Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations

BANG 30200. Third-Year Bangla (Bengali) II. 100 Units.

When joining this course the student is expected to demonstrate the ability to narrate in all time frames of the language. The student should be able to provide a simple though articulate discourse on familiar topics and subjects directly related to the his/her interests. He/She will learn to provide a full account of events and to use appropriately complex sentences in Bangla. We will also focus on some aspects of the technical language pertaining to various domains. The student will be invited to discuss orally on written material studied in class and at home, and he/she will have to produce two to three pages long essays on a given topic. Systematic introductions to a variety of registers and literary idioms (19th century Sadhu Bhasha, dialects, etc.) will also be provided. By the end of the spring quarter the student will have the necessary tools to expand significantly his/her abilities in order to reach the superior level.

Instructor(s): Mandira Bhaduri     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): BANG 30100 or comparable level of language skills

BANG 30300. Third-Year Bangla (Bengali) III. 100 Units.

When joining this course the student is expected to demonstrate the ability to narrate in all time frames of the language. The student should be able to provide a simple though articulate discourse on familiar topics and subjects directly related to the his/her interests. He/She will learn to provide a full account of events and to use appropriately complex sentences in Bangla. We will also focus on some aspects of the technical language pertaining to various domains. The student will be invited to discuss orally on written material studied in class and at home, and he/she will have to produce two to three pages long essays on a given topic. Systematic introductions to a variety of registers and literary idioms (19th century Sadhu Bhasha, dialects, etc.) will also be provided. By the end of the spring quarter the student will have the necessary tools to expand significantly his/her abilities in order to reach the superior level.

Instructor(s): Mandira Bhaduri     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): BANG 30200 or comparable level of language skills

BANG 38921. Bengali Lyric Poetry: textual criticism and translation. 100 Units.

In this reading course, we will read lyric poems from the Padakalpataru using the texts of the oldest manuscript of the anthology kept at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. We will prepare an electronic text of the anthology and translate a selection of poems. The class will meet for two hours every week.

Instructor(s): Thibaut d'Hubert     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 38921, SALC 28921, BANG 28921

BANG 39900. Middle Bengali and Early Bengali Grammars. 100 Units.

In this reading course, we will study the way Middle Bengali texts feature in the first grammar of Bengali written by Nathaniel Halhed (1751-1830) and published in 1778. We will also compare this work with the first grammar written in Bengali in the first decade of the nineteenth century.

Instructor(s): Thibaut d'Hubert     Terms Offered: Autumn

BANG 39910. Advanced Academic Bangla. 100 Units.

This course develops Advanced Bangla language skills to prepare students for doing research both in India and Bangladesh. Students will read scholarly texts in their areas of academic interest intensively. Training will also include improving students' speaking and listening skills so they can participate in academic talks and discussions and speak fluently and at length across academic topics.

BANG 40100-40200-40300. Fourth-Year Bangla (Bengali) I-II-III.

Students attending this course must be able to produce an articulate discourse on subjects related to history and literary criticism. They should also have a good command of Bengali grammar. The course is mainly devoted to the study of selected modern and premodern Bangla texts (narrative literature, devotional and courtly poetry, treatises) in their historical contexts. We propose various readings in the historiography of Bangla literature, philology, traditional performance of Bangla poetry, etc... Besides, material from all periods will be studied according to the student's scholarly interests.

BANG 47900-47901-47902. Rdgs: Advanced Bangla (Bengali) I-II-III.

This course is for students who have successfully completed third and fourth year Bangla. It is divided between classes dealing with the current research themes of the instructor, and the study of material directly related with the research interests of the students. The focus is on methodology and the use of Bangla as a research language.

BANG 47903. Writing, Reading, and Singing in Bengal, 8th to 19th AD. 100 Units.

The course offers an introduction to the literary traditions of Bengal (today's West Bengal in India, and Bangladesh). We will study the making of Bengal as a region of literary production through a selection of secondary and primary sources in translation. We will look at how literature and literacy have been defined in various contexts up to the colonial period and discuss what constituted the literary identity of Bengal's various linguistic traditions. We will approach the topics of reading practices and genres from the perspective of both material culture (script and scribal practices, manuscript formats, etc.) and the conceptual categories underlying literary genres and the linguistic economy of Bengal (scholastic and non-scholastic, classical and vernacular languages, individual reading and publicly performed texts, hinduyani and musalmani). Even if Bengali language and literature stand at the center of this course, we will also discuss the literary traditions that predate the formation of Bengali literature and were part of the background of the making of Bengali texts (Sanskrit, Apabhramsha, Arabic, Persian, Maithili, and Awadhi literature). The aim of the course is to introduce students to precolonial Bengali literature in its conceptual, aesthetic, and historical dimensions. The course will address topics of interest for students in comparative literature, religious studies, history, linguistics, medieval studies, book history, musicology or performance studies.

Instructor(s): T. D'Hubert     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Students who want to take the course as an Advanced Bangla (BANG 47903) course must attend the additional reading course in which we will do close readings of texts in Bengali.
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 47903, NEHC 47903

BANG 48100. Independent Bangla Reading Course. 100 Units.

This course is for the graduate students who work with Bangla modern texts. The students will choose the books for intensive reading and provide the pdf of the texts to the teacher at least a month prior before the class starts.

Instructor(s): Mandira Bhaduri     Terms Offered: Autumn

HIND 30100-30200-30300. Third-Year Hindi I-II-III.

Readings from Hindi literary and journalistic texts and a wide array of other sources depending on student interests, with continuing grammar review and practice in listening comprehension, composition and speech.

HIND 40100-40200-40300. Fourth-Year Hindi I-II-III.

Readings from Hindi literary and journalistic texts and a wide array of other sources depending on student interests, with continuing grammar review and practice in listening comprehension, composition and speech.

HIND 47900-47901-47902. Rdgs: Advanced Hindi I-II-III.

Readings from Hindi literary and journalistic texts and a wide array of other sources depending on student interests, with continuing grammar review and practice in listening comprehension, composition and speech.

MARA 30100-30200-30300. Third-Year Marathi I-II-III.

MARA 30100-30200-30300 is offered based on demand. Interested students should consult with the director of undergraduate studies. Students in this course read from An Advanced Marathi Reader and a wide array of other sources depending on their interests. This course also includes continuing grammar review and practice in composition and speech. This course typically is offered in alternate years.

MARA 40100-40200-40300. Fourth-Year Marathi I-II-III.

MARA 40100-40200-40300 is offered based on demand. Interested students should consult with the director of undergraduate studies. Directed readings are selected (based on student interests and research needs) from the entire range of genres (verse and prose) and periods, excluding Old Marathi (thirteenth and fourteenth centuries), with continuing grammar review and practice in composition and speech.

MARA 47900. Readings: Advanced Marathi. 100 Units.

TBD

Instructor(s): Sujata Mahajan     Terms Offered: Autumn

MARA 47901. Advanced Readings in Marathi-2. 100 Units.

TBD

Instructor(s): Sujata Mahajan     Terms Offered: Winter

SANS 30100-30200-30300. Third-Year Sanskrit I-II-III.

Reading selections introduce major Sanskrit genres, including verse and prose narrative, lyric poetry, drama, and the intellectual discourse of religion, philosophy, and the sciences. Analysis of the language and style employed in commentarial texts and practice in reading such texts is also emphasized.

SANS 40100-40200-40300. Fourth-Year Sanskrit I-II-III.

The goal of this sequence is to provide students with strong reading expertise in a wide range of Sanskrit texts in literature (poems and plays, verse and prose) and the scientific and philosophical discourses (e.g., grammar, logic, poetic theory, Buddhist thought), and commentarial literature on both.

SANS 47900-47901-47902. Rdgs: Advanced Sanskrit I-II-III.

Readings drawn from texts at an advanced level of difficulty in any of the relevant genres of Sanskrit, including literature, philosophy, literary theory, and religion, for students who have already completed fourth-year Sanskrit.  Continuing attention is given to matters of grammar, style, scholastic techniques, and intellectual and cultural content.

SALC 30100. Introduction to the Civilizations of South Asia I. 100 Units.

The first quarter focuses on Islam in South Asia, Hindu-Muslim interaction, Mughal political and literary traditions, and South Asia's early encounters with Europe.

Instructor(s): Muzaffar Alam     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 24101, SALC 20100, HIST 10800, SOSC 23000, MDVL 20100

SALC 30122. From Bollywood to Made in Heaven: Marriage and Sexuality on Indian Screens. 100 Units.

From reality shows like Indian Matchmaking and Made in Heaven to the meme of the "Big Fat Indian Wedding" to the preoccupations of Bollywood films like DDLJ and Rocky aur Rani ki Prem Kahani and crossover ones such as Monsoon Wedding, marriage is an obsession in South Asian culture. Focusing on Hindi cinema, this course will explore the socio-political dynamics of this cultural focus on marriage and couple formation. With examples ranging from classical Hindi films from the 1950s-60s to the star-studded melodramas of 1970s and 1980s and the "new Bollywood" era (post-1991), this cinema exhibited and analyzed the central dynamics of marriage: sexual compatibility, fidelity, reproductive futures, and so on. Debates around class, caste, diaspora, and sexuality are equally anchored in issues of marriage and couple formation. In this course, we ask why it is that marriage-its success and failure-has been so central to Indian on-screen identities. Even as screens multiply-on computers, cell phones, and in the multiplex-marriage continues to dominate. No prior knowledge of Indian languages is required, but you must enjoy watching and talking about movies and popular culture.

Instructor(s): Rochona Majumdar     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 36616, HIST 26616, SALC 20122, GNSE 20142, GNSE 30142, CMST 30122, CMST 20122

SALC 30123. Orientalism. 100 Units.

In 1978, Edward Said transformed "Orientalism" from a somewhat innocent term for a fascination with the cultures of the Orient into a label for a "discursive formation" that systematically objectified, essentialized, and distorted the non-West in the service of Western ideology and power. His intervention provoked a number of responses: some critiqued the critique, on empirical or theoretical grounds; some extended his analysis, which was based primarily on the Middle East, to other "Orients"; some argued that his critique did not go far enough. We will examine Said's Orientalism, some important precursors in the critique of Orientalist knowledge, and a selection of responses to Said's work, with a focus on theoretical questions. Why do the overarching structures of knowledge change so slowly when it comes to the non-West, and why, at the same time, does "knowledge" about the non-West appear so compromised when we examine it a century or so after it is produced? What are the rules of the "discursive formation" Said claimed to have identified? On what basis can a critique of an entire "way of knowing" be justified and undertaken? How does Orientalism reframe the Baconian cliché that "knowledge is power"? In the end, what is the epistemic and political status of "knowledge of the non-West"?

Instructor(s): Andrew Ollett     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 30123, SALC 20123, CMLT 20123

SALC 30203. Caste and Race: The Politics of Radical Equality. 100 Units.

