Hello everyone and welcome back!

 We hope you have all had a restful and productive summer and are as excited about the new term as we are! We have a lot of interesting talks, discussions, performances, and special events planned for this term that we’re sure you will enjoy. Please join us for as many as possible and visit our website for regular updates. To sign up and receive regular notification of events please write to: south.asia@yale.edu. The Council can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.

The South Asian Studies Weekly Colloquium will continue to meet Wednesdays at 4:30 PM in Luce Hall. A number of interesting speakers from India, Europe, and USA will grace the series with presentations on their newest research. The colloquium series will be inaugurated on September 11, 2013, with the second annual Induben Bhatt Memorial Lecture which will be delivered this year by Mallika Kaur, an eminent legal expert on international human rights with particular focus on gender issues and minority rights, and who has worked both in South Asia and with the South Asian diaspora.  This presentation will be followed by a reception to also celebrate the gifts of the Bhatt family to South Asian Studies at Yale.

In subsequent weeks we will hear from Leela Gandhi, the noted literary theorist and scholar from Chicago, Francesca Orsini the famous historian of Hindi literature and print culture from London, and Shingoo Einoo a renowned Japanese scholar of Sanskrit and Vedic rituals, among others. In addition there will be speakers in town hosted by the Society for Asian Religions and the Inter-Asia Connections Program at Yale, a new venture in which the South Asian Studies Council is a core sponsor and supporter. Our graduate student-run South Asia Brown Bag series is also continuing, with meetings scheduled on Thursdays over lunch. 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 is helping organize numerous conferences and workshops in Fall 2013, including one in mid-September called “Food Sovereignty:  A Critical Dialogue” which is mounted in partnership with the Program in Agrarian Studies at Yale, and the Journal of Peasant Studies. Several scholars of agriculture and food issues in South Asia will present research papers and join panel discussions at this meeting. The Council is also supporting a workshop on Elections in South Asia, to be held in mid-November 2013, in collaboration with Sciences Po in Paris, France, which will bring French and Yale scholars together to discuss elections India and Pakistan. Other special events will feature Yale College and graduate students presenting the outcomes of their summer’s research in India supported by the South Asian Studies Council, and an introduction to South Asian Studies for returning and new students, organized with the South Asia Society at Yale College.

The South Asian Studies Council annually welcomes several visiting scholars and postdoctoral associates, some of whom also teach courses for South Asian Studies. This year we are happy to welcome Dr. Asiya Alam, from University of Texas-Austin, a historian of Muslim women, families, and education in nineteenth century India, as the Malathy Singh Visiting Lecturer and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Council. She will teach courses on Modern South Asian History. We are also happy to welcome Dr. Kedar Kulkarni, from University of California- San Diego, who is a scholar of Marathi literature and theatre. He will teach courses on Indian theater and cinema. Along with the Council on East Asian Studies, we are jointly supporting the new Inter-Asia Connections Program at Yale with funding from the Carnegie Corporation and as part of this effort we are also happy to welcome a third postdoctoral associate, Dr. Rajashree Mazumder, a historian of Indians in Burma, who will teach a course on Indian Ocean History.

In addition to offering nearly thirty non-language courses covering history, culture, politics, cinema, religions, the arts, literature, and numerous other topics, this year we are also participating in a major way in the new shared courses initiative with Columbia University and Cornell University. Through this novel program to expand the languages that Yale students can take for credit for Yale degrees, we are now able to offer four South Asian languages including Tamil, Bengali, Sinhala, and Classical Tibetan. In addition, 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. So allow me also draw the attention of all students to the fine slate of language and non-language courses offered through South Asian Studies this term. You can find them on our web site and on the online catalog, and do come and talk to the DUS for South Asian Studies, Dr. Sara Shneiderman, 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.

Have a great start to the semester!