Introduction to Modern South Asia

Catalog description

This course offers an introduction to social and cultural formations in Modern South Asia, and prepares students to think critically about the forms of life that have characterized the region. First, it sets up a historical context for the region, focusing on how critical events such as the partition and Indian independence from British rule invited a line of scholarly preoccupations with colonialism, post-colonialism and nationhood. At the same time, it dwells on how historiography itself might become a political object in the light of social upheaval. Second, it examines the particularities of these upheavals: religious and ethnic majoritarianism, gendered violence, class and caste-based hierarchies, as well as the political orders –sovereignty, democracy, secularity, that they resist and abide by in everyday life. Third, the course compares ritual, ethical and linguistic practices, born from a characteristically South Asian confluence.