This course will explore the bodies of knowledge surrounding the politics and practices of caste in South Asia. We will study the emergence and development of radical social movements in the colonial and postcolonial periods that were opposed to caste oppression, along with scholarship that seeks to understand how such a form of social hierarchy and difference operates within regional and national communities. We will also examine how caste interacts with forms of identity such as class, gender, and religion. Caste has often been compared to race: we will study historical parallels as well as present scholarship and activism that aligns political struggles against caste and racial injustice in South Asia and the United States. Through close readings of primary sources and secondary literature in the fields of history, political science, anthropology and literature, the course will foreground the ubiquity of caste in everyday life in South Asia; the epistemologies that have developed to explain, understand and accommodate it; and finally the urgent, radical struggles that seek to annihilate it.

Instructor(s): Ahona Panda     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20529, SALC 20203, KNOW 20203, KNOW 30203, GNSE 32233, SOCI 30529, GLST 20203, GNSE 22233

SALC 30513. Theater of Premodern South Asia. 100 Units.

This course will cover the history and poetics of the stage play in premodern South Asia, which was, according to the eighth-century theorist Vāmana, "the best among the types of literature." The play, according to many premodern critics, was uniquely capable of bringing about a profound aesthetic experience because of its integration of diverse forms of art - plot-driven narrative, poetry, acting, and music. We will read a variety of plays in translation, including works by Bhāsa, Kālidāsa, Bhavabhūti, and Murāri, as well as selections from technical literature such as the Treatise on Theater (Nāṭyaśāstram). We will also watch a number of modern performances. Besides discussing individual plays, we will cover the following topics in detail: the different genres of the stage play; the theory of plot construction; the theory of aesthetic experience (rasa); the languages of the theater; the role of music, dance, and gesture; theater and ritual; and the performance tradition of Kūṭiyāṭṭam.

Instructor(s): Andrew Ollett     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): No prior knowledge of South Asian languages is required. Students who can read Sanskrit, however, are strongly encouraged to take an accompanying reading course.
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 20513, TAPS 20513, TAPS 30513

SALC 30615. Dalit Autobiographies: A socio-cultural account of Dalit and Other Marginalized Communities. 100 Units.

The Seminar will explore the rise of Dalit literature in Maharashtra, especially the autobiographies (self-narration) and its impact on the Marathi language and culture. Since Independence Dalit (formerly untouchable and marginalized caste groups) and other marginalized communities within Indian society have gained access to spheres of social, educational, and economic life they had historically been excluded from. In the 1960s and 1970s Maharashtra witnessed the rise of a powerful Dalit Movement spearheaded by a new generation of poets, novelists, and autobiographers. The inspirational force behind this was no doubt, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar's powerful thoughts and his conversion to Buddhism along with thousands of Dalit followers. The seminar will focus on the distinctive lifeworld of Dalit Autographers, the diction and idioms used in their writing and the challenges of translating their work into English. Students will gain a deeper understanding of the vitality of language used by Dalit authors. They'll recognize Dalit autobiographies as a new genre or area of literature in India that corresponds to changes in the social, cultural, and political landscape. They'll witness how the first-person narratives of socially marginalized people shed a different light on South Asian Studies.

Instructor(s): Sujata Mahajan     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 20615

SALC 30706. Beginning Translation Workshop. 100 Units.

Beginning Workshops are intended for students who may or may not have previous experience, but are interested in gaining experience in translation. See the course description for this particular workshop section in the notes below.

Instructor(s): Anne Janusch     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Please email the professor to be added to the waitlist during add/drop. To participate in this class, students should have intermediate proficiency in a foreign language.
Note(s): Beginning Translation Workshop: Writing What's Been Written This workshop will explore literary translation as a mode of embodied reading and creative writing. Through comparative and iterative readings across multiple translations of both poetry and fiction, we will examine the interpretive decisions that translators routinely encounter when assigning an English to a work of literature first written in another language, as well as the range of creative strategies available to translators when devising a treatment for a literary text in English. Students will complete weekly writing exercises in retranslation and English-to-English translation, building to the retranslation of either a short piece of fiction or selection of poems.
Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 10606, CRWR 30606, CRWR 10606, GRMN 30606, SALC 10606

SALC 30800. Music of South Asia. 100 Units.

The course explores some of the music traditions that hail from South Asia-a region defined by the countries of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Maldives, and their diasporas. The course will study music and some of its inextricably linked forms of dance and theatre through the lens of ethnomusicology, where music is considered in its social and cultural contexts. Students will develop tools to listen, analyze, watch, and participate in South Asian forms of music-making, using case-study based inquiries as guides along the way.

Instructor(s): Anna Schultz
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 27700, MUSI 23706, MUSI 33706, SALC 20800

SALC 30901-30902. Indian Philosophy I-II.

SALC 30927. Knowledge as a Platter: Comparative Perspectives on Knowledge Texts in the Ancient World. 100 Units.

In various ancient cultures, sages created the new ways of systematizing what was known in fields as diverse as medicine, politics, sex, dreams, and mathematics. These texts did more than present what was known; they exemplified what it means to know - and also why reflective, systematic knowledge should be valued more highly than the knowledge gained from common sense or experience. Drawing on texts from Ancient India, Greece, Rome, and the Near East, this course will explore these early templates for the highest form of knowledge and compare their ways of creating fields of inquiry: the first disciplines. Texts include the Arthashastra, the Hippocratic corpus, Deuteronomy, the Kama Sutra, and Aristotle's Parva naturalia.

Terms Offered: Not offered in 21-22.
Prerequisite(s): Lorraine Daston
Equivalent Course(s): CHSS 30927, SCTH 30927, HREL 30927, KNOW 31415

SALC 31352. That Age-old Debate: Youth Cultures in Modern India. 100 Units.

In this course, we will aim to gain a deeper understanding of how certain key moments in postcolonial India - from innumerable student protests to an economic transition to globalization, and from the meteoric rise of Bollywood to the omnipresence of social media - have shaped the youth of the country and how young people in turn have been at the forefront of some of the major events and have created history on their own terms. We will ask what these experiences have done to concepts and notions of the youth. In other words, if youth is a construct like gender and caste then how was it constructed over the last seventy odd years? What were the desires and anxieties of the larger society that have shaped very distinctive trajectories for the youth in India? How were young people fashioning themselves and carving out their own social spaces? As we progress through the quarter, we will keep two guiding questions in mind - who all are considered to be the youth in postcolonial India? And - what are the lived experiences of young people during this time? The ever changing, seemingly arbitrary, and conflicting definitions of youth in government reports, commercial advertisements, or popular culture demands a thorough analysis of this significant and impact-making category inside out.

Instructor(s): Titas De Sarkar     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): No prior knowledge of any South Asian language is required.
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 31352, GLST 21352, SALC 21352, GNSE 21352, HIST 26906, SOCI 20533, KNOW 21352

SALC 31700. Reading Religion in South Asia. 100 Units.

This course alternates between primary source texts from South Asia in translation and secondary scholarship. All course materials will be drawn from premodern Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain contexts and from a range of languages. This course structure provides students with the opportunity to see how scholars have interpreted South Asian literature as well as to practice textual interpretation. We will think through the particular constraints of South Asian literary scholars from new historicism to post-colonial critique.

Instructor(s): Sarah Pierce Taylor     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course meets the HS or LMCS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): RLVC 31700, HREL 31700

SALC 32000. Fundamentals of Literary Analysis. 100 Units.

This course introduces students to key terms, concepts, and theories from the humanities and social sciences as they relate to the study of literary texts. The orientation and format of the course are expressly hermeneutical and heuristic; we will discuss readings in theory and criticism not simply on their 'own terms' but rather in terms of how they may be used to deduce, adduce, or produce meaning from literary texts. Each student will be asked to choose a text from South Asia with which to work over the course of the quarter, applying the theories and methods learned in the course to the chosen text. Critical writings will be taken from a variety of intellectual traditions both within and outside of South Asia, including Marxism, Post-Structuralism, Post-Colonial Studies, psychoanalysis, Continental philosophy, Feminism, Queer theory, Sanskrit alaṁkāra, and Persian adab.

Instructor(s): Tyler Williams     Terms Offered: Autumn

SALC 32202. Anthropology of Caste. 100 Units.

This seminar course explores anthropological approaches to caste. We will survey colonial ethnological accounts to structuralist, transactionalist, historical anthropological, and contemporary ethnographic accounts of forms of caste difference, identity, and violence in South and East Asia, with an eye to comparison to other forms of invidious social difference in other times and cultures.

Instructor(s): Constantine Nakassis
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 22202, ANTH 32202, CRES 21202, SALC 22202

SALC 32482. The Other Woman: Sexual Deviancy in South Asia. 100 Units.

The figure of the public, often sexually deviant, female in South Asia has existed and been imagined in myriad ways over the centuries, including as courtesans, temple workers, and royal mistresses. In the colonial period, multiple forms of supposed female deviancy began to be labeled with another term- "prostitute"-leading to the loss of social status and legal rights of many women. In this course, we will study the evolution of prostitution and female otherness in South Asian cultural and political history. We will explore how the female deviant shaped religious, social and political life; how notions of sex, sexuality and intimacy informed classical dance, music, literature and performing arts; and how sex work came to be defined and stigmatized by the colonial and postcolonial states in South Asia.

Instructor(s): Ahona Panda     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 22482, SALC 22482, GNSE 32482

SALC 32605. A Poem in Every House": Persian, Arabic, and Vernacular Poetry in North India and the Deccan. 100 Units.

gehe gehe kalau kāvyaṃ … In the Kali age, there is a poem in every house … Vidyāpati (ca. 1370-1460, Mithila), Kīrtilatā The Indian subcontinent is home to some of the most vibrant literary traditions in world history. The aim of this course is to introduce students to the main trends in the premodern (/pre-nineteenth century) literature of South Asia through a selection of poetic and theoretical texts translated from a variety of languages (Arabic, Bengali, Dakani, Hindi, Maithili, Marathi, Persian, Panjabi, Sanskrit, Urdu, etc.). We will discuss issues of literary historiography, the relations between orality and writing, and the shared aesthetic world of poetry, music, and visual arts. We will review the basic principles of Perso-Arabic and vernacular poetics through a selection of representative theoretical treatises and poems. We will also explore the linguistic ecology of the Subcontinent, the formation of vernacular literary traditions, multilingual literacy, and the role of literature in social interactions and community building in premodern South Asia. Every week the first half of the class will be devoted to the historical context and conceptual background of the texts we will read in the second half. Attention will be given to the original languages in which those texts were composed as well as the modes of performance of the poems and songs we will read together.

Instructor(s): T. D'Hubert     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): No prior knowledge of South Asian languages is required. The course is the perfect complement to the Introduction to South Asian Civilizations sequence (SALC 20100-20200). Beyond its focus on South Asia, students interested in classics, poetics, rhetoric, musicology, theater studies, and comparative literature will find plenty of food for thought in the readings, lectures, and class discussions. For students interested in languages, it is an ideal way to have a lively introduction to the linguistic variety of South Asia.
Equivalent Course(s): MDVL 22604, SALC 22604

SALC 32704. Global Health, Environment, and Indigenous Futures. 100 Units.

