Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Fall 2017, Fall 2016, Fall 2015
This course offers a broad historical and cultural survey of the civilizations of the Indian subcontinent from the earliest period known to archaeology to the advent of Islam as a major cultural and political force around the 13th century CE. Attention will be paid to the geography and ethnography of the region, its political history, and to the religious, philosophical, literary, scientific, and artistic movements that have shaped it and contributed to its development as a unique, diverse, and fascinating world civilization. Lectures, readings, and class discussions will center on salient texts, broadly defined, that have characterized major cultural, religious, and political formations from the earliest antiquity to the late medieval period. This course is open to all interested students and is required for those majoring or minoring in South Asian Studies.
Introduction to the Civilization of Early India: Read More [+]

Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2017, Spring 2016
This course offers a broad historical and cultural survey of the civilizations of the Indian subcontinent from the 12th century to partition of India in 1947. Attention will be paid to the geography and ethnography of the region, its political history, and the religious, philosophical, literary, and artistic movements that have shaped it and contributed to its development as a unique, diverse, and fascinating world civilization. Lectures, readings, and class discussions will center on salient texts, broadly defined, that have characterized major cultural, religious, and political formations from the medieval period to the 20th century. This course is open to all interested students and is required for those majoring or minoring in South Asian Studies.
Introduction to the Civilization of Medieval and Modern India: Read More [+]

Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Spring 2018, Fall 2017, Fall 2016
Reading and composition based on 10 classic works of Indian literature ranging from the ancient Sanskrit epics to modern novels by Indian and western authors. Weekly composition on texts and topics read and discussed in class. Satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement.
Great Books of India: Read More [+]

Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2017, Spring 2016
Reading and composition in connection with eastern and western representations of India, and other Asian cultures, in great works of modern literature. Satisfies the second half of the reading and composition requirement.
India in the Writer's Eye: Read More [+]

Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Spring 2017, Spring 2016
The course will provide through lecture, discussion and course readings a comprehensive introduction to the major texts, doctrines, beliefs and practices of classical Hinduism from antiquity to modernity. Special emphasis will be placed on Vedic and Āgamic traditions and on the rise and development of the major Hindu saṃpradāyas, including those of Vaiṣṇavism, Śaivism, Śaktism and Tantrism. Attention will be paid to Hinduism's relationships with non Hindu traditions of South Asia, the rise of political Hinduism and Hinduism in the Indian Diaspora.
Introduction to Hinduism: Read More [+]

Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Fall 2016
This course is an advanced introduction to the major teachings of Indian Buddhism and their philosophical elaborations. We will cover the core tenets attributed to the Buddha, and the later doctrinal and scholastic developments that turned Buddhism into one of the principal philosophical traditions of India. For this we will read select primary sources—in principle, extracts of the scriptures and later treatises—and academic articles and book chapters. Rather than offering a broad introductory survey of Buddhist traditions across space and time, this class is geared towards students who are already familiar with the basics of Buddhism and want to deepen their understanding of the principal teachings of Buddhism originating in India.
Buddhist Thought in India: Read More [+]

Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Fall 2017, Fall 2016, Fall 2014
This course is a broad introduction to the history, doctrine, and culture of the Buddhism of Tibet. We will begin with the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet in the eighth century and move on to the evolution of the major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhist literature, ritual and monastic practice, the place of Buddhism in Tibetan political history, and the contemporary situation of Tibetan Buddhism both inside and outside of Tibet.
Tibetan Buddhism: Read More [+]

Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Spring 2012, Spring 2011, Fall 2009
Literary works of ancient India are read in English translation and studied critically. The course aims at giving a comprehensive picture of many important areas of the Indian literary heritage.
Classical Indian Literature in Translation: Read More [+]

Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Lecture and discussion on the novel as it arose on the Indian subcontinent during the 19th and 20th centuries, using English translations and original works in English. Critical discussion of the novel as a modern genre adapted to local conditions and coexisting with older traditions of writing. Examines the novel as a window on Indian modernities. Interpretation of Indian society, culture, and history through literature.
The Novel in India: Read More [+]

Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Not yet offered
The period between 600 and 1600 C.E. witnessed the growth of a number of religious traditions that challenged prevailing orthodoxies and reshaped South Asian society and culture. This course will examine the major developments within Hindu traditions, focusing on popular traditions known as bhakti (devotion). Examines the growth and spread of Islam (particularly, Sufism) and the emergence of Sikhism. The focus of readings is on primary sources – poetry, extracts from theological literature, autobiographical narratives etc. These will be supplemented by secondary sources as appropriate.
Religion in Medieval India: Read More [+]

Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Spring 2014, Spring 2013, Spring 2011
Lectures and discussion of 19th and 20th century Indian literature through English translations and original works in English. Interpretation of Indian society and culture through literature.
Modern Indian Literature: Read More [+]

Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Summer 2008 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2004 10 Week Session, Fall 1996
This course is an introduction to the religions that have their origin on the India subcontinent--Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, and tribal religions--as well as those that originated in other regions such as Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism. Organizing this material chronologically rather than teaching it by separate religious traditions facilitates comparisons and promotes an understanding not only of the differences among these religions but also some of their commonalities in philosophy, theology, and praxis.
Religion in Early India: Read More [+]

Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Fall 2016, Spring 1997, Spring 1996
This course considers the co-option, reinterpretation and dissemination of sacred texts and religious practices in various political and cultural projects in India during the colonial and post-colonial periods. Students will be introduced to religious “reform” movements, cross-cultural debates during the colonial period, and how the concept of a secular state in post-Independence India has shaped and continues to shape religious practice and public policy. Important themes include transformations in the role of women, debates around caste and “untouchability”, and religious conversions. Although the emphasis is on Hindu traditions, attention will also be given to other Indian traditions such as Islam, Christianity and Buddhism.
Religion in Modern India: Read More [+]

Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Fall 2017, Summer 2017 Second 6 Week Session, Fall 2016
Literary and religious aspects of Hindu myths. Reading of selected mythological texts in translation.
Hindu Mythology: Read More [+]

Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Spring 2017, Spring 1997
The course entails substantial selected readings from the great Sanskirt epic poems--the Mahabharata and the Ramayana in translation, selected readings from the corpus of secondary literature on Indian epic studies as well as lectures on salient issues in both. Discussion will focus on a variety of historical and theoretical approaches to the study of the poems and their extraordinary influence on Indian culture. Readings will be supplemented with selected showings of popular cinematic and television versions of the epics.
India's Great Epics: Read More [+]

Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2015, Spring 2014
The aim of this course on the culture and history of Muslim communities and institutions in South Asia is to introduce students to the broad historical currents of the expansion of Islam in the Indian subcontinent, the nature of Muslim political authority, the interaction between religious communities, Islamic aesthetics and contributions to material culture, the varied engagements and reactions of Muslims to colonial rule, and the contemporary concerns of South Asia's Muslims. While this is a lecture course, ample time will be set aside for discussion and the active engagement of participants will be expected. Lectures will be supplemented with visual material, music, and movies where possible.
Islam in South Asia: Read More [+]

Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Fall 2013, Fall 2008
This course is designed to provide a dual chronological and thematic approach to the study of one of the greatest empires in human civilization: the Mughal Empire. Although the bulk of this course will focus on the Mughal Empire during its heyday between the 1550s and the early 1700s, careful attention will be paid to the larger historical and geographical contexts that both enabled the emergence and, ultimately, decentralization of Mughal power. In so doing, this course will not only study South Asia's complex history on its own terms but also examine the intricate web of political, economic, and social links that connected South Asia to the rest of the world. Simultaneously, this course will also pay particular attention to a series of common misconceptions that dog the study of pre-modern Islamic polities. Among them, the supposedly lesser role played by women in politics; the dogmatic and central role of Islam in "Muslim" states; and the economic and political superiority of Western Europe. Crucial to these questions also is an examination of the historiography and historiographical traditions that have come to define contemporary understanding of the Mughal Empire.
Mughal India through Memoirs, Chronicles and other Texts: Read More [+]

Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Fall 2014
Whenever Pakistan comes up as a subject of sustained conversation in the US it usually is for all the wrong reasons: the worst nuclear proliferator in recent history, the refuge of Osama bin Laden, a major source of regional instability in South and Central Asia. Although Pakistan may be viewed with deep mistrust by US policy planners and the American public alike, this course seeks to remind us that it is also a country of great political, economic, religious, and social complexity. This course will situate Pakistan in its historical, political, literary, religious, economic and social contexts with the hope that students will develop nuanced and deeply grounded perspectives on a country that in fact defies easy stereotypes.
Pakistan: An Introduction: Read More [+]

Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Fall 2011, Fall 2010
This course seeks to interrogate the highly contentious and controversial issue of Hindu and Muslim religious nationalism (otherwise known as "communalism") in South Asia. In so doing, we will interrogate the historical trajectory and development of religious nationalism from the colonial period through to the present. We will examine issues relating to the rise of (non-religious) nationalism outside of South Asia; Hindu and Muslim relations in the pre-colonial period; colonial attempts to construct South Asia's past along religious lines; the dialectical interplay of early Hindu and Muslim religious nationalism; the interplay between secular and religious nationalism; different intellectual attempts to articulate notions of bounded religious communities; the success of religious nationalism in contemporary South Asia; and the implications of religious nationalism for the future of South Asia.
Religious Nationalism in South Asia: Read More [+]

Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Fall 2014, Fall 2010
Tibetan Buddhists view the moment of death as a rare opportunity for transformation. This course examines how Tibetans have used death and dying in the path to enlightenment. Readings will address how Tibetan funerary rituals work to assist the dying toward this end, and how Buddhist practitioners prepare for this crucial moment through tantric meditation, imaginative rehearsals, and explorations of the dream state.
Death, Dreams, and Visions in Tibetan Buddhism: Read More [+]

Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Fall 2012
This course provides a place for graduate-level seminars in Tibetan Buddhism that rely primarily on secondary sources and Tibetan texts in translation. Content will vary between semesters but will typically focus on a particular theme. Themes will be chosen according to student interests, with an eye toward introducing students to the breadth of available western scholarship on Tibet, from classics in the field to the latest publications.
Seminar in Tibetan Buddhism: Read More [+]

Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Fall 2009, Fall 2008, Fall 2007
This graduate seminar focuses on reading a wide spectrum of Indian Buddhist texts in the Sanskrit (or Pali) original introducing the students to different genres, and different aspects of Indian Buddhism. The students taking the course for 2 units (rather than 4) will be expected to prepare thoroughly every week for the reading of Buddhist texts in the original. They will also be expected to read all related secondary literature that is assigned to supplement the study of the primary source material. In contrast to the students taking the course for 4 units, they will not be expected to write a term paper or to prepare special presentations for class.
Readings in Indian Buddhist Texts: Read More [+]

Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Spring 2018, Fall 2017, Spring 2017
This graduate seminar focuses on reading a wide spectrum of Indian Buddhist texts in the Sanskrit (or Pali) original introducing the students to different genres, and different aspects of Indian Buddhism. The students taking the course for two units (rather than four) will be expected to prepare thoroughly every week for the reading of Buddhist texts in the original. They will also be expected to read all related secondary literature that is assigned to supplement the study of the primary source material. In contrast to the students taking the course for four units, they will not be expected to write a term paper or to prepare special presentations for class.
Readings in Indian Buddhist Texts: Read More [+]

Offered through: South and Southeast Asian Studies
Terms offered: Spring 2018, Fall 2017, Spring 2017, Fall 2016
This seminar provides an introduction to a broad range of Tibetan Buddhist texts, including chronicles and histories, biographical literature, doctrinal treatises, canonical texts, ritual manuals, pilgrimage guides, and liturgical texts. It is intended for graduate students interested in premodern Tibet from any perspective. Students are required to do all of the readings in the original classical Tibetan. It will also serve as a tools and methods for the study of Tibetan Buddhist literature, including standard lexical and bibliographic references, digital resources, and secondary literature in modern languages. The content of the course will vary from semester to semester to account for the needs and interests of particular students.
Readings in Tibetan Buddhist Texts: Read More [+]