ENG 20a Bollywood: Popular Film, Genre, and Society
[ djw hum nw ]

An introduction to popular Hindi cinema through a survey of the most important Bollywood films from the 1950s until today. Topics include melodrama, song and dance, love and sex, stardom, nationalism, religion, diasporic migration, and globalization. Usually offered every third year.

HIST 66a History of South Asia (2500 BCE - 1971)
[ djw nw oc ss ]

Introduces South Asian history from the earliest civilizations to the independence of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Surveys the formation of religious traditions, the establishment of kingdoms and empires, colonialism and its consequences, and post-independence political and economic development. Usually offered every second year.