Spring 2018
Language Courses | Core Courses | Related Courses
Language Courses:
HNDI 120/520
Elementary Hindi II
Seema Khurana, Swapna Sharma
MTWThF 10.30-11.20, MTWThF 1.30-2.20
Continuation of HNDI 110. After HNDI 110 or equivalent; Continuation of HNDI 510
HNDI 140/540
Intermediate Hindi II
Seema Khurana, Swapna Sharma
MTWThF 11.30-12.20
Continuation of HNDI 130. After HNDI 130 or equivalent; Continuation of HNDI 530, focusing on further development of proficiency in the four language skill areas. Prerequisite: HNDI 530 or equivalent.
HINDI 142/542
Accelerated Hindi II
Swapna Sharma
TTh 4- 5.15 pm
Continuation of HNDI 132/ HNDI 532. Development of increased proficiency in the four language skills. Focus on reading and higher language functions such as narration, description, and comparison. Reading strategies for parsing paragraph-length sentences in Hindi newspapers. Discussion of political, social, and cultural dimensions of Hindi culture as well as contemporary global issues; Continuation of HNDI 532. Prerequisite: HNDI 132 / HNDI 532 or equivalent.
HNDI 158/558
Writing in Independence and Post-Independence
Seema Khurana
Development of language skills through selected readings in Hindi literature and the study of popular culture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Focus on the works of Munshi Premchand, Mannoo Bhandhari, Mohan Rakesh, and Amrita Pritam. Debates on political, social, and cultural topics; An advanced language course designed to develop overall language skills through selected readings of Hindi literature and the study of popular culture of the twenty-first century. Focus on the works of Premchand, Mannoo Bhandhari, Mohan Rakesh, Amrita Pritam, and others; various art forms including theater and films; debates informing the political, social, and cultural dimensions as found in news articles and television programs.
HNDI 198/598
Advanced Tutorial
Swapna Sharma
For students with advanced Hindi language skills who wish to engage in concentrated reading and research on material not otherwise offered by the department. Work must be supervised by an adviser and must terminate in a term paper or the equivalent. Permission to enroll requires submission of a detailed project proposal and its approval by the language studies coordinator. Prerequisite: HNDI 150 or equivalent; For students with advanced Hindi language skills who wish to engage in concentrated reading and research on material not otherwise offered by the department. The work must be supervised by an adviser and must terminate in a term paper or its equivalent. Prerequisites: HNDI 540, and submission of a detailed project proposal and its approval by the language studies coordinator.
SKRT 120/520, LING 125/525
Introductory Sanskrit II
David Brick
MTWThF 9.25-10.15
Continuation of SKRT 110, SKRT510/LING 515. Focus on the basics of Sanskrit grammar; readings from classical Sanskrit texts written in Devanagari script. After SKRT 110
SKRT 140/540, LING 148/548
Intermediate Sanskrit II
David Brick
MTWThF 10.30-11.20
Continuation of SKRT 130/530, focusing on Sanskrit literature from the kavya genre. Readings include selections from the Jatakamala of Aryasura and the opening verses of Kalidasa’s Kumarasambhava. After SKRT 130/530 or equivalent.
SKRT 150/550
Advanced Sanskrit: Dharmasastra
David Brick
F 1.30-3.20
Introduction to Sanskrit commentarial literature, particularly to Dharmasastra, an explication and analysis of dharma (law or duty). Discussion of normative rules of human behavior; historical traditions of writing on the Indian subcontinent. Prerequisite: SKRT 140 or equivalent.
Core SAS Courses
SAST 224 / HIST 396
India and Pakistan since 1947
Rohit De
TTh 1.00- 2.15
Introduction to the history of the Indian subcontinent from 1947 to the present. Focus on the emergence of modern forms of life and thought, the impact of the partition on state and society, and the challenges of democracy and development. Transformations of society, economy, and culture; state building; economic policy.
SAST 227
Caste and Religion in South Asia
Ashish Koul
T 3.30-5.30
Study of how caste and caste-based hierarchies function, and the role of religious thought in these processes. Topics include: theological explanations of caste, which often (not always) emerge from within Hindu tradition; explorations of the social reality of caste hierarchies and caste-based discrimination, which, in turn, reaches into the rapidly changing socio-economic and political landscape of modern South Asia; how caste functions among Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians in the Indian subcontinent; ways in which experiences of colonialism and post-colonial nation-making have shaped caste in South Asia; and how post-colonial subjectivity continues to influence institutional and social manifestations of caste.
SAST 260 / HSAR 143 / RLST 188
Introduction to the History of Art: Buddhist Art and Architecture, 900 to 1600
Mimi Yiengpruksawan
TTh 1.30-2.20, 1 HTBA
Buddhist art and architecture of East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Tibet from the tenth century to the early modern period. Emphasis on cross-regional engagements including the impact of Islam.
SAST 278 / ECON 211 / GLBL 211
Economic Performance and Challenges in India
Rakesh Mohan
TTh 10.30-11.20, 1HTBA
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. Prerequisites: introductory microeconomics and macroeconomics.
SAST 279 / AMST 393 / WGSS 213 / ER&M 396
Gender and Culture in South Asian America
Inderpal Grewal
T 7.00-8.50 p
Examination of the emergence of South Asian Americans within U.S. popular culture, as well as in political and social issues. Topics, to better understand this growing and influential group of Asian Americans, include issues of gender and sexuality with attention to both masculinities and femininities as well as queer and trans South Asians, relations within and between groups; national and transnational connections; issues of race, caste, and religion; and theories of diaspora and migration.