The global coronavirus pandemic has made evident the significance of ecological (im)balances for the well-being of societies. The relationship between structural inequalities, changing environments and health, especially for historically and socio-economically marginalized communities, is now well established. At the same time, a growing body of literature links the material conditions of marginalized communities-for instance, spaces of dwelling and conditions of labor-to health status, globally. Based on a set of interdisciplinary literature arranged through anthropological theories, this course will critically engage with notions of health and well-being for indigenous communities, tracing injustices that stem histories of racial, caste- and ethnicity-based, and environmental exclusions. The readings are organized around one central question: What does it mean to be indigenous in a changing planet where social, political, and economic systems are marked by enduring legacies of systemic violence? This graduate and undergraduate level course will introduce contexts within which structural exclusions lead to ill-health and loss of well-being among indigenous communities across the globe. The aim is to develop critical thinking on the political economy and political ecologies of indigenous health as imbricated with issues of social, economic, and environmental justice.

Instructor(s): Sanghamitra Das
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 26501, CEGU 20700, ANTH 20700, CHDV 30750, RDIN 20700, CEGU 30700, RDIN 30700, CHDV 20700, ANTH 30700

SALC 32705. Oceanic Islam in the Age of Empire. 100 Units.

This course explores Muslim lives within this palimpsest of networks, set against the horizon of the Indian Ocean world. Tracing Oceanic Islam, it covers a vast territory along the Indian Ocean rim, including Tanzania and Zanzibar on the Swahili Coast; Mecca and Aden in the Middle East; port cities in British India; and the Straits Settlements and the Dutch Indies in Southeast Asia. How did the unprecedented proliferation of linkages-enabled by seafaring steamboats-between distant Muslim societies and between Muslims and non-Muslims reshape the understanding of Islam, of Muslim identity, and the reality they inhabited? What happened to Islamic cosmopolitanism when it encountered new European ideas, lifestyles, and cultures? What can Oceanic Islam reveal in contrast to Land Islam? These are some of the questions we explore in this course combining textual and visual sources, culled from modern scholarship and primary literature.

Instructor(s): Taimur Reza     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 22705, SALC 22705

SALC 32706. Love and Devotion in Islamic South Asia. 100 Units.

This English-medium seminar for undergraduate and graduate students surveys the scholarship on nearly a millennium of Islamic devotional literatures and practices in South Asia. Combining theoretical, historical, and literary studies with sources in English translation, it invites students to consider comparatively a range of disciplinary approaches to the study of Islam in the subcontinent. The wide range of linguistic traditions that we will encounter in English analysis and English translation, which include Arabic, Awadhi, Bangla, Deccani, Hindi, Persian, and Urdu, gestures toward the broader themes of multi-regionalism, trans-communalism, and ecumenicalism highlighted in our readings. Some familiarity with the academic study of Islam will be helpful, but is not a prerequisite, since we will begin our quarter asking broad questions that we will continue to refine as we progress. Likewise, the class does not suppose any familiarity with languages other than English.

Instructor(s): Gregory Max Bruce     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 22706

SALC 32710. Introduction to Rajasthani Literature. 100 Units.

This course will introduce students to the language, genres, and history of literature in the region now known as Rajasthan. Students will gain basic philological skills related to the grammar and vocabulary of the literary languages known as diṅgal and piṅgal and the paleography and codicology of written sources in those languages (stone inscriptions and paper manuscripts), as well as receive a general overview of the various literary traditions of the region. We will read excerpts from works representing different genres; this survey will thus be general rather than comprehensive. We will discuss questions such as the following: what constitutes a 'language', literary or otherwise, in precolonial South Asia? What distinguishes a 'region' as a geographical and cultural entity? What constitutes a literary genre or 'tradition'?

Instructor(s): Tyler Williams     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 22710

SALC 33221. Music in the Indian Ocean. 100 Units.

In this course, we gather sound and music to afford new ways to understand the history and culture of a geographical region. Instead of an area study, we concern ourselves with listening to sound worlds, local and global. We balance the reading of primary and secondary sources-the writings of travelers and practitioners alongside theoretical treatises and modern ethnomusicological scholarship-with the different listening practices, especially collections and assemblages of recorded sound and film. Each student will develop her or his own means of entering different sound worlds. Accordingly, students with varying degrees of musical background will be able to navigate the Indian Ocean World in ways suitable to their own backgrounds and interests. Students from the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Divinity are welcome. Both College students and graduate students may register for the course, with the only distinction being in the scope of the final project.

Instructor(s): Phil Bohlman     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 28221, RLVC 33221, MUSI 33221, MUSI 23221, SALC 23221

SALC 33321. Bollywood Beats: Music and Sound in Popular Hindi Cinema. 100 Units.

This course explores the music and sound of popular Hindi cinema from aesthetic, social, cultural, economic, historical, and political perspectives. Students will be introduced to the musical conventions and practices of the genre, and to changes in Bollywood musical style over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries. We will watch select films with keen attention to music's imbrication with cinematic visuality, narrative, technology, and dance, and with consideration of issues like emplacement, gender, caste, religion, capitalism, nationalism, and transnationalism. Bollywood is a cosmopolitan music, drawing from and contributing to a range of regional and international music practices; we also venture into some of those streams.

Instructor(s): Anna Schultz     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): MUSI 33321, CMST 23321, MUSI 23321, CMST 33321, SALC 23321

SALC 33400. Contemporary Topics in the Study of South Asian Religion. 100 Units.

This course is a research-oriented seminar dealing with topics in the scholarly study of South Asian religion. It focuses on contemporary themes and methodologies in the field. Readings come from prominent books and/or articles in the field published in the last five to six years. Themes explored will include art and artifice, caste, class, and capital, faith and friendship, and memory and modernity.

Instructor(s): Anand Venkatkrishnan     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): HREL 33400

SALC 33701. Special Topics in Hinduism. 100 Units.

This course is a research-oriented seminar that focuses on contemporary themes and methodologies in the study of Hinduism. Readings come from prominent books in the field published in the last five to ten years. Themes explored will include Hinduism and politics, ritual theory, wonder, modernity, yoga, gender, caste, class, sexuality, pluralism, and bhakti. Students will develop research projects of their own choosing in close consultation with the instructor.

Instructor(s): Anand Venkatkrishnan     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): HREL 33700, RLVC 33700

SALC 34300. Buddhist Poetry in India. 100 Units.

The substantial Buddhist contribution to Indian poetry is of interest for what it teaches us of both Buddhism and the broad development of Indian literature. The present course will focus upon three phases in this history, with attention to what changes of language and literary genre tell us of the transformations of Indian religious culture from the last centuries B.C.E. to about the year 1000. Readings (all in translation) will include the Therīgāthā, a collection of verses written in Pali and the most ancient Indian example of womens' literature, selections from the work of the great Sanskrit poets Aśvaghoṣa, Āryaśūra, and Mātṛceta, and the mystical songs, in the Apabhraṃśa language, of the Buddhist tantric saints.

Instructor(s): Matthew Kapstein     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): General knowledge of Buddhism is desirable.
Note(s): This course meets the HS or LMCS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): RLVC 34300, MDVL 26250, DVPR 34300, RLST 26250, HREL 34300

SALC 34350. Introduction to Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit. 100 Units.

Complementing the course on Buddhist Poetry in India, we will be reading a celebrated verse scripture, the Prajñā-pāramitā-ratnaguṇa-sañcaya-gāthā ("Verses Gathering the Jewel-like Qualities of the Perfection of Wisdom") in both its Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit original and its Tibetan translation. (Students are required to have had at least two years of either Sanskrit or Tibetan - it will not be necessary to do both.) Those wishing to take the course for Sanskrit credit should enroll in SALC.

Instructor(s): Matthew Kapstein     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Students must have had two years of Tibetan OR Sanskrit.
Note(s): This course is open to undergrads ONLY by petition.
Equivalent Course(s): DVPR 34350, HREL 34350

SALC 34441. Theravada Buddhism: History and Philosophy. 100 Units.

This course studies the history and philosophy of Theravada Buddhism in India and other Southeast Asia countries. We first introduce the life of the Buddha and his major teachings within the context of the social and cultural environments in which Buddhism emerged about 2500 years ago. Having thus grasped some fundamental knowledge on Buddhism based on Pali texts, we then embark on examining its philosophical and historical developments from primitive Buddhism to sectarian Buddhism, and to the ramification of Theravada Buddhism in various countries such as Sri Lanka and Thai Land throughout its long history. Towards the end of the quarter, the class briefly discusses the revival of Theravada Buddhism in Indian in connection with the arising of Protestant Buddhism in Sri Lanka in the early 20th century. It is hoped that students having completed this course will be equipped with sufficient knowledge on general history, major philosophy and outstanding cultural tradition of Theravada Buddhism.

Instructor(s): Yu Xue     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): HREL 34441, RLST 20441, SALC 24441

SALC 34600. Buddhist Meditation: Tradition, Transformation, Modernization. 100 Units.

From the Satipaṭṭhāna sutta of the Pāli canon to the "mindfulness" boom of recent years, Buddhism and meditation often appear inseparable. The aim of this seminar is to historicize and critically question this seemingly natural intimacy, for while it certainly cannot be denied that the various Buddhist traditions have always had on offer a plethora of techniques for mental (and physical) cultivation, it is far from clear how or even if all these could be subsumed under the in its current usage relatively recent category of "meditation". Drawing on Buddhist meditation literature from various traditions, historical periods, and literary genre, in this seminar we will take up a twofold question: First, how has the encounter with Buddhist techniques of cultivation shaped the modern understanding of "meditation", and second, up to which extend, and at what cost, has this very modern understanding conversely conditioned us to see Buddhism as a "meditative religion" par excellence?

Instructor(s): Stephan Licha     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 24609, HIST 34122, HREL 34600, SALC 24600, HIST 24122, RLST 24600, EALC 34600

SALC 35320. Debate, Dissent, Deviate: Literary Modernities in South Asia. 100 Units.

This class introduces students to the modernist movement in post-independence South Asia. Modernism will be understood here as a radical experimental movement in literature, film, photography and other arts, primarily aimed at critiquing mainstream narratives of history and culture.  Given its wide scope, we will analyze a variety of texts over the ten-week duration of the class. These include novels, short stories, manifestos, essays, photographs, and films. The chronological span of the class is from the 1930s to the 1970s. Our aim will be to understand the diverse meanings of modernism as we go through our weekly readings. Was it a global phenomenon that was adopted blindly by postcolonial artists? Or were there specifically South Asian innovations that enable us to think about the local story as formative of global modernism? What bearings do such speculations have on genre, gender, and medium, as well as on politics? I will help situate the readings of each week in their specific literary and political contexts. Students will be able to evaluate, experiment with, and analyze various forms of modernist literary expressions emerging out of South Asia. This class will provide them with critical tools to interpret, assess, compare, and contrast cultural histories of non-Western locations and peoples, with an eye for literary radicalism. No prior knowledge of any South Asian history or language is necessary.

