ANTH276/SAST 219
South Asian Social Worlds
Sara Shneiderman
Study of a series of texts that introduce anthropological and critical approaches to South Asia’s peoples and cultures while questioning the historical and political possibility of understanding such a diverse region.
PLSC384/SAST 244
Indian Democracy in Comparative Perspective
Tariq Thachil
Introduction to the major dimensions of Indian democracy; comparison with the political experiences of other developing nations such as China, South Africa, Brazil, and Egypt. Topics include colonial legacies, identity politics, social movements, and social and human development.
SAST 259b/MUSI 357
Indian Music Theory and Practice: From Slumdog Millionaire to Ravi Shankar
Stan Scott
In this course students will engage in both discussion about and practice in Indian music. Topics for discussion will include: history and theory of Indian music, improvisation, modern trends, gender, Bollywood, musical fusions, interactions between Indian and Western music cultures. Practical instruction will focus on Hindustani classical traditions. No previous experience in Indian classical music is necessary.
RLST 126/SAST262
Tibetan Buddhism
Andrew Quintman
Introduction to major themes in Tibetan Buddhist thought and practice. Buddhist ethics, systems of monastic and ascetic life, ritual applications, sacred geography and pilgrimage, lay religion, and the status of Buddhism in Chinese-occupied Tibet and in the West.
SAST 374/LITR274
Modern Literature in South Asia
Benjamin Conisbee Baer
What original forms and trajectories does modern literature take in the Indian subcontinent? Focusing on literary prose, this class examines topics of writing, secrets, and gender in 19th and 20th century fiction. We look at secret writings, representations of forbidden relationships, transgression, and intersections of the personal, the sexual, and the political as they relate to the tumultuous events of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Writers from �British India,� the present-day states of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, as well as from the South Asian diaspora. All works studied in English translation or English original. There will be some discussion of translation in class, as well as selected readings of literary criticism and history.
SAST 373/ HSAR 463
Cross-Cultural Encounters in South Asian Art and History
Dipti Khera
This seminar explores the analytic of �difference� as it has shaped the interpretations of art, architecture, and history of early modern and colonial South Asia. It situates centrally how different ways of seeing objects and buildings and diverse conceptions of visuality and materiality in turn allow us to enter renewed debates on questions of discontinuities and continuities, assimilation, circulation, translation, resistance, iconoclasm, and, above all, the artistic agency of many anonymous makers within cross-cultural contexts in South Asia. Case studies will draw from the worlds of the Mughal, Rajput, Deccani, and Maratha kings, regional merchants, religious gurus, and East India Company and British imperial officers, which show dynamic varieties of artistic exchange and intertwined histories that mark the sixteenth to the mid-twentieth century in the subcontinent. Focused analyses of paintings and works on paper in the collections of the Yale Center for British Art, Yale University Art Gallery, and Beinecke Library will be included.
SAST 325/HIST 318
Modern Indian History
Shailaja Paik
This course examines the history of Modern India since 1800. We will concentrate on the impact of colonialism on the Indian subcontinent and on the formation of the modern South Asian States of India and Pakistan. The culture of colonialism, the nature of the colonial state and the emergence of nationalism are themes which are explored.
HUM418/RLST130/SAST367
Asian Classics: Indian, China and Japan
Phyllis Granoff
Introduction to literary works that shaped the great civilizations of Asia. Focus on traditional literature from India, China, and Japan. Readings range from religious and philosophical texts to literature of the court, poetry, drama, and epics.
PLSC 424/SAST 440
Gandhi and the Politics of Nonviolence
Karuna Mantena
A study of the theory and practice of nonviolent political action, as proposed and practiced by M. K. Gandhi. The origins and development of nonviolent politics in Gandhian thought and action; legacies and lessons for contemporary political life.
GLBL 211A/ECON 211A/SAST 278
Economic Performances and Challenges in India
Rakesh Mohan
India’s transition from being one of the poorest countries in the world to having one of the fastest-growing economies. Economic reform processes, trade and policy implications, and changes within the agriculture, industry, and service sectors.
SAST 343/GLBL 319
Political Economy of Natural Disasters
Jennifer Bussell
Natural shocks pose particular threats to developing countries, such as those in South Asia and Africa. In this course, we will investigate the incentives of national governments to build capacity to reduce the risk of, prepare for, and respond to natural shocks and resulting disasters. We will also consider the role of international actors and local communities, all through examination of case studies, including the Indian Ocean tsunami, flooding in South Asia, and drought in West Africa.
ANTH 338/SAST 372/ FILM 329
Himalaya through Film and Text
Mark Turin
An exploration of the Himalayan region through film and ethnography. Comparing visual and textual genres of storytelling and narration, we examine topics such as adventure, caste, education, gender, ritual, and violence by watching, analyzing, and critiquing selected texts. Films and readings are drawn from Bhutan, northern India, Nepal, and Tibet.
