Greetings from the South Asian Studies Council!

We hope that the summer has rejuvenated you all and that the beginning of the new semester has been a smooth transition. I am writing to let you know of all the interesting talks, discussions, performances, and special events that we have planned for the semester and we hope that you will join us for several, if not all, of these. Information about our events will be regularly posted on our webpage but if you want receive notifications of all South Asia related events, just sign up by writing to south.asia@yale.edu. The Council can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.

The South Asian Studies Weekly Colloquium has a new schedule. We will now be meeting on Thursdays at 4:30 PM in Luce Hall. Our line-up for this year includes speakers from all over the world. Our first speaker for this year will be novelist Chandrahas Chaudhary who will focus on the Indian novel. Later in the semester we will also hear from Sana Aiyer from MIT on diasporic politics in Kenya, actress/film-maker/activist Nandita Das, who is visiting Yale this semester, and from historian Samira Sheikh from Vanderbilt. Later this month, the Council will also be hosting a conversation with Pankaj Mishra and Nadeem Aslam, winners of the Windham Campbell prize, Yale’s global literary awards.

The Society for Asian Religions and the Yale Himalaya initiative will also be hosting speakers and events and the information will be disseminated on our mailing lists in advance of the events. Our graduate student-run South Asia Brown Bag series is also continuing, with meetings scheduled on Wednesdays over lunch. We will also be hosting music and other art-related events over the course of the semester. For more information on these colloquia, and other events and resources, please go to our website: www.yale.edu/macmillan/southasia.

The South Asian Studies Council annually welcomes visiting scholars and postdoctoral associates, some of whom also teach courses for South Asian Studies. This year we have with us as Singh Visiting Lecturer, Kathryn Hardy, a media anthropologist from UPenn, who will be teaching courses in Indian Cinema and South Asian anthropology. Broadening across campus, we are happy to welcome Shri Rabindra Goswami, renowned Sitarist from Banaras, who will be fellow at the Institute of Sacred Music this semster. The ISM will also host Cécile Guillaume-Pey, an anthropologist of ritual art in the Sora tribe of Orissa. The Yale world Fellows Program has four fellows this year with strong South Asia connections – Ahmad “Rafay” Alam, Nandita Das, Christopher Lockyear, and Parmesh Shahani. We welcome them and look forward to productive interactions and events over the course of the semester.

In addition to offering several non-language courses covering history, culture, politics, cinema, religions, the arts, literature, and numerous other topics, this year we are expanding our participation in the new shared courses initiative with Columbia University and Cornell University. This program allows Yale students to consider many more language options for credit towards Yale degrees. This year the program is able to offer Tamil, Bengali, Sinhala, Punjabi, Modern and Classical Tibetan. The Council continues to support the learning of other South Asian languages through the Directed Independent Languages Study Program through the Center for Language Study at Yale College. Typically languages like Nepali, Urdu, Marathi, Panjabi, Tibetan, and Dzongkha, are among those that students have taken in the past through this unique program. Please refer to our courses on the online catalog, and do come and talk to the DUS for South Asian Studies, Dr. Tariq Thachil, or the Director of South Asian Language Programs, Dr. Ashwini Deo, in the offices of the Council if you want to learn more about this exciting and important field of study.

Each term we also work with a range of student organizations focused on South Asia with interests in current affairs, economic development, cinema and other visual culture and arts, dance, music, and service organizations, to support their efforts to bring interesting individuals and events to campus. We invite all student organizations interested in South Asia to come visit us in Luce Hall and work with us on their projects. Faculty with interesting ideas for South Asia related activities on campus or to involve students in research and study in South Asia should also get in touch as soon as possible as we can provide some support to these endeavors.

The very best wishes for the semester from all of us at the South Asian Studies Council!