Instructor(s): S. Dasgupta     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 25320, GLST 25132, CRES 25320, KNOW 25320, GNSE 25320, ENGL 25320

SALC 35400. That Age-old Debate: Youth Cultures in Modern India. 100 Units.

In this course, we will aim to gain a deeper understanding of how certain key moments in postcolonial India - from innumerable student protests to an economic transition to globalization, and from the meteoric rise of Bollywood to the omnipresence of social media - have shaped the youth of the country and how young people in turn have been at the forefront of some of the major events and have created history on their own terms. We will ask what these experiences have done to concepts and notions of the youth. In other words, if youth is a construct like gender and caste then how was it constructed over the last seventy odd years? What were the desires and anxieties of the larger society that have shaped very distinctive trajectories for the youth in India? How were young people fashioning themselves and carving out their own social spaces? As we progress through the quarter, we will keep two guiding questions in mind - who all are considered to be the youth in postcolonial India? And - what are the lived experiences of young people during this time? The ever changing, seemingly arbitrary, and conflicting definitions of youth in government reports, commercial advertisements, or popular culture demands a thorough analysis of this significant and impact-making category inside out.

Instructor(s): Titas De Sarkar     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): No prior knowledge of any South Asian language is required.
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 25400

SALC 35420. How to Provoke a Public: Rhetorical Moves and Social Questions in Modern India. 100 Units.

This course introduces students to some major communication genres that have shaped social and political life in modern India, including polemical tracts, reports, speeches, public performances, and manifestos. Students will learn how these texts tried to persuade their publics, compare their formal conventions, and evaluate the effectiveness of their rhetoric. The course follows a broad chronological arc, starting with polemical tracts challenging caste and gender inequality in colonial India in the late 19th century. Next, we will examine reports on labor concerns submitted by activists to the British government during the 1910s. We will then move on to public speeches from the 1920s and 30s that addressed issues such as organized religion and the annihilation of caste, followed by the use of the manifesto genre by anti-caste and sex workers' organizations in postcolonial India during the 1970s and 90s. The course concludes by considering alternative forms of public address through song performances by anti-caste activists in the 21st century. Running through this array of themes will be a methodological question: how do the social purposes of public texts inform their choices of address, formal devices, and modes of circulation? All readings will be in English, and no prior knowledge of South Asian history or languages is necessary.

Instructor(s): Sthira Bharracharya     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 26617, SALC 25420

SALC 35600. Occult powers: divinatory and magical sciences in the Indian and Islamicate worlds. 100 Units.

This course offers a historical survey of occult sciences and practices in regions spanning from the Arab world to South Asia and focuses on the medieval and early modern periods. Far from being marginal, practices pertaining to what is now seen as the supernatural realm, such as magic and divination, were classified as sciences by reputable scholars, were sponsored by rulers, and had their specific written corpus and techniques. The practice of the occult also involved vernacular disciplines practiced by healers and fortune tellers for any client seeking help or advice. This course will look at a vast range of written and visual sources on subjects ranging from astrology, alchemy and magical cures, subjugation of planets and spirits, yogic superpowers, bibliomancy (book divination), oneiromancy (dream divination), physiognomy, letterism, charm making. It will look at the dynamics of cultural transfers as occult sciences were borrowed and adapted from the Greek to the Arab world and back to Latin Europe, and from Sanskrit to Persian in the Indian subcontinent.

Instructor(s): Jean Arzoumanov     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 25600

SALC 35700. Creative Forces: Cultural Feminisms in Postcolonial India. 100 Units.

In this course, we will study some of the most significant feminist interventions that were made through a range of cultural practices in postcolonial India, and in the Indian diaspora. Struggles for women's rights, demanding political empowerment and economic equality, or carrying out demonstrations for better access to health and education have a long history in South Asia. We will focus particularly on the cultural practices that have constituted waves of feminist thoughts over the last seven decades. We will explore how concerns around justice, social responsibility, and freedom of expression are mediated through literature, cinema, music, and self-fashioning. Keeping cultural productions as our archive, we will ask - what are the various meanings of feminism in postcolonial India? What were the political, economic, and social concerns that the artists and activists chose to highlight while addressing gendered inequalities? What are the intersections of caste, class, and sexual orientation that complicate our understanding of feminist representations? How were inequities sought to be negotiated creatively at different historical contexts? Taking an interdisciplinary approach, we will often find ourselves moving between genres, themes, and disciplines to locate marginal voices responding to contemporary anxieties. By working at the intersection of cultural history, anthropological and sociological scholarships, and media studies we will gain an understanding...

Instructor(s): Titas De Sarkar     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 25700

SALC 35704. Caste, Reproduction, and Citizenship in India. 100 Units.

This undergraduate and graduate level seminar will center on caste and reproduction in understanding notions of citizenship in India. The course will systematically engage with ideas of belonging to the post-colonial nation-state, particularly as experienced from following standpoints-gender, caste, indigeneity, and class. Understanding how citizenship is constituted, performed and negotiated in India, especially in relation to the biological and political reproduction of "good citizens", reveals the scopes and limits of citizenship as governance. The course is premised on the centrality of reproduction to governance in the largest democracy of the world. Drawing on a set of interdisciplinary literature, the readings are organized around feminist theorizations of the State, governance, and citizenship to locate the body within the body politic. The aim is to develop critical thinking on how the politics of reproduction is deeply imbricated with the reproduction of democratic politics; a politics that is entangled with knowledge, expertise and constructed human difference. In so doing, the course brings together reproductive governance with articulations of social justice in India.

Equivalent Course(s): RDIN 22203, CHDV 32203, GNSE 22207, GNSE 32207, CHDV 22203, RDIN 32203, ANTH 32203

SALC 35705. The last century of Persian in India (c. 1770-1850): Persian literary culture and its transformation. 100 Units.

In this seminar we will read original texts and familiarize students with archival research on Persian materials from the colonial period, looking at examples in original manuscripts and lithographed editions. Despite being rarely considered by historians of Persian cultural history and historians of British India, this period saw a fascinating profusion of writings, composed in particular by Hindu and Muslim scribes commissioned by British officers. Throughout the course we will emphasize the crucial role of Persian and Persian-writing Indian literati for the early colonial state administration and intelligence. Besides looking at works produced in a colonial context, we will examine the transformation of prose writing amongst Persianate literati in North Indian cities.

Instructor(s): Jean Arzoumanov     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 35705, NEHC 25705, SALC 25705

SALC 36200. Writing, Reading, and Singing in Bengal, 8th to 19th AD. 100 Units.

The course offers an introduction to the literary traditions of Bengal (West Bengal in India, and Bangladesh). We will study the making of Bengal as a region of literary production through a selection of secondary literature and primary sources in translation. We will look at how literature and literacy have been defined in various contexts up to the colonial period and discuss what constituted the literary identity of Bengal's various linguistic traditions. We will approach the topics of reading practices and genres from the perspective of both material culture and the conceptual categories underlying literary genres and the linguistic economy of Bengal (scholastic and non-scholastic, classical and vernacular languages, individual reading and publicly performed texts, hinduyani and musalmani, etc. …). Even if Bengali language and literature stand at the center of this course, we will also discuss the literary traditions that predate the formation of Bengali literature and were part of the background of the making of Bengali texts (i.e. Sanskrit, Apabhramsha, Arabic, Persian, Maithili, and Awadhi literature). The aim of the course is to introduce students to pre- and early-colonial Bengali literature in its conceptual, aesthetic, and historical dimensions. The course will address topics of interest for students in comparative literature, religious studies, history, linguistics, as well as medieval studies, book history, musicology or performance studies.

Instructor(s): Thibaut d'Hubert     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 26200

SALC 36212. Dancing South Asia. 100 Units.

This course introduces students to a range of dance and performance practices from the region of South Asia and its related diaspora. Throughout, we will explore critical examinations of South Asian dance and performing arts to consider history, identity, politics, and creativity. This course combines both theoretical study and movement practice and will investigate a range of research approaches and movement styles. No prior dance or performance experience is required.

Instructor(s): A. Satkunaratnam     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): TAPS 26212, SALC 26212, TAPS 36212

SALC 36260. Buddhism in Early Theravada Literature. 100 Units.

A critical examination of important canonical (Buddhavacana--attributed to the Buddha) and non-canonical Pali literature central to the religious "imaginaire" of Theravada Buddhists in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Literary texts include Vinayapitaka (Book of Monastic Discipline), Dhammapada (didactic verses attributed to the Buddha), Mahaparinibbana Sutta (sermon recounting the final 3 months of the Buddha's career), Vessantara Jataka (epic narrative of the Buddha's next-to-last rebirth as a king), the Edicts of Asoka (proclamations of the 3rd c. BCE Indian emperor), Anagatavamsa Desana (prophecy of the future Buddha Metteyya), Mahavamsa (the monastic "Great Chronicle" recounting the history of Buddhism) and royal inscriptions and paintings from the late-medieval period.

Instructor(s): John Holt     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 36703, HREL 36260, SALC 26260, RLST 26260

SALC 36265. Comparative Study of Humanistic Buddhism and Engaged Buddhism. 100 Units.

This course is designed for students who would like to explore further social philosophy and implication of Humanistic Buddhism and Engaged Buddhism, the two mainstreams of Buddhist development in modern world. We first examine historical background for the arising of Humanistic Buddhism from Mahayana tradition in China and Buddhist revivalism or Protestant Buddhism, the forerunner of Engaged Buddhism in Sri Lanka almost simultaneously at the beginning of 20th century, and their subsequent developments respectively. Having then briefly reviewed some prominent figures such as Taixu (1898-1947), Dhammapala (1864-1933), and their major advocates, we undertake thorough comparative studies of the two Buddhisms by exploring several topics, including modern education and science, environment and ecology, human rights and feminism, politics and violence, suffering and happiness, and others. While discussing these topics, we also examine how Buddhism has transformed itself from the religion of other world to that of this world, how Buddhists have reinterpreted Buddhism in order to fit the idea and practice of modernity, an how new cultures have thus been recreated to cater for the needs of contemporary life both in the East and West. Toward the end of the quarter, discussion may be extended to compare other new religious movements so that students may have a broader vision on religions and their social advocates in contemporary world.

Instructor(s): Yu Xue     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Some knowledge on the general history and basic philosophy of Buddhism.
Note(s): This course meets the HS or SCSR Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): HREL 36265, RLST 26265, SALC 26265

SALC 36702. Why comment? Early modern commentarial literature. 100 Units.

What is the purpose of a commentary? What do commentaries in different languages, and on different types of texts, 'do'? This course will take the example of commentarial literature from early modern South Asia-- primarily but not exclusively northern India--to explore the different contexts, projects, and intellectual milieus in which commentaries were composed, circulated, and performed. Primary readings will be in English, Sanskrit, and Hindi, and include commentaries (and their accompanying root texts;) we will also read a selection of modern scholarly writings on commentarial literature to survey different approaches to working with commentarial works.

