Spring 2013 Courses

SAST 223/HIST 352
Reinventing Gender in Modern India
Tanika Sarkar
A study of changing gender norms and practices in India in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Widow immolation and remarriage, child marriage and the age of consent, arranged vs. love-based marriages, education and domestic roles, religious life, sex workers, female labor in mills and in agriculture, caste and tribes, gender behavior in political life.

SAST 273/HSAR 329
Place, Landscape and Travel in South Asia Art
Dipti Khera
This course examines how artists have explored ideas of topography, mapping, and traveling in South Asian visual culture. By focusing on the manifestations of place and landscape, it asks how one imagines their picture of and in the world from specific epistemological, ideological, and subjective points of view. Examples will include a wide variety of material ranging from Buddhist sculpted panels, pilgrimage maps and devotional manuscripts, Mughal paintings, posters of the Indian nation-state as a mother goddess, to contemporary art featuring fractured landscapes of Kashmir, as well as travel narratives and poetry, films, and fiction. The eclecticism of the juxtapositions aims to raise questions on the continuities and discontinuities between seeing and idealizing place, religious and secular mappings, modern and pre-modern, and western and non-western ideas of place-making. Regular study sessions will be held at the Yale Center for British Art, Yale University Art Gallery, and Beinecke Library.

SAST 324/HIST 319/FILM 313
India on Film
Shailaja Paik
To examine the history of India since 1800 through a medium of media and scholarly and non-scholarly literature. We will concentrate on the impact of colonialism on the Indian subcontinent and on the formation of the modern South Asian States of India and Pakistan through historically-based films. We will study the representation of Indian society and history in the booming Bollywood film industry.

SAST 326/ HIST 324J
Texts of Indian Modernity
Tanika Sarkar
Introduction to the works of modern Indian thinkers, writers, and politicians who shaped the contours of modernity in the subcontinent. Literary works, polemical debates, and cultural and political movements, including their influence on events in colonial and postcolonial India. Issues related to nation and nationalism, caste and gender, tradition and modernity, and the meanings of times past and present.

Each term prospective junior History majors should apply for departmental seminars for the following term using the online seminar preregistration site. Preregistration begins after midterm in the fall for seminars offered in the spring term, and after spring recess for seminars offered in the subsequent fall term. Accelerated students holding junior status must notify the undergraduate History administrator in 237 HGS, 432-1359, by October 12 in the fall and by March 22 in the spring in order to be eligible to preregister for the following term’s seminars. All students who wish to preregister must declare their major beforehand.

In September and in January, application for admission should be made directly to the instructors of the seminars, who will admit students to remaining vacancies in their seminars. Priority is given to applications from juniors, then seniors, majoring in History, but applications are also accepted from qualified sophomores and from students majoring in other disciplines or programs.

Seminars on the history of the United States or Canada are numbered 100J to 199J; seminars on Britain and Europe are 200J to 299J; and seminars numbered 300J to 399J cover the rest of the world. Seminars numbered in the 400s address global topics; students must apply to the director of undergraduate studies in History to count a 400-level seminar toward a particular geographical distribution category.

SAST 360
Introduction to Bhakti Literature
Swapna Sharma
Study of bhakti (devotional literature) in North India, beginning in the sixteenth century. Resistance to Brahmanical forms of social dominance; the role of linguistically based power; the development of vernacular languages and the national language of India.

SAST 461/LITR 156
Indian Texts and Contexts
Benjamin Conisbee Baer
We read early Indian texts from the earliest Sanskrit compositions (Vedic hymns) through selections from Upanishads, Puranas, Buddhist texts, the Epics (Ramayana and Mahabharata), Sanskrit drama, and key texts on conduct, morality, ethics, and politics. The class focuses on social and historical context and the points of intersection between sacred texts and sites of social structure and social conflict. Centering on the questions of ritual and sacrifice, the class asks how they have become key figurative, political, and ethical resources in this complex tradition? What are karma and dharma? We aim to locate these terms and texts in the changing and dynamic social and political worlds of �early India� and we will examine how texts read their contexts and vice versa. Readings are selected from major landmarks of the field and intensively studied in class. All texts read in translation.