SAST 246
Diversity and Struggles for Equality in South Asia
Ashok Acharya
This course is designed to offer an interpretive analysis of struggles for, and the politics of, equal citizenship in contemporary South Asia.
RLST 586
Readings in Jain and Buddhist Texts
Phyllis Granoff
An advanced course in which we read selections from the Pali Buddhist commentaries and selections from Jain Prakrit texts. Prerequisite: while no knowledge of Pali or Prakrit is required, students should have had at least two years of Sanskrit.
HSAR 381/SAST 264
Introduction to Islamic Art
Kishwar Rizvi
This course is an introduction to the theory and practice of Islamic art, starting from the 7th century to the present. Despite orthodox polemics against figural representation, patrons and artists have celebrated the rich artistic practices that have given rise to the diverse cultures of the Islamic world � and continue to do so. Works studied include manuscript painting and portraiture, as well as the arts of calligraphy and ceramics, from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. The class is supplemented by visits to the Yale University Art Gallery and the new Islamic Art galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Spring 2013 Courses
SAST 223/HIST 352
Reinventing Gender in Modern India
Tanika Sarkar
A study of changing gender norms and practices in India in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Widow immolation and remarriage, child marriage and the age of consent, arranged vs. love-based marriages, education and domestic roles, religious life, sex workers, female labor in mills and in agriculture, caste and tribes, gender behavior in political life.
SAST 273/HSAR 329
Place, Landscape and Travel in South Asia Art
Dipti Khera
This course examines how artists have explored ideas of topography, mapping, and traveling in South Asian visual culture. By focusing on the manifestations of place and landscape, it asks how one imagines their picture of and in the world from specific epistemological, ideological, and subjective points of view. Examples will include a wide variety of material ranging from Buddhist sculpted panels, pilgrimage maps and devotional manuscripts, Mughal paintings, posters of the Indian nation-state as a mother goddess, to contemporary art featuring fractured landscapes of Kashmir, as well as travel narratives and poetry, films, and fiction. The eclecticism of the juxtapositions aims to raise questions on the continuities and discontinuities between seeing and idealizing place, religious and secular mappings, modern and pre-modern, and western and non-western ideas of place-making. Regular study sessions will be held at the Yale Center for British Art, Yale University Art Gallery, and Beinecke Library.
SAST 324/HIST 319/FILM 313
India on Film
Shailaja Paik
To examine the history of India since 1800 through a medium of media and scholarly and non-scholarly literature. We will concentrate on the impact of colonialism on the Indian subcontinent and on the formation of the modern South Asian States of India and Pakistan through historically-based films. We will study the representation of Indian society and history in the booming Bollywood film industry.
SAST 326/ HIST 324J
Texts of Indian Modernity
Tanika Sarkar
Introduction to the works of modern Indian thinkers, writers, and politicians who shaped the contours of modernity in the subcontinent. Literary works, polemical debates, and cultural and political movements, including their influence on events in colonial and postcolonial India. Issues related to nation and nationalism, caste and gender, tradition and modernity, and the meanings of times past and present.
Each term prospective junior History majors should apply for departmental seminars for the following term using the online seminar preregistration site. Preregistration begins after midterm in the fall for seminars offered in the spring term, and after spring recess for seminars offered in the subsequent fall term. Accelerated students holding junior status must notify the undergraduate History administrator in 237 HGS, 432-1359, by October 12 in the fall and by March 22 in the spring in order to be eligible to preregister for the following term’s seminars. All students who wish to preregister must declare their major beforehand.
In September and in January, application for admission should be made directly to the instructors of the seminars, who will admit students to remaining vacancies in their seminars. Priority is given to applications from juniors, then seniors, majoring in History, but applications are also accepted from qualified sophomores and from students majoring in other disciplines or programs.
Seminars on the history of the United States or Canada are numbered 100J to 199J; seminars on Britain and Europe are 200J to 299J; and seminars numbered 300J to 399J cover the rest of the world. Seminars numbered in the 400s address global topics; students must apply to the director of undergraduate studies in History to count a 400-level seminar toward a particular geographical distribution category.
SAST 360
Introduction to Bhakti Literature
Swapna Sharma
Study of bhakti (devotional literature) in North India, beginning in the sixteenth century. Resistance to Brahmanical forms of social dominance; the role of linguistically based power; the development of vernacular languages and the national language of India.
