāmāyaṇa, Pan͂catantra, Mādhavānala Kāmakandalā, etc …), letters, anecdotes from chronicles, tadhkira literature, autobiographical writings, treatises, and encyclopedic works. The readings are organized thematically and by degree of stylistic elaboration. We will first read plain prose texts that will introduce the students to key elements of the Persianate understanding of Indic culture. In this first section of the course, we will mostly read narrative texts (chronicles, translations of Sanskrit and Hindavi works, and dāstāns). We will then turn to epistolography, biographies, and autobiographical writings. Finally, we will read technical and non-technical texts dealing with various aspects of Indo-Persian courtly culture and aesthetics (philosophy, mysticism, grammar, poetry, or musicology). Each text will be introduced and framed by discussions on relevant secondary literature in English and Persian.

gehe gehe kalau kāvyaṃ …
In the Kali age, there is a poem in every house …
Vidyāpati (ca. 1370-1460, Mithila), Kīrtilatā

The Indian subcontinent is home to some of the most vibrant literary traditions in world history. The aim of this course is to introduce students to the main trends in the premodern (/pre-nineteenth century) literature of South Asia through a selection of poetic and theoretical texts translated from a variety of languages (Arabic, Bengali, Dakani, Hindi, Maithili, Marathi, Persian, Panjabi, Sanskrit, Urdu, etc.). We will discuss issues of literary historiography, the relations between orality and writing, and the shared aesthetic world of poetry, music, and visual arts. We will review the basic principles of Perso-Arabic and vernacular poetics through a selection of representative theoretical treatises and poems. We will also explore the linguistic ecology of the Subcontinent, the formation of vernacular literary traditions, multilingual literacy, and the role of literature in social interactions and community building in premodern South Asia. Every week the first half of the class will be devoted to the historical context and conceptual background of the texts we will read in the second half. Attention will be given to the original languages in which those texts were composed as well as the modes of performance of the poems and songs we will read together.

In the height of nineteenth-century triumph of progress, rationalism, and disenchantment with religion, many European and American intellectuals found inspiration in Buddhism as a spirituality fit for modern times, and expressed it in philosophy, literature, and even opera. On the other side, in Asian societies struggling with colonization, many intellectuals condemned Buddhism as a remnant of premodern superstition, while others hailed it as an essential element for the construction of modern identity and of the superiority of the “spiritual East” against the “materialist West.” These debates and images still determine the way in which Buddhism is globally represented today. In this course, we will discuss Buddhism and modernity using examples from various geographical and historical contexts, ranging from Nietzsche, to the American Beat generation, and to contemporary issues of nationalism and violence in South Asia. We will place the careful examination of these topics within the discussion of broader issues, such as the place of religion in modernity, cultural difference and appropriation, and the intersection of religion, gender, and race.

This graduate course offers an introduction to the theory and practice of book history and print culture studies, a relatively recent and vibrant field of inquiry within South Asian Studies. The course will explore some of the main theoretical approaches, themes, and methodologies of the history of the book in comparative perspective, and discuss the specific conditions and challenges facing scholars of South Asian book history. Topics include orality and literacy, technologies of scribal and print production, the sociology of texts, authorship and authority, the print “revolution” and knowledge formation under British colonial rule, the legal existence of books, the economy of the book trade, popular print, readership and consumption. We will also engage with the text as material artifact and look at the changing contexts, techniques, and practices of book production in the transition from manuscript to print.

An introduction to the contexts, methods, and aims of Islamic education in late-Mughal South Asia in the decades immediately prior to European colonisation. Our central focus is an 18th century ‘curriculum’: a list of books that were read by a student of a famous madrasa in late-Mughal Delhi. Although madrasas are now widely considered to be places of strictly ‘religious’ education, our curriculum reveals the wide range of disciplines a student was expected to know. As well as subjects like Qurʾānic commentary and Islamic jurisprudence, students learned Arabic and Persian grammar, ethical texts, Sufism, Hellenistic philosophy, logic, medicine, martial arts, mathematics and geometry, poetry, accounting and secretarial skills, astronomy, as well as alchemical and occult sciences. We will learn with our Mughal-era student, moving through the disciplines that he studied – progressing from the introductory aspects of his education to more advanced subjects. As we go, we will read a wide range of Arabic and Persian primary sources in translation. We will consider what it meant to learn, the contexts in which learning took place, as well as the modes of ethical comportment that education entailed. We will also consider the changing nature of the madrasa curriculum against the background of the volatile political and social climate of 18th century Mughal South Asia. We will also examine the reformist ideas that were challenging classical educational paradigms in this period.