Spring 2012 Courses
Indian Music Theory and Practice
MUSI 357; SASCT 259
Stan Scott
What drew prima ballerina Anna Pavlova and musical giants John Coltrane and the Beatles to the forms and textures of Indian music? Is the practice of Indian ragas a path to enlightenment, or the outdated courtly music of a bygone era? Is it a marker of communal religious identity, or a symbol of ideological synthesis and cultural pluralism? What are the roles of religion and eroticism in Indian music? How are ragas understood by the musicians who perform and teach them? What is the nature of the guru-disciple relationship in Indian music? In this interdisciplinary class we will explore all of these questions, examining both the cultural contexts and the musical form and content of classical music in North India, with forays into the realms of Bengali folk song and Indian film music. Live performances, films, and hands-on sessions will supplement readings and discussions.
RLST 185/SAST 368
The Mahabharata
Hugh Flick
Examination of the background and meaning of this important Vaisnava Bhakti text with emphasis on its function in the religious fabric of India. Discussion of the different ways in which the text has been interpreted. All readings in translation.
RLST 137/SAST 263
Introduction to Hindusim
Phyllis Granoff
A broad introduction to classical Hinduism; focus on close reading of primary texts in translation. Readings include selections from the Rig Veda, Brahmanas, epics, puranas, and medieval devotional poetry.
PLSC181/EP&E 425/SAST 342
South Asia in World Politics
Elizabeth Hanson
Relations of the countries of South Asia - Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka - with each other and with the rest of the world. Broad issues of world politics, including problems of development and security that confront developing countries.
SAST 218
Gender and Media in India
Madhavi Murty
This course will discuss the significant role popular media plays in shaping key historical moments in India and will examine the importance of gender in structuring regimes of representation within popular media texts.
SAST 337
Islam in Pakistan
Sana Haroon
Pakistan, as one of the few countries in the world created for a religious group, has faced and posed tremendous challenges because of its commitment to its transcendental Islamic identity. Within Pakistan, Sunni revivalism has come to dominate the public representation of the principles of faith despite emerging from a multi-faceted history of belief and practice. In this course we will trace the history of Pakistan’s orthodox Islam as emerging out of a north-India reformist imperative, but while doing so we will try to situate this history in the context of devotionalism, politics, community and the individual experience of faith. This context gave rise to other orthodoxies, including Shi’a and Ahmadi orthodoxy, and also preserved within itself a place for Sufi culture and practice.
SAST 338/HIST 391J
Networks of Piety, Kinship and Caste in Early Modern India, 1400-1800
Rochisha Narayan
Every South Asian knows that family, religion and community or caste was important to their individual households but does not know the historical context in which these three forces were aligned in the subcontinent. This seminar offers the opportunity to trace hitherto unknown networks of piety, family and caste that shaped politics in the early modern period. What did familial relations in the early modern period look like? How and when did certain sections of people claim upper caste identities? How did investments in piety shape political status or challenge social norms? How were all these processes gendered?
HSAR 600/SAST 600:Painting Poetry in Islamic Art
Kishwar Rizvi
This course explores the intersection between objects and texts in Islamic art, with a focus on the arts of Iran, Turkey, and India. The seminar will study holdings at Yale’s libraries and art galleries, which include 9th century Qurans, 13th century ceramics, and 19th century lithographs, in order to gain an understanding of the manner in which poetic texts were deployed as an inspiration for visual art while serving as a critique of its very materiality.
SAST 259b/MUSI 357
Indian Music Theory and Practice: From Slumdog Millionaire to Ravi Shankar
Stan Scott
In this course students will engage in both discussion about and practice in Indian music. Topics for discussion will include: history and theory of Indian music, improvisation, modern trends, gender, Bollywood, musical fusions, interactions between Indian and Western music cultures. Practical instruction will focus on Hindustani classical traditions. No previous experience in Indian classical music is necessary.
HSAR 385b/ SAST 258b
Temple Towns of Southern Asia
Tamara L Sears
This lecture course explores the history, forms, and meanings of South Asian temples both as important works of architecture and as part of broader urban contexts. We begin by interrogating the nature of divinity in the South Asian context and its relationship to the temple’s fundamental symbolism as altar, shelter, cosmos, and palace. Morphological and stylistic analysis of the buildings themselves forms the basis for subsequent investigations of such themes as architecture and cosmology, ritual and space, royal patronage, pilgrimage, and the economic function of the temple. We will conclude by examining the transformations that the temple has undergone in recent years. While some prior knowledge of South Asian art, history, or religion may be helpful, none is required for the successful completion of this course.
HIST 380/SAST 336
Urban Imaginaries in India
Juned Sheikh
The course helps students understand urban social formations in India and the imaginations that animated it. The course focuses on themes like the lived and everyday experiences in the city, its changing political economy, the transformations of its labor markets, the political formations that took shape in it, and the visual and textual representations of the city. Texts for the course include scholarly works, novels, and films. For their final project, students are expected to do primary research for a research on a city of choice in India.
ANTH 417/670/SAST319
Affirmative Action in S Asia & the US
Sara Shneiderman
Explorations of the concept, policy implementation and socio-cultural effects of affirmative action. Focusing on South Asia and the US, we look comparatively at specific histories and practices of inequality; state strategies for combating inequality through the classification of social difference around concepts like “caste”, “ethnicity”, “race” and “class”; and consider the role of social science in crafting such policies. These concepts are linked to broader anthropological debates over citizenship, democracy, and the nation-state.
PLSC384/SAST 244
Indian Democracy in Comparative Perspective
Tariq Thachil
This course has two purposes: to introduce students to the major dimensions of Indian democracy, and to encourage them to think about these issues in comparison with the political experiences of other developing nations. We will examine how Indian democracy compares with other developing nations on topics ranging from colonial legacies, identity politics, social movements, and social and human development. Comparative examples will include China, South Africa, Brazil, and Egypt.
SAST 341b/PLSC 341
The Political Economy of Development in South Asia
Tariq Thachil
This course introduces students to the complex issues surrounding questions of political and economic “development” in South Asia, a region that is home to a quarter of the world’s population, and the largest number of its poor. Not surprisingly, the successes and failures of modernization in South Asia have informed and been informed by intellectual trends and their derivative policy prescriptions in development studies. To understand this reciprocal relationship, this course intersperses readings on the foundational perspectives on development and the policies they yielded with empirical treatments of the experiences of South Asian countries in the postcolonial era.
ANTH 353/SAST 369
Himalayan Languages & Cultures
Mark Turin
Exploration of social, linguistic and political aspects of the Himalayan region. Issues include classifications of communities and their languages; census taking and other state enumeration projects; the crisis of endangered oral cultures and speech forms; the creation and adoption of writing systems and the challenges of developing mother tongue literacy materials. Case studies are drawn from Bhutan, northern India, Nepal and Tibet.
WGSS/ SAST 458
Pop Culture & Postcolonial India
Geetanjali Chanda
A study of films and literature of South Asians living, working, and directing in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Questions of commercial populism, authenticity, and postcolonial identity.