Sacred Laws, Social Injustice: Caste in Indian Society

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The reverse of the principle of Separate but Equal, caste implies Together but Unequal. This course stresses two aspects of caste hierarchy: 1) caste as lived in India; and 2) caste as conceived and reformed within Hindu thought. At the theoretical level, caste has inspired efforts to map social relations along multiple axespower, purity, material exchangein counterpoint to Western modernity. Along with social theory, we'll read memoirs, ethnographic and sacred texts, as well as watch Bollywood movies.