Instructor(s): Tyler Williams     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 26702

SALC 36807. Dissent in the Indian Intellectual Tradition: South India from the 19th century to the present. 100 Units.

This course explores the role dissent played in the political, social, and religious controversies that took place in colonial and postcolonial Tamil-speaking southern India. Topics include the "pamphlet wars" of late 19th century Madras, the emergence of the Atheist, Dalit, and Self-Respect (Non-Brahman movements), progressive literary movement and its critique, the emergence of women writers, and the controversies around the banning of the novelist Perumal Murugan's Madhorubagan ("One Half Woman"). Thinkers covered include Vallalar, Arumuga Navalar, Iyotheethass Pandithar, Periyar, Sundara Ramaswamy, Salma and Perumal Murugan.Course materials will be in English; no knowledge of Tamil is necessary.

Instructor(s): A. R. Venkatachalapathy      Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Undergraduates can enroll with the instructor's permission.

SALC 36815. History of Science and Technology in South Asia. 100 Units.

This course is an introduction to a growing literature on the production of scientific knowledge in and about South Asia. Moving away from an earlier historiography, which treated science as a black-boxed, essentially European kind of knowledge that was diffused to the rest of the world, we will pay special attention to the role indigenous and vernacular forms of knowledge played in making modern science. We will range from the early modern period to the contemporary, and deal with a range of topics such as agriculture, industry, communications, biomedicine, water, religion, and capitalism.

Instructor(s): S. P. Kumar     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 26815, HIST 36815, CHSS 36815, HIST 26815, HIPS 26815

SALC 37440. Buddha Then and Now: Transformations from Amaravati to Anuradhapura. 100 Units.

The Buddhist sculptures in Amaravati are arguably the earliest to influence the early Buddhist art of the other parts of the sub-continent as well as south and southeast Asia. The course begins with the discussion of the context in which the Buddha images were made in Amaravati and the factors including Buddhist doctrinal developments that contributed to the spread of these images to various parts of Sri Lanka. Then it traces the course and function of Buddhist iconography in Sri Lanka until into the 21st century to assess the role of geopolitical factors. The positionality and portrayals of the images of Buddha are also considered and analyzed. The course traces the trajectories that transformed the image of the Buddha from a symbol of peace to jingoist assertiveness. Through the study of the images of the Buddha, the aim is to comprehend the ways Buddhism has changed over centuries from an inclusive posture which helped it sustain and spread to different parts of the world only later to become exclusionary.

Instructor(s): Sree Padma Holt     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 27440, RLST 27440, ARTH 27440, RLVC 37440, ARTH 37440, HIST 36704, HREL 37440

SALC 37490. Art as Buddhism in Ancient India: Explorations in the Stupa of Amaravati and Other Monuments. 100 Units.

This course will examine the visual construction of early Buddhism in India, focusing in particular on stūpas and especially on the art of the great stūpa (mahachaitya) at Amarāvatī in Andhra Pradesh. We will examine questions of Buddhology, of the diversity and range of conversations within early Buddhism, leading to the rise of the Mahāyāna, in relation to the visualization of Buddhist theory and narrative in the extensive and extraordinary decorations of the major sites. The course will introduce those taking it to the rich visual, material and epigraphic culture of the Buddhist stūpas as well as the vibrant textual world of Indian Buddhist writing - from stories to suttas to commentaries. Students will have the opportunity to develop their own final papers in relation to this material or comparatively with other material in which they also retain an interest (not necessarily only Buddhist).

Instructor(s): Jaś Elsner     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): The course will be taught over 5 weeks in the Spring Quarter on an intensive schedule. This course meets the HS or LMCS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 37490, SALC 27490, HREL 37490, ARTH 27490, RLVC 37490, RLST 27490

SALC 37701. Mughal India: Tradition & Transition. 100 Units.

The focus of this course is on the period of Mughal rule during the late sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, especially on selected issues that have been at the center of historiographical debate in the past decades.

Instructor(s): M. Alam     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Advanced standing or consent of instructor. Prior knowledge of appropriate history and secondary literature required.
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 20570, NEHC 30570, HIST 26602, HIST 36602, SALC 27701

SALC 37703. Music and Love in South Asia. 100 Units.

This course explores the relationship between the musical arts and forms of love in South Asian history. We will trace the complex and ambivalent contours of love in several genres including premodern poetry, stage performance, and Bollywood movies. We will examine issues such as poetics and theology, opposition to orthodox social conventions, the intensity of emotion expressed through multiple senses, the social sites of forbidden love, women and gender as poets and performers, and the intersection of sexuality and spirituality.

Instructor(s): Anand Venkatkrishnan; Anna Schultz     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 27702, GNSE 27702, MUSI 27702, RLVC 37702, GNSE 37702, SALC 27703, HREL 37702, MUSI 37702

SALC 38000. Introduction to Prakrit. 100 Units.

SALC 38002. Can Women Think? The Female Intellectual in South Asia. 100 Units.

How have South Asian women crafted lives for themselves as intellectuals, regardless of their social worlds? This introductory class will examine the figure of the woman-scholar in South Asia from antiquity to the twentieth century. How have South Asian women been seen, or have seen themselves, as intellectuals? We will study how women have provided critical reflections on society, identified normative problems, and argued for their rightful place in public life. This course will think of the specificity of South Asia and the global South in order to understand the relationship between women, authority and authorship, gender and cultural production, the problems of historical memory, and will challenge the notion of a unified collective of women intellectuals by considering caste, class and religious differences. We will study more than just feminist thought and scholarship. By reflecting on the active process and performance of thinking, we will question the historical and cultural conditions in South Asia which make thinking possible for women.

Instructor(s): Ahona Panda     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 38003, SALC 28002, GNSE 28003

SALC 38100. Gender and Salvation in Jainism and Buddhism. 100 Units.

In 1991, Padmanbh Jaini published Gender and Salvation, a monograph that tracks the unfolding of debates within Jainism about the spiritual liberation of women. The book persuasively demonstrates how Jainism and, by extension, Buddhism began to question and subsequently answer questions about women and gender non-conforming people's bodies, specific paths of women's religiosity, and the (im)possibility of women's liberation. This course takes Jaini's book as its starting point, to explore secondary scholarship on Jainism and Buddhism published in its wake alongside primary source materials.

Instructor(s): Sarah Pierce Taylor     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course meets the HS or LMCS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): RLVC 38100, GNSE 38100

SALC 38219. Understanding Buddhism Through Meditation. 100 Units.

This course studies succinct theories and systematic practices of Buddhist meditation based on both Theravada and Mahayana texts and traditions; it is divided into 4 parts: 1. Theories and practices of meditation in Pali texts and Theravada tradition-we examine idea and practice of Samadha and Vipassana mainly based on the Satipatthana Sutta and Visuddhimagga; 2. Chinese Texts and Zen Buddhism-The Great Concentration and Contemplation, and the Platform Sutra, two of the most important texts in Chinese Buddhism will be read and discussed; 3. Scientific studies and understanding of Buddhist meditation, and dialogue between Buddhist meditation and science-we read and discuss research papers and experimental reports on mediation practice by modern scholars through neuroscience and psychotherapy in the West. A special attention is paid to the discussion on the Western derivatives of Buddhist meditation for different purposes other than the final enlightenment of Buddhism, and on arising of variety of meditation practices such as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, Loving-Kindness Meditation, Cognitively-Based Compassion Training, Compassion Cultivation Training; and 4. Meditation session-the course instructor or meditation masters will provide instructions for students to practice meditation based on theories and methods discussed in the class and through readings.

Instructor(s): Yu Xue     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Some basic knowledge of Buddhism recommended.
Note(s): This course meets the CS or SCSR Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 28219, RLST 28219, HREL 38219

SALC 38701. Acharya Vinoba Bhave's Contribution in Colonial and Post-colonial India. 100 Units.

The course examines the life, work, and career of Acharya Vinoba Bhave (1895-1982) in colonial and postcolonial India. We read Bhave - who was widely touted as M.K. Gandhi's 'spiritual' successor - as developing a significant response to the cardinal questions and concerns of his time: building a national community free from stratification, exploitation, and communal strife while abiding by the values of non-violence (ahiṃsā) and truth (satya). Drawing upon Gandhi's ingenious mobilisation of the term, Bhave found his answer in the ideal of sarvodaya (universal upliftment) and laboured, throughout his long and illustrious life, to make it into an instrument of thought and action. This course will offer a multi-dimensional view of Vinoba's ideas and socio-political initiatives - including, but not limited to the well-known Bhoodan Movement (1951). We think about Bhave as a political thinker and actor while also paying due attention to some of his other, equally significant contributions. These would comprise his writings on education/pedagogy, ecological conservation, and India's religious philosophies and languages. Bhave's erudite and experimental wisdom in reinterpreting the revered Bhagavadgītā will receive special attention. We end by raising some questions of relevance. Are Vinoba Bhave's principles pertinent in the twenty-first century? Can they be reshaped according to our more global needs and made to speak to the many predicaments of a deeply destructive present?

Instructor(s): Sujata Mahajan      Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Undergraduate & graduate students across disciplines are eligible to enroll. All class meetings are mandatory. No prior knowledge of India/South Asia or a South Asian language is required.
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 28701

SALC 38921. Bengali Lyric Poetry: textual criticism and translation. 100 Units.

In this reading course, we will read lyric poems from the Padakalpataru using the texts of the oldest manuscript of the anthology kept at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. We will prepare an electronic text of the anthology and translate a selection of poems. The class will meet for two hours every week.

Instructor(s): Thibaut d'Hubert     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 28921, BANG 28921, BANG 38921

SALC 39000. Counterhistories of Mathematics and Astronomy. 100 Units.

Mathematics and astronomy are often taught as packaged universal truths, independent of time and context. Their history is assumed to be one of revelations and discoveries, beginning with the Greeks and reaching final maturity in modern Europe. This narrative has been roundly critiqued for decades, but the work of rewriting these histories has only just begun. This course is designed to familiarize students with a growing literature on the history of mathematics and astronomy in regions which now make up the global south. It is structured as a loosely chronological patchwork of counterexamples to colonial histories of mathematics and astronomy. Thematic questions include: How were mathematical and astronomical knowledge conjoined? How were they embedded in political contexts, cultural practices, and forms of labor? How did European scientific modernity compose itself out of the knowledges of others? Where necessary, we will engage with older historiographies of mathematics and astronomy, but for the most part we will move beyond them. No mathematics more advanced than highschool geometry and algebra will be assumed. However, those with more mathematical preparation may find the course especially useful.

Instructor(s): Prashant Kumar     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ASTR 39000, HIPS 27010, HIST 35305, CHSS 39001, KNOW 39000, ASTR 29000

SALC 39001. Tibetan Buddhism. 100 Units.

This course is designed to serve as an introductory survey of the history, doctrines, institutions, and practices of Buddhism in Tibet from its origins in the mid-first-millennium through the present. Readings will be drawn both from primary sources (in translation) and secondary and tertiary scholarly research.