RLST 117/THST117
Gods and the Theater in India
Vasudha Dalmia
Relations between the religious and the secular in Indian theater. A study of Sanskrit drama and religious plays on the life of the god Rama; readings of representative works from colonial and contemporary India. All readings in translation.

RLST 413/SAST459
Buddhist Traditions of Mind and Meditation
Andrew Quintman
This seminar will survey a range of Buddhist meditation practices from South Asia and Tibet in the context of traditional theories of mind, perception, and cognition. Readings will include both primary Buddhist canonical works and secondary scholarship on cognitive science and ritual practice.

RLST 184/SAST 358
The Ramayana
Hugh Flick
Exploration of the religious and ideological interpretations of this epic of ancient India as manifested in performance and in written texts. Emphasis on the religious and historical contexts from which the texts emerged.

RLST 137/SAST 263
Introduction to Hinduism
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.

RLST 320
Gandhi and Hinduism
Vasudha Dalmia
Gandhi’s notion of Hinduism and his religious and political ideas about truth, nonviolence, fasting, and ashram. New connotations that Gandhi gave concepts drawn from a traditional Indic repertoire.

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.

EVST 346/ SAST 378
From Dongguan to Delhi: Urbanization and the Environment in China and India
Karen Seto
This course will explore contemporary urbanization processes in China and India with a focus on environmental challenges and sustainable development. Six themes related to urbanization and the environment will be explored in the course: 1) land-use change 2) energy and climate change, 3) food and consumption patterns, 4) manufacturing and industrial production, 5) technology and innovation, and 6) culture and lifestyles. Students will explore these themes and be introduced to a suite of conceptual and analytical tools, including satellite remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS), to complete semester-long projects that examine these issues in cities in China and India.

SAST419/ANTH463/ER&M 366 (ANTH 663/SAST 619)
Ethnicity, Indigeneity, Mobility
Sara Shneiderman
Classical literature on ethnicity in conversation with more recent work on indigeneity and mobility. We consider the relationships between place, belonging and citizenship in shaping contemporary identity practices and discourses. Readings are primarily ethnographic, with a focus on South Asia, but including material from Latin America, Native North America, Southeast and East Asia, Australia/New Zealand, and Africa.

SAST 341b/PLSC 442
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.

WGSS449/ SAST 449
Fictions of Indian Women
Geetanjali Chanda
An exploration of Indian womanhood through novels and short stories by Indian women. Focus on postindependence women’s writings in English in India, and on concepts of nation, home, and identity.

HSAR 383A/ SAST 256A
The Art of India, c. 300 BC-1650 AD
Tamara L. Sears
Description: Introduction to the art and architectural history of the Indian subcontinent between c. 300 BC and 1650 AD. The course traces the development of early Buddhist and Jain art, the development of Hindu temples and icons, and the efflorescence of Islamic visual culture under the Mughal Empire.

Language Courses

BNGL 110
Introductory Bengali I (Fall)
Sreemati Mukherjee
M-F 10.30-11.20
A comprehensive approach to learning all four language skills: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. At the completion of the two-term sequence students are able to read and write in Bengali, and to converse in formal and informal situations.
Course taught through distance learning using videoconferencing technology from Cornell University. Credit only on completion of BNGL 120.

BNGL 120
Introductory Bengali II (Spring)
Sreemati Mukherjee
HTBA
Continuation of BNGL 120. Course taught through distance learning using videoconferencing technology from Cornell University.

HNDI 110/HNDI 510
Elementary Hindi I (Fall)
Seema Khurana, Swapna Sharma
(1) M-F 10.30-11.20
(2) M-F, 1.30-2.20
An in-depth introduction to modern Hindi, including the Devanagari script. A combination of graded texts, written assignments, audiovisual material, and computer-based exercises provides cultural insights and increases proficiency in understanding, speaking, reading, and writing Hindi. Emphasis on spontaneous self-expression in the language. No prior background in Hindi assumed. Credit only on completion of HNDI 120.

HNDI 120/HNDI 520:
Elementary Hindi II (Spring)
Seema Khurana, Swapna Sharma
(1) M-F 10.30-11.20
(2) M-F 1.30-2.20
Continuation of Hindi 110. After Hindi 110 or equivalent.

