Autumn Quarter 2024 Offerings
SALC 22604 "A Poem in Every House": Persia, Arabic, and Vernacular Poetry in North India and the Deccan
W 1:30pm-4:20pm
(MDVL 22604/SALC 32605)
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.
Instructor: Thibaut d'Hubert
SALC 24000/34000 Language, Power, Identity: Urdu Controversy
M 3:00pm-5:50pm
Central to the cultural politics of nineteenth-century North India, the language debate over Hindi and Urdu has been viewed both as an instance of Hindu-Muslim elite competition over economic and political power and as an ideological process of identity formation in which language and script became charged cultural and political symbols. This course traces the history of the Hindi-Urdu controversy from its local beginnings in the North-Western Provinces of British India in the 1830s to the debates over the national language of India and Pakistan in the years leading up to Independence. We will explore the role of prominent figures and institutions in the divisive process in which Hindi came to be exclusively identified with Hindus, and Urdu with Muslims. Paying close attention to a variety of primary sources, we will discuss the cultural, political, and socioeconomic implications of the language debate in the context of Indian nationalism and Muslim separatism.
Instructor: Ulrike Stark
SALC 22705 Oceanic Islam in the Age of Empire
MWF 9:30am-10:20am
Course Description TBA.
Instructor: Taimur Reza
Winter Quarter Offerings 2025
SALC 20100 Introduction to the Civilizations of South Asia I
MW 1:30pm-2:50pm
(ANTH 24101 / HIST 10800 / MDVL 20100 / SOSC 23000)
The first quarter focuses on Islam in South Asia, Hindu-Muslim interaction, Mughal political and literary traditions, and South Asia’s early encounters with Europe. (Description may change).
Instructors: Andrew Ollett (Section 1), Titas De Sarkar (Section 2)
SALC 40000 South Asia as a Unit of Study
W 3:30pm-5:20pm
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
Instructor: Whitney Cox
SALC 20122/30122 From Bollywood to made in Heaven
Th 11:00am-1:50pm (Screening time 3:30pm-6:30pm)
(CMST 20122/30122, CCCT 20122/30122, GNSE 20142/30142)
From reality shows like Indian Matchmaking and Made in Heaven to the meme of the "Big Fat Indian Wedding" to the preoccupations of Bollywood films like DDLJ and Rocky aur Rani ki Prem Kahani and arthouse ones such as Monsoon Wedding and Joyland, marriage is an obsession in South Asian culture. Focusing on Hindi cinema, this course will explore the socio-political dynamics of this cultural focus on marriage and couple formation. With examples ranging from classical Hindi films from the 1950s-60s to the star-studded melodramas of 1970s and 1980s and the “new Bollywood” era (post-1991), this cinema exhibited and analyzed the central dynamics of marriage: sexual compatibility, fidelity, reproductive futures, and so on. Debates around class, caste, diaspora, and sexuality are equally anchored in issues of marriage and couple formation. In this course, we ask why it is that marriage—its success and failure—has been so central to Indian on-screen identities. Even as screens multiply—on computers, cell phones, and in the multiplex—marriage continues to dominate. No prior knowledge of Indian languages is required, but you must enjoy watching and talking about movies and popular culture.
Instructor: Rochona Majumdar
SALC 20123/30123 Orientalism
MWF 5:30pm-6:20pm
Description forthcoming.
Instructor: Andrew Ollett
SALC 27904/43800 Wives, Widows, Prostitutes: Indian Literature and the "Women's Question"
T TH 3:30pm-4:50pm
(GNSE 20144/ GNSE 47900)
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.
Instructor: Ulrike Stark
SALC 37905 History Wars in Colonial and Postcolonial South Asia
T 3:30pm-6:20pm
Description forthcoming.
Instructor: Dipesh Chakrabarty
SALC 20200 Introduction to the Civilizations of South Asia II
MW 1:30pm-2:50pm
The second quarter analyzes the colonial period (i.e., reform movements, the rise of nationalism, communalism, caste, and other identity movements) up to the independence and partition of India.
Instructor: Dipesh Chakrabarty (Section 1), Titas De Sarkar (Section 2)