Instructor(s): Christian Wedmeyer     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HREL 35200

SALC 39002. Tibet: Culture, Art, and History. 100 Units.

This class will introduce students to Tibetan civilization from pre-modernity to the present with an emphasis on literature, society, visual arts, and history. Attention will be paid to Tibet's relations with neighboring polities in South, East, and Central Asia, as well as distinctive indigenous practices. The course will cover a range of Tibetan cultural forms, highlighting pre-modern sciences of medicine, logic, and meditation, as well as contemporary developments in Tibetan modernity and the diaspora communities. Course materials will include primary sources in translation (e.g. Dunhuang manuscripts and other literature), contemporary scholarship, as well as audio-visual materials. In addition to informed participation in course meetings/discussions, including regular, timely completion of reading assignments, students are expected to write two short (5-7pg) papers. Students will have the opportunity to work on any topics of Tibetan culture, art and history of their choosing for the final assignment.

Instructor(s): K. Ngodup     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): All course readings will be available on electronic reserve via Canvas.
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 29002

SALC 39021. Reading Indo-Persian harmonized prose: Bahār-i dānish. 100 Units.

In this course, we will read excerpts from one of the most popular collections of stories written in harmonized (aka ornate) prose in Mughal India: ʿInāyatallāh's Bahār-i dānish. We will use several editions of the texts as well as commentaries and translations and focus on grammar, rhetoric, and the various strategies one may use to render Persian harmonized prose into English.

Instructor(s): Thibaut d'Hubert     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): PERS 39021, PERS 29021, SALC 29021

SALC 39900. Informal Reading Course. 100 Units.

This is a specially designed course not normally offered as part of the curriculum that is arranged between a student and a faculty member.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter
Note(s): Requires consent of instructor.

SALC 39910. Readings in Middle Bengali literature. 100 Units.

This informal reading course focuses on the methods of textual criticism in the domain of Middle Bengali. We will read various texts from manuscripts, transcribe them, analyze their content at the linguistic and stylistic levels, and translate them into English. Although the primary aim of the course is to familiarize students with the close reading of Middle Bengali poetry, we will also discuss questions of literary historiography and poetics.

Instructor(s): Thibaut d'Hubert     Terms Offered: Autumn

SALC 39911. Readings in Middle Bengali Literature II. 100 Units.

This informal reading course focuses on the methods of textual criticism in the domain of Middle Bengali. We will read various texts from manuscripts, transcribe them, analyze their content at the linguistic and stylistic levels, and translate them into English. Although the primary aim of the course is to familiarize students with the close reading of Middle Bengali poetry, we will also discuss questions of literary historiography and poetics.

Instructor(s): Thibaut d'Hubert     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): SALC 39910

SALC 39912. Readings in Middle Bengali Literature III. 100 Units.

This is the third course in the series of informal reading courses that focus on the methods of textual criticism in the domain of Middle Bengali. We will read various texts from manuscripts, transcribe them, analyze their content at the linguistic and stylistic levels, and translate them into English. Although the primary aim of the course is to familiarize students with the close reading of Middle Bengali poetry, we will also discuss questions of literary historiography and poetics.

Instructor(s): Thibaut d'Hubert     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): SALC 39911

SALC 39920. Readings in Indo-Persian Literature. 100 Units.

In this course we will read Persian texts produced in South Asia between the 12th and 19th centuries. The texts under scrutiny will be lyric and narrative poems, treatises on grammar and poetics, and biographical dictionaries of poets.

Instructor(s): Thibaut d'Hubert     Terms Offered: Autumn

SALC 39921. Readings in Indo-Persian Literature II. 100 Units.

In this course we will read Persian texts produced in South Asia between the 12th and 19th centuries. The texts under scrutiny will be lyric and narrative poems, treatises on grammar and poetics, and biographical dictionaries of poets.

Instructor(s): Thibaut d'Hubert     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): SALC 39920

SALC 39922. Readings in Indo-Persian Literature III. 100 Units.

In this third course we will continue to read Persian texts produced in South Asia between the 12th and 19th centuries. The texts under scrutiny will be lyric and narrative poems, treatises on grammar and poetics, and biographical dictionaries of poets.

Instructor(s): Thibaut d'Hubert     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): SALC 39921

SALC 39923. Readings in Indo-Persian Literature IV. 100 Units.

In this graduate seminar course, we will read and discuss selections from two sets of Mughal and early modern south Asian texts: 1) some passages from the Persian translations of early Indian Sanskrit texts; 2) commentaries and observations on the classical Persian poetry and prose by south Asian scholars.

Instructor(s): Muzaffar Alam     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Must have the consent of the instructor.

SALC 40000. South Asia as a Unit of Study. 100 Units.

The central aim of this course will be to closely read and discuss read four recent monographs in the field, with an eye towards thinking through questions of their place in the history of the field and (as is inevitably the case a heterogeneous discipline like area studies) of the connections with other fields or bodies of scholarship. During the even weeks of the quarter we will read these four books in their entirety; in the odd-numbered weeks (except week 1), groups of the students, working in collaboration with the instructor, will generate and present a selection of articles that contextualize the preceding week's monograph both within and without South Asian studies. The course is therefore collaborative and somewhat experimental: the instructor will arrange to meet with the class participants collectively in the beginning of the Fall quarter to get them organized into groups for preparing these selections. These groups will be responsible for leading discussion for their sessions, while a different group will be responsible for presenting and leading discussion for each monograph. Everyone will thus participate in two group presentations, which will be part of the assessment. The remaining part of the grade will be determined by an end-of-quarter essay, based on either of these presentations.

Instructor(s): R. Majumdar     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): SALC Core Requirement

SALC 40010. Contemporary Topics in the Study of South Asian Religion. 100 Units.

This course takes up theoretical problems in religious studies, issues specific to the study of South Asia, and the intersections between the two. It foregrounds history, that is, the historical lives of religion in the subcontinent. Theory, in both the sense of conceptualizing religion and the concepts of religious actors themselves, is treated as an historical object, as emerging from and participating in history. Topics covered in the course range between: religious encounter and shared practices; sexuality and spirit-possession; epics and everyday ethics; poverty and plenitude; hospitality and healing; colonial systems of classification; caste and regimes of unfree labor.

Instructor(s): Anand Venkatkrishnan     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HREL 40010

SALC 40104. Research Themes in South Asian Studies: Aesthetic Thought. 100 Units.

In this seminar we will attempt to understand what the realm of the 'aesthetic' is as a phenomenon and what 'aesthetics' is as a field of intellectual inquiry. Our goal will be to understand individually and analyze comparatively material from major traditions of aesthetic thought in South Asia in order to understand how people at various times and places have delineated the concept or phenomenon of aesthetic experience and attempted to explain it. One of the salient questions in the course will be whether any distinction can or should be made between 'critical' and 'creative' works when speaking of aesthetic discourse. Ultimately, our aim is not simply to understand aesthetic discourse on its own terms, but to understand how it intersects other critical, creative, social, and political discourses, such as poetics, ethics, statecraft, metaphysics, etcetera, and to observe how it functions in spheres beyond 'art' proper, such as religion, politics, and human sexuality.

Instructor(s): T. Williams     Terms Offered: Spring

SALC 40105. Research Themes in South Asian Studies: What is Brahmanism? 100 Units.

TBD

Instructor(s): Whitney Cox     Terms Offered: Spring

SALC 40106. Research Themes in South Asian Studies: Textual Transformations - From Manuscript to Print. 100 Units.

This course offers an introduction to the theory and practice of book history and print culture studies, a relatively recent and vibrant field of inquiry in South Asian Studies. The course will explore some of the main theoretical approaches, themes, and methodologies of the history of the book in comparative perspective, and discuss the specific conditions and challenges facing scholars of book history in South Asia. Topics include orality and literacy, technologies of scribal and print production, the sociology of texts, authorship and authority, the print "revolution" and knowledge formation under colonial rule, material cultures of the book, the economy of the book trade, popular print, and readership and consumption. We will also engage with texts as material artifacts and look at the changing contexts, techniques, and practices of book production in the transition from manuscript to print.

Instructor(s): Ulrike Stark     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): This graduate course is open to advanced undergraduates (instructor consent required).
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 46606

SALC 40107. Research themes: Memory, Text, Tradition. 100 Units.

This course examines the long history of the role that memory has played in textual traditions in South Asia, from the sacred texts of the Brahmins, Buddhists and Jains, to the imagination of certain texts as repositories of cultural memory, to the composition and performance of large-scale works like the Mahābhārata and the purāṇas, to the very hesitant and uneven adoption of the technology of writing. Besides primary sources, we will draw from work in philosophy, psychology, media studies, and history to understand the ways that reflection on and concerns about memory shaped the traditions that have defined South Asian cultures.

Instructor(s): Andrew Ollett     Terms Offered: Autumn

SALC 40401. Pedagogy and Methods. 100 Units.

This class is a seminar designed to help students with pedagogical issues that arise in teaching South Asia. We will address the major milestones of a graduate student career in South Asian studies. This class is also designed to help you teach successfully in the College classroom. You will have opportunities to practice both lecturing and discussion-leading, to observe and reflect on others' teaching, and to design syllabi and assignments. Your assignments in this course will together constitute an initial draft of your teaching portfolio, including a statement of teaching philosophy, sample syllabi, assignments, and other materials.

Instructor(s): R. Majumdar      Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Open only to Ph.D. students.

SALC 42117. A Global Sonic History in 30 Objects. 100 Units.

Students will draw upon the wide range of disciplinary perspectives that contribute to sound studies. Collectively they will use these to understand the historical meaning present in the materiality of what we call the "audio moment." Critical to the audio moment is the transformation from object to subject, from the material to the sonic. These transformations unleash meaning and generate the multiple subjectivities from which history emerges. Basic ontologies will be challenged in our consideration of each object. The objects we consider are largely not primarily associated with music alone, but through their transformation into audio moments we are often able to understand just where music situates them in the human subjectivities of different societies. In addition to its interdisciplinarity this CDI seminar will be broadly comparative and will draw upon diverse sources and collections for its objects (e.g., with visits to urban and architectural spaces on campus, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Digital Media Archive). The goal of such comparative investigation is not to undo ontological assumptions about the dialectics of music/sound, but rather to use the collective thought that grows from the seminar participants to generate new approaches to the aesthetics and epistemology of sound and history globally.

Equivalent Course(s): CDIN 42117, MUSI 42117, CMES 42117

SALC 42703. A Magazine for Everyone. 100 Units.