HNDI 130/HNDI 530
Intermediate Hindi I (Fall)
Seema Khurana, Swapna Sharma
(1) MWF 2.30-3.20, T 9.25-10.15, Th 9.25-10.15
(2) M-F 11.35-12.25
The first half of a two-term sequence designed to develop proficiency in the four language skills. Extensive use of cultural documents including feature films, radio broadcasts, and literary and nonliterary texts to increase proficiency in understanding, speaking, reading, and writing Hindi. Focus on cultural nuances and Hindi literary traditions. Emphasis on spontaneous self-expression in the language. After HNDI 120 or equivalent.

HNDI140/HNDI540
Intermediate Hindi II (Spring)
Seema Khurana, Swapna Sharma
(1) MWF 2.30-3.20, TTh 11.35-12.25
(2) HTBA
Continuation of HNDI 130. After HNDI 130 or equivalent.

HNDI132/HNDI532
Accelerated Hindi I (Fall)
Swapna Sharma
TTh 4.00-5.15
A fast-paced course designed for students who are able to understand basic conversational Hindi but who have minimal or no literacy skills. Introduction to the Devanagari script; development of listening and speaking skills; vocabulary enrichment; attention to sociocultural rules that affect language use. Students learn to read simple texts and to converse on a variety of everyday personal and social topics.

HNDI 142/HNDI 542
Accelerated Hindi II (Spring)
Swapna Sharma
TTh 4.00-5.15
Continuation of HNDI 132. Development of increased proficiency in the four language skills. Focus on reading and higher language functions such as narration, description, and comparison. Reading strategies for parsing paragraph-length sentences in Hindi newspapers. Discussion of political, social, and cultural dimensions of Hindi culture as well as contemporary global issues.

HNDI 150/HNDI550
Advanced Hindi (Fall)
Seema Khurana
TTh 4.00-5.15
An advanced language course aimed at enabling students to engage in fluent discourse in Hindi and to achieve a comprehensive knowledge of formal grammar. Introduction to a variety of styles and levels of discourse and usage. Emphasis on the written language, with readings on general topics from newspapers, books, and magazines.

HNDI 198/HNDI 598
Advanced Tutorial (Fall & Spring)
Seema Khurana, Swapna Sharma
HTBA
For students with advanced Hindi language skills who wish to engage in concentrated reading and research on material not otherwise offered by the department. Work must be supervised by an adviser and must terminate in a term paper or the equivalent. Permission to enroll requires submission of a detailed project proposal and its approval by the language studies coordinator.
Prerequisite: HNDI 150 or equivalent.

LING 115/LING 515/SKRT 110/SKRT 51
Introductory Sanskrit I (Fall)
David Brick
M-F 9.25-10.15
An introduction to Sanskrit language and grammar. Focus on learning to read and translate basic Sanskrit sentences in Devanagari script. No prior background in Sanskrit assumed.

LING 125/SKRT 120/LING 525/SKRT 520
Introductory Sanskrit II (Spring)
David Brick
M-F 9.25-10.15
Continuation of SKRT 110. Focus on the basics of Sanskrit grammar; readings from classical Sanskrit texts written in Devanagari script. After SKRT 110.

LING 138/LING 538/SKRT 530/SKRT 130
Intermediate Sanskrit I (Fall)
David Brick
M-F 10.30-11.20
The first half of a two-term sequence aimed at helping students develop the skills necessary to read texts written in Sanskrit. Readings include selections from the Hitopadesa, Kathasaritsagara, Mahabharata, and Bhagavadgita. After SKRT 120 or equivalent.

LING 148/LING 548/SKRT 140/SKRT 540
Intermediate Sanskrit II (Spring)
David Brick
M-F 10.30-11.20
Continuation of SKRT 130, focusing on Sanskrit literature from the kavya genre. Readings include selections from the Jatakamala of Aryasura and the opening verses of Kalidasa’s Kumarasambhava. After SKRT 130 or equivalent.

SKRT 150
Advanced Sanskrit Dharmasastra (Fall)
David Brick
MW 1.00-2.15
Introduction to Sanskrit commentarial literature, particularly to Dharmasastra, an explication and analysis of dharma (law or duty). Discussion of normative rules of human behavior; historical traditions of writing on the Indian subcontinent. Prerequisite: SKRT 140 or equivalent.