SAST 461/LITR 156
Indian Texts and Contexts
Benjamin Conisbee Baer
We read early Indian texts from the earliest Sanskrit compositions (Vedic hymns) through selections from Upanishads, Puranas, Buddhist texts, the Epics (Ramayana and Mahabharata), Sanskrit drama, and key texts on conduct, morality, ethics, and politics. The class focuses on social and historical context and the points of intersection between sacred texts and sites of social structure and social conflict. Centering on the questions of ritual and sacrifice, the class asks how they have become key figurative, political, and ethical resources in this complex tradition? What are karma and dharma? We aim to locate these terms and texts in the changing and dynamic social and political worlds of �early India� and we will examine how texts read their contexts and vice versa. Readings are selected from major landmarks of the field and intensively studied in class. All texts read in translation.
RLST 117/THST117
Gods and the Theater in India
Vasudha Dalmia
Relations between the religious and the secular in Indian theater. A study of Sanskrit drama and religious plays on the life of the god Rama; readings of representative works from colonial and contemporary India. All readings in translation.
RLST 413/SAST459
Buddhist Traditions of Mind and Meditation
Andrew Quintman
This seminar will survey a range of Buddhist meditation practices from South Asia and Tibet in the context of traditional theories of mind, perception, and cognition. Readings will include both primary Buddhist canonical works and secondary scholarship on cognitive science and ritual practice.
RLST 184/SAST 358
The Ramayana
Hugh Flick
Exploration of the religious and ideological interpretations of this epic of ancient India as manifested in performance and in written texts. Emphasis on the religious and historical contexts from which the texts emerged.
RLST 137/SAST 263
Introduction to Hinduism
Phyllis Granoff
A broad introduction to classical Hinduism; focus on close reading of primary texts in translation. Readings include selections from the Rig Veda, Brahmanas, epics, puranas, and medieval devotional poetry.
RLST 320
Gandhi and Hinduism
Vasudha Dalmia
Gandhi’s notion of Hinduism and his religious and political ideas about truth, nonviolence, fasting, and ashram. New connotations that Gandhi gave concepts drawn from a traditional Indic repertoire.
PLSC181/EP&E 425/SAST 342
South Asia in World Politics
Elizabeth Hanson
Relations of the countries of South Asia - Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka - with each other and with the rest of the world. Broad issues of world politics, including problems of development and security that confront developing countries.
EVST 346/ SAST 378
From Dongguan to Delhi: Urbanization and the Environment in China and India
Karen Seto
This course will explore contemporary urbanization processes in China and India with a focus on environmental challenges and sustainable development. Six themes related to urbanization and the environment will be explored in the course: 1) land-use change 2) energy and climate change, 3) food and consumption patterns, 4) manufacturing and industrial production, 5) technology and innovation, and 6) culture and lifestyles. Students will explore these themes and be introduced to a suite of conceptual and analytical tools, including satellite remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS), to complete semester-long projects that examine these issues in cities in China and India.
SAST419/ANTH463/ER&M 366 (ANTH 663/SAST 619)
Ethnicity, Indigeneity, Mobility
Sara Shneiderman
Classical literature on ethnicity in conversation with more recent work on indigeneity and mobility. We consider the relationships between place, belonging and citizenship in shaping contemporary identity practices and discourses. Readings are primarily ethnographic, with a focus on South Asia, but including material from Latin America, Native North America, Southeast and East Asia, Australia/New Zealand, and Africa.
SAST 341b/PLSC 442
Development in South Asia
Tariq Thachil
This course introduces students to the complex issues surrounding questions of political and economic “development” in South Asia, a region that is home to a quarter of the world’s population, and the largest number of its poor. Not surprisingly, the successes and failures of modernization in South Asia have informed and been informed by intellectual trends and their derivative policy prescriptions in development studies. To understand this reciprocal relationship, this course intersperses readings on the foundational perspectives on development and the policies they yielded with empirical treatments of the experiences of South Asian countries in the postcolonial era.
ANTH 353/SAST 369
Himalayan Languages & Cultures
Mark Turin
Exploration of social, linguistic and political aspects of the Himalayan region. Issues include classifications of communities and their languages; census taking and other state enumeration projects; the crisis of endangered oral cultures and speech forms; the creation and adoption of writing systems and the challenges of developing mother tongue literacy materials. Case studies are drawn from Bhutan, northern India, Nepal and Tibet.
WGSS449/ SAST 449
Fictions of Indian Women
Geetanjali Chanda
An exploration of Indian womanhood through novels and short stories by Indian women. Focus on postindependence women’s writings in English in India, and on concepts of nation, home, and identity.
HSAR 383A/ SAST 256A
The Art of India, c. 300 BC-1650 AD
Tamara L. Sears
Description: Introduction to the art and architectural history of the Indian subcontinent between c. 300 BC and 1650 AD. The course traces the development of early Buddhist and Jain art, the development of Hindu temples and icons, and the efflorescence of Islamic visual culture under the Mughal Empire.