From our book- and digital-centric perspective, it is easy to miss the centrality of magazines in South Asia. In a society where books were too expensive and textbooks and religious books often were the only books held at home, magazines fulfilled many functions. They relayed news, provided a space for debate on social, literary, political and religious matters, and engaged in lively diatribes with each other. They were windows into the world and onto national events, and platforms where even secluded women acquired a public voice. Once in a while, spectacular special issues turned magazines into collectible and coveted items, and in the colonial period strained the boundaries of censorship. Magazines introduced new writing, trained literary criticism, and molded literary tastes far beyond the school curriculum. For a time, many if not all modern writers launched their own magazine or worked for one. But most magazines were miscellanies, and the range of their textual content, get-up and illustrations, and advertisements allow us to plunge into a period and its particular horizon of expectations. Such wealth of content can also overwhelm the student of magazines, and one of the aims of this course is to learn how to work with magazines, combining quick flipping through with zooming in on striking finds. Another aim is to show the development of magazines-focusing primarily on Hindi-, their shifting outlook, horizons, and tone.

Instructor(s): Francesca Orsini     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): reading competence in Hindi; other South Asian languages welcome.

SALC 42910. Gender and Sexuality in South Asian Religions. 100 Units.

From Vātsyāyana's Kāmasūtra to debates around widow remarriage in the colonial period, the nexus of gender and sexuality fundamentally shapes religious practices and beliefs as well as the lives of women and gender non-conforming people. The central questions guiding this course are: How do South Asian religious traditions incorporate sexual practice and/or restraint into a vision of ethical life? When does one's gender become dangerous or unethical? How do histories of imperialism interfere with and transform the study of gender and sexuality in South Asian religions? In pursuing these questions through a range of methodological approaches to the field, students will gain a deep familiarity with practices of religious asceticism, the place of erotics within religious discourse, new perspectives on queer and trans theory, emic feminisms, and sexual ethics.

Instructor(s): Sarah Pierce Taylor     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course meets the HS or LMCS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students. Undergraduates must petition to enroll.
Equivalent Course(s): RLVC 42910, GNSE 42911, HREL 42910

SALC 43105. Women's Rights, Cultural Nationalisms, and Moral Panics. 100 Units.

The discourse on women's rights, and more gradually the rights of transgender and intersex communities, has gained tremendous momentum globally in the last few decades. At the same time, in many parts of the world, these changes have been accompanied by moral panics over what such empowerment means for national "cultures." They have sometimes also resulted in violence against women and sexual minorities. In South Africa, for example, marriage rates have reached new lows and single mothers have become a highly visible social category, eligible for state relief through a newly-instated Child Support Grant. Their access to these new state privileges has been accompanied by increased social surveillance; South African men and elders accuse young mothers of abusing their rights, upending the moral order. Both Uganda and Kenya, where national constitutions guarantee gender quotas for elected politicians, have also recently passed national legislation that seeks to regulate women's clothing (i.e. the so-called "Miniskirt Bill" passed in Uganda in 2014). In India, women's increasing participation in the workforce and their visibility in public space, or couples who contract marriages across religious divides, have led to violent disciplining by other members of the community, sometimes in the name of a "love Jihad." Feminists and queer activists, however, are not mute in the face of such resistance. Instead they have sought new ways to make claims about their right to "public" space.

Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 35218, CHDV 30609, CDIN 43105, HIST 40101

SALC 43200. Indian Philosophy of Language. 100 Units.

In this course, we will consider representative topics and thinkers in the history of Indian philosophy, with a particular focus on developments in the latter half of the first millennium.

Instructor(s): Daniel A. Arnold and Andrew Ollett     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): This class presupposes some philosophical understanding, as well as some acquaintance with South Asian intellectual history.
Note(s): This course meets the HS or CS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): DVPR 43200

SALC 43456. Settler Religion: Searching for Indians. 100 Units.

This course examines the study of religion as a settler practice through the intertwined histories of Indians, both of the Americas and in the subcontinent. It demonstrates how the motif of the "Indian" has been central to the history of religious studies. The course explores religion itself as a settler colonial enterprise, through the spread of Christianity in the Americas at the nexus of race and religion, and missionary forms of political Hinduism in colonial and postcolonial India. By tracing the figure of the Indian across time and place, this course uncovers an alternative history of indigenous and subaltern resistance alongside histories of cultural appropriation and genocide that are absorbed, elided, and challenged by the consolidation of the study of religion.

Instructor(s): Anand Venkatkrishnan and Sarah Pierce Taylor     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): This course meets the HS or SCSR Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): RAME 43456, RLVC 43456, HREL 43456

SALC 44701. Ritual in South Asian Buddhism. 100 Units.

This course will explore some ritual practices and theories of South Asian Buddhists in light of current theorization of ritual. What is it that Buddhists "actually" (physically and verbally) do? And, what do they say about what they do? Does what they do "mean" anything? If so, how? And, what significance might this have for anyone else? What happens when we consider these possibly meaningful forms of expression as "ritual?" Exemplaria will be drawn from India, Nepal, Burma and Tibet, with some comparative perspectives considered along the way.

Instructor(s): Christian Wedemeyer     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Some prior study of South Asian religions
Equivalent Course(s): HREL 44701

SALC 47270. Being Buddhist in Southeast Asia. 100 Units.

A study of the various ways in which lay and monastic Buddhists practice and express their understanding of the Theravada religious path in Sri Lanka and SE Asia (Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia). Ethnographic and historical readings will focus on social (ritual) articulations of Buddhist practice and identity in contemporary cultural contexts. A term paper on topic in consultation with instructor is required.

Instructor(s): John Holt     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Some familiarity with Buddhism is helpful.
Note(s): This course is open to undergrads by Petition.
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 42615, HREL 47270

SALC 47300. Philosophical Traditions in Indian Buddhist Thought. 100 Units.

In this seminar, we will consider representative texts from what traditional doxographical schemas take to be the principal schools of Buddhist thought in India in the first millennium CE.

Instructor(s): Daniel Arnold     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Some background in Buddhist thought and/or classical Buddhist languages is desirable.
Note(s): This course meets the HS or CS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): DVPR 47300

SALC 47903. Writing, Reading, and Singing in Bengal, 8th to 19th AD. 100 Units.

The course offers an introduction to the literary traditions of Bengal (today's West Bengal in India, and Bangladesh). We will study the making of Bengal as a region of literary production through a selection of secondary and primary sources in translation. We will look at how literature and literacy have been defined in various contexts up to the colonial period and discuss what constituted the literary identity of Bengal's various linguistic traditions. We will approach the topics of reading practices and genres from the perspective of both material culture (script and scribal practices, manuscript formats, etc.) and the conceptual categories underlying literary genres and the linguistic economy of Bengal (scholastic and non-scholastic, classical and vernacular languages, individual reading and publicly performed texts, hinduyani and musalmani). Even if Bengali language and literature stand at the center of this course, we will also discuss the literary traditions that predate the formation of Bengali literature and were part of the background of the making of Bengali texts (Sanskrit, Apabhramsha, Arabic, Persian, Maithili, and Awadhi literature). The aim of the course is to introduce students to precolonial Bengali literature in its conceptual, aesthetic, and historical dimensions. The course will address topics of interest for students in comparative literature, religious studies, history, linguistics, medieval studies, book history, musicology or performance studies.

Instructor(s): T. D'Hubert     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Students who want to take the course as an Advanced Bangla (BANG 47903) course must attend the additional reading course in which we will do close readings of texts in Bengali.
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 47903, BANG 47903

SALC 48203. Buddhist Narratives. 100 Units.

This course will read and discuss stories translated mostly from Pali (with some from Sanskrit), on the topics of the Buddha's (extended) (Auto)biography, and the Past Lives of the Buddha (Jātakas) culminating in an analysis of various versions of the Vessantara (Viśvantara) Jātaka. Such stories will be considered also in light of the theory of the Ten Excellencies (Perfections. pāramī). It will also study some works on Narrative Theory, and on the difference between narrative and systematic thought, asking what different textual form makes to Buddhist ideas, ideals and values.

Instructor(s): S. Collins     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): PQ: Previous knowledge of Buddhism (at least one course)
Equivalent Course(s): HREL 48203

SALC 48306. Indian Buddhism. 100 Units.

This course is designed to serve as an introductory survey of the history, doctrines, institutions, and practices of Buddhism in India from its origins through the present. Readings will be drawn both from primary sources (in translation) and secondary and tertiary scholarly research.

Instructor(s): Christian Wedemeyer     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HREL 35100

SALC 48316. Readings: Advanced Tibetan III. 100 Units.

Readings: Advanced Tibetan is for students who have successfully completed the third year and a fourth-year or equivalent with a placement test. The sequence is meant to expose students to a range of genres in Tibetan literature, including religious, historical, philosophical, scientific, and literary works. Instruction includes guided readings with continuing grammar review, practice in speaking, and application of philological methods.

Instructor(s): Karma Ngodup     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Students must have had two years of Tibetan.
Note(s): This course is open to undergrads ONLY by petition.
Equivalent Course(s): TBTN 47902, HREL 52402

SALC 48317. Readings in Madhyamaka. 100 Units.

This course will involve close philosophical attention to a representative range of Indian Madhyamaka texts.

Instructor(s): Dan Arnold     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Some Tibetan or Sanskrit is expected. Exceptions with consent of the instructor.
Equivalent Course(s): DVPR 41700

SALC 48400. Second-Year Sanskrit II. 100 Units.

This sequence begins with a rapid review of grammar learned in the introductory course, followed by readings from a variety of Sanskrit texts. The goals are to consolidate grammatical knowledge, expand vocabulary, and gain confidence in reading different styles of Sanskrit independently. The winter quarter will be a reading of the Mahabharata.

Instructor(s): Dan Arnold     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): SANS 20100 or consent of instructor
Equivalent Course(s): HREL 36000, SANS 20200

SALC 48403. Text and World in Medieval India. 100 Units.

This course is intended as a graduate seminar (undergraduates are welcome to attend, too) concentrating on the cultural and intellectual history of medieval southern Asia. For the purposes of the course, 'medieval' is roughly delimited by the half-millennium 700-1200 CE; 'southern Asia' refers mostly to the Indian subcontinent, with collateral attention paid to mainland and insular Southeast Asia. The recurrent focus will be on the reciprocal connections between texts-as physical artifacts, concretizations of cultural knowledge, articulations of traditions of wisdom, and realizations of intentional projects-and the social and physical world of their emergence and circulation. The class meetings will be divided between thematic and regional topics. Themes include the royal court, the nature of religious plurality, literary intertextuality, and the nature and efficacy of linguistic reference; regional concentrations include the Tamil country, Pāla-Sena Bengal, Angkor, central Java, and Kashmir.

Instructor(s): Whitney Cox     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 28403

SALC 48404. The Philosophical Career of Vasubandhu. 100 Units.

In this course we will take some soundings in the huge corpus of the Indian Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu (c. 4th century C.E.), who produced works influentially expressing what have been taken as several different schools of Buddhist thought - in particular, the Sarvāstivāda and Sautrāntika trends of Abhidharma literature, and the Mahāyāna philosophical program of Yogācāra. Canvassing examples of many of Vasubandhu's major writings, we will particularly consider the sense it makes for all of these works to have been written by the same person; we will consider, that is, the philosophical coherence of the diverse body of work that's generally attributed to this one thinker.