SAST 362 / RLST 321
Hindus and Muslims in South Asia
Supriya Gandhi
M 2.30-4.20
Study of engagements between Hindu and Muslim traditions in South Asia from medieval to modern times. Exploration of historical case studies of Hindu-Muslim relations and the formation of religious identities, as well as how memories of the past intersect with modern discourses on religion and politics.
SAST 372 / FILM 299
A Thousand and One Nights at the Cinema
Samhita Sunya
M 3.30-5.20
Investigation of the prolific, longstanding, global screen histories of A Thousand and One Nights, also known as The Arabian Nights. Study of the way which they have congealed into a cinematic genre in their own right; a catapult for explorations of the fantastic, iterated as the wonders of technology/medium and sensuality; a contested site of negotiating Orientalist desires and stereotypes, themselves inextricable from histories of colonialism and (neo) imperialism; a platform for reflection upon the question of storytelling itself.
SAST 456 / LITR 152 / LING 111
Sanskrit Classics in Translation
David Brick
Th 1.30-3.20
The chief genres of Sanskrit secular literature set against the background of the cultural history of ancient India. Various literary styles compared with those of other world literary traditions.
SAST 486
Directed Study
Staff
TBA
A one-credit, single-term course on topics not covered in regular offerings. To apply for admission, a student should present a course description and syllabus to the director of undergraduate studies, along with written approval from the faculty member who will direct the study.
SAST 492
Senior Essay
Staff
TBA
A yearlong research project completed under faculty supervision and resulting in a substantial paper.
Other Related Courses
ANTH 339 / ANTH 539
Urban Ethnography of Asia
Erik Harms
T 9.25-11.15
Introduction to the anthropological study of contemporary Asian cities. Focus on new ethnographies about cities in East, Southeast, and South Asia. Topics include rural-urban migration, redevelopment, evictions, social movements, land grabbing, master-planned developments, heritage preservation, utopian aspirations, social housing, slums and precariousness, and spatial cleansing.
ANTH 736 / ARCG 736
Advanced Topics in Asian Archaeology
William Honeychurch
F 9.25-11.15
This seminar reviews the archaeology of Asia of the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs with emphasis on East, Southeast, and South Asia. Asian archaeology remains little known to most Western researchers, although some of the earliest hominid remains and some of the most powerful states are found in that part of the world. The course emphasizes the particularities of Asian cultural sequences, while illustrating how processes in these sequences compare to those found elsewhere in the world. The diverse Asian record provides a basis for refining key concepts in anthropological archaeology, including domestication, inequality and hierarchy, heterarchy, and complexity. Topics to be covered include history and theory in Asian archaeology; the Pleistocene and paleolithic record of Asia; origins of plant and animal domestication; early farming communities; models of complexity; and early states and empires.
HIST 319 / NELC 317 / MMES 314
Islam in Asia
Valerie Hansen, Michael Rapoport
TTh 1.00-2.15
Examination of the three countries with the largest Muslim populations (Indonesia, India, and Pakistan) and China. Case studies on how the history of Islam in these countries helps us to understand present-day controversies regarding violence (jihad), gender, law (Shariʿa), and governance (caliphate). Exploration of similarity and diversity in beliefs and practices.
HIST 464J
Law and History
Rohit De
W 1.30-3.20
The role of law and legal institutions in shaping everyday life. Ways in which societies throughout history have engaged with law, rules, and legal institutions, from the Roman Empire to Ottoman Egypt to the U.S. civil rights era. Methodologies and sources in the study of legal history.
RLST 018
Yoga in South Asia and Beyond
Supriya Gandhi
MW 11.35-12.50
The history of yoga practice and thought from the earliest textual discussions of yoga until the present day. Topics include the body, cosmology, cross-cultural interactions, colonialism, and orientalism. Enrollment limited to freshmen. Preregistration required; see under Freshman Seminar Program.
RLST 105 / RLST 544
Animals in Indian Religions
Phyllis Granoff
T 1.30-3.20
Students read Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain texts dealing with animals. We examine divergent beliefs about the place of animals in the hierarchy of living beings. Readings include stories of the Buddha’s births as an animal, the Ramayana on the monkey god Hanuman, and Jain rebirth narratives. Philosophical readings on animal sacrifice culminate in a consideration of recent debates against sacrifice in the Indian supreme court.
RLST 315 / RLST 539
Sensory Culture in South Asian Religions
Finnian Moore Gerety
Th 2.30-4.20
This seminar explores South Asian religions through the body, the senses, and aesthetics. Drawing on Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions, and concentrating on embodied practices such as meditation, chanting, eating, sex, asceticism, ritual, possession, and performance, we examine experiences of the sacred in India, past and present. How has sensory culture—the sound of mantras, the smell of incense, the touch of a guru’s embrace—shaped lives, practices, and doctrines? What place does the gratification (or denial) of the senses have in South Asian traditions? The course draws on premodern texts as various as law codes, erotic handbooks, and medical treatises, and integrates a range of new media from ethnographic films to graphic novels.
RLST 547
Classical Tibetan Literature
Andrew Quintman
T 1.30-3.20
This seminar focuses on a variety of Tibetan sources on Buddhist religious history. Prerequisite: reading knowledge of Classical Tibetan.
RLST 551
Reading in Indian Texts
Phyllis Granoff
W 1.30-3.20
This is a course for students who read Sanskrit/Prakrit/Pali and would like to study a particular text in depth. The choice of text is determined after discussion with interested students.