Instructor(s): Daniel A. Arnold     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): This class presupposes some understanding of Buddhist doctrine.
Note(s): This course meets the HS or CS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students. Undergraduates may petition to enroll.
Equivalent Course(s): DVPR 47900

SALC 48405. The Theory and Practice of Indic Textual Criticism. 100 Units.

This course will serve as an introduction to the methods of textual criticism, the practice of editorial philology, and the bibliographical nature of the critical edition as they are applicable to premodern South Asia, especially to works in Sanskrit, although other linguistic and textual cultures will also be considered. The titular difference between 'theory' and 'practice' is not meant as a cliché, and the two weekly sessions will be organized along distinct lines. In the first meeting, we will read, discuss, and present works that variously introduce, discuss, critique, and exemplify these sorts of textual practices. We will begin with some orientating works on philology more generally (e.g. the guidebooks of Paul Maas and Martin West; Housman's polemical essays; Timpanaro's study of Lachmann; Turner's recent popular history) and proceed to move into more South Asia specific materials from there, including classics (Sukthankar, Katre, M.R. Kavi) as well as contemporary discussions (Pollock, Alam, Kinra, Phillips-Rodriguez). Big questions will include: in what ways are the methods developed for the classical Mediterranean and European worlds applicable to other textual cultures? In what ways does this constitute a specifically 'scientific' (i.e. transparent, falsifiable) practice of knowledge? What can be said of the institutional motivations for the production of critical editions, in India or elsewhere?

Instructor(s): Whitney Cox     Terms Offered: Autumn

SALC 48501. Readings in Tibetan Buddhist Texts. 100 Units.

Readings in selected Buddhist doctrinal writings in Tibetan.

Instructor(s): Matthew Kapstein     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Open to students reading Tibetan at an advanced level.
Equivalent Course(s): HREL 48910, DVPR 48910

SALC 48603. Talking Birds and Cunning Jackals: A Survey of Indo-Persian Prose. 100 Units.

South Asia was a major source of narrative matter for the development of literary prose in the Islamicate world. For instance, literary prose in Arabic, but also in Persian (and Castilian) were fashioned through successive renderings of the Sanskrit Pan͂catantra. Later, in the post-Timurid period, South Asian Persianate literati, and munshis in particular, contributed to elevate the status of Persian prose to that of poetry. This course offers a survey of a variety of Indo-Persian prose texts such as tales, premodern translations of Indian romances and epics (Mahābhārata, Rāmāyaṇa, Pan͂catantra, Mādhavānala Kāmakandalā, etc …), letters, anecdotes from chronicles, tadhkira literature, autobiographical writings, treatises, and encyclopedic works. The readings are organized thematically and by degree of stylistic elaboration. We will first read plain prose texts that will introduce the students to key elements of the Persianate understanding of Indic culture. In this first section of the course, we will mostly read narrative texts (chronicles, translations of Sanskrit and Hindavi works, and dāstāns). We will then turn to epistolography, biographies, and autobiographical writings. Finally, we will read technical and non-technical texts dealing with various aspects of Indo-Persian courtly culture and aesthetics (philosophy, mysticism, grammar, poetry, or musicology). Each text will be introduced and framed by discussions on relevant secondary literature in English and Persian.

Instructor(s): T. D'Hubert     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Intermediate level of Persian
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 48603, PERS 48693

SALC 49006. Yogacara. 100 Units.

This seminar, which presupposes a basic knowledge of Indian and/or Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, will consider some of the foundational texts of the Yogacara tradition of thought, with particular reference to the works of Vasubandhu. In addition to close readings of assorted primary sources, we will consider contemporary scholarly debates regarding the interpretation of Yogacara (e.e., concerning the question whether this is aptly characterized as an "idealist" school of thought).

Instructor(s): Dan Arnold     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Some knowledge of Sanskrit or Tibetan is preferred.
Equivalent Course(s): DVPR 51700

SALC 49630. Madhyamaka in India and China. 100 Units.

This seminar will consider exemplary texts from the Madhyamaka school(s) of Buddhist philosophy, particularly focusing on notable points of divergence and/or concord between the Indian schools with which the tradition originated, and the various Chinese schools that reflect China's distinctive appropriation of the tradition.

Instructor(s): Brook Ziporyn and Dan Arnold     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course is open to undergrads ONLY by Petition.
Equivalent Course(s): DVPR 49630, EALC 49630

SALC 49900. Thesis Research. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): Student chooses instructor     Terms Offered: Autumn,Winter,Spring
Note(s): Requires consent of instructor

SALC 50204. Destruction of Images, Books & Artifacts in Europe and S. Asia. 100 Units.

The course offers a comparative perspective on European and South Asian iconoclasm. In the European tradition, iconoclasm was predominantly aimed at images, whereas in South Asian traditions it was also enacted upon books and buildings. The combination of these traditions will allow us to extend the usual understanding of iconoclasm as the destruction of images to a broader phenomenon of destruction of cultural artifacts and help question the theories of image as they have been independently developed in Europe and South Asia, and occasionally in conversation with one another. We will ask how and why, in the context of particular political imaginaries and material cultures, were certain objects singled out for iconoclasm? Also, who was considered to be entitled or authorized to commit their destruction? Through a choice of concrete examples of iconoclasm, we will query how religious and political motivations are defined, redefined, and intertwined in each particular case. We will approach the iconoclastic events in Europe and South Asia through the lenses of philology, history, and material culture. Class discussions will incorporate not only textual materials, but also the close collaborative study of images, objects, and film. Case studies will make use of objects in the Art Institute of Chicago and Special Collections at the University Library.

Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 40204, CDIN 50204, HREL 50204, RLVC 50204, CMLT 50204

SALC 61805. Colloquium: South Asian Political Thought-A Genealogy. 100 Units.

This course will look at some key texts of the colonial and postcolonial periods of South Asian history to see how the domain of the political has been understood and debated in the subcontinent since the beginning of the twentieth century.

Equivalent Course(s): HIST 61805

SALC 65601. Extra-Ordinary Ordinary: Rdgs & Writing Grassroots & Microhist. 100 Units.

This graduate colloquium confronts the challenges of writing history from the bottom up. Although the syllabus engages with debates launched by the Subaltern Studies Collective, our investigation will not adopt a specific regional or temporal focus. Students can experiment beyond their usual writing style or topic. We will engage with the theoretical legacies and challenges of postcolonial history writing, the linguistic turn, and microhistory. The course pays special attention to different ways to grapple with sources and the construction of diverse archives.

Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 65601, EALC 65601

SALC 70000. Advanced Study: South Asian Languages & Civilizations. 300.00 Units.

Advanced Study: South Asian Languages & Civilizations

TAML 30100-30200-30300. Third-Year Tamil I-II-III.

On the basis of a variety of readings, such as short stories, poems, excerpts from novels or non-fiction, this course addresses those issues of modern written Tamil grammar which have not been covered during the previous two years. Readings are typically selected with a view to providing important cultural information, and they are supplemented by film clips and other media. Class content may be chosen or adapted based on particular student needs. Further work on listening and speaking proficiency is also part of the course. Based on prior consultation with instructor regarding placement, this course might be an appropriate starting point for speakers of Tamil with previous knowledge (e.g., heritage students).

TAML 40100-40200-40300. Fourth-Year Tamil I-II-III.

This course typically includes an introduction to Classical Tamil grammar and literature, with sample readings reaching from the oldest known Tamil literature (Sangam poetry) via bhakti poems to the magnificent courtly compositions of the high and late medieval periods. Various other types of linguistic variation may also be studied, e.g. inscriptional Tamil or dialects/regional language registers. Depending on the students’ needs, an overview of Tamil literary history is also given. Native or heritage speakers of Tamil are required to have a solid knowledge of modern Tamil grammar.

TAML 47900-47901-47902. Rdgs: Advanced Tamil; Rdgs: Advanced Tamil II-III.

This course is for students who have successfully completed third- and fourth-year Tamil. It is typically tailored to student needs in terms of the selection of texts to be addressed and discussed. Depending on their interest, students may choose to read Tamil texts from any time period, country or genre. Prior consent of instructor is required.

TAML 47904. The Metrical Language of Tamil Poetry. 100 Units.

This will be a lecture cum workshop. It will trace the history of the prosody used in Tamil literary works from the beginning to the modern from the points of its grammar, development and the demands on it from the emergence of new genres, literary themes and audience. The workshop part will consist of doing prosodic analysis of selected literary works.

Instructor(s): E. Annamalai     Terms Offered: Winter

TBTN 30100-30200-30300. Third-Year Tibetan I-II-III.

The third- and fourth-year sequence is meant to expose students to a range of genres in Tibetan literature, including religious, historical, philosophical, scientific, and literary works. Instruction consists in guided readings, with continuing grammar review, practice in speaking, and application of philological methods.

TBTN 40100-40200-40300. Fourth-Year Tibetan I-II-III.

The third- and fourth-year sequence is meant to expose students to a range of genres in Tibetan literature, including religious, historical, philosophical, scientific, and literary works. Instruction consists in guided readings, with continuing grammar review, practice in speaking, and application of philological methods.

TBTN 47900-47901-47902. Rdgs: Advanced Tibetan I-II-III.

Readings: Advanced Tibetan is for students who have successfully completed third year and fourth year or equivalent with placement test. The sequence is meant to expose students to a range of genres in Tibetan literature, including religious, historical, philosophical, scientific, and literary works. Instruction includes guided readings with continuing grammar review, practice in speaking, and application of philological methods.

URDU 30100-30200-30300. Third-Year Urdu I-II-III.

This third- and fourth-year sequence consists of courses primarily in Urdu prose, meant for students who have already mastered the grammar and control vocabulary past the basic level. The two-year cycle includes passages/selections from noted Urdu writers from the late eighteenth through the twentieth century. The sequence has two major goals. The first goal is to emphasize training in comprehension, reading, writing, philology, and discussion (in Urdu). A second goal is to encourage analysis of the widely acknowledged masters of Urdu style by locating them within the larger context of early modern and modern South Asian social and intellectual history.

URDU 40100-40200-40300. Fourth-Year Urdu I-II-III.

This third- and fourth-year sequence consists of courses primarily in Urdu prose, meant for students who have already mastered the grammar and control vocabulary past the basic level. The two-year cycle includes passages/selections from noted Urdu writers from the late eighteenth through the twentieth century. The sequence has two major goals. The first goal is to emphasize training in comprehension, reading, writing, philology, and discussion (in Urdu). A second goal is to encourage analysis of the widely acknowledged masters of Urdu style by locating them within the larger context of early modern and modern South Asian social and intellectual history.

URDU 47900-47901-47902. Rdgs: Advanced Urdu I-II-III.

This course is for students who have successfully completed third- and fourth-year Urdu. It is typically tailored to student needs in terms of the selection of texts to be addressed and discussed. Depending on their interest, students may choose to read Urdu texts from any time period, country or genre. Prior consent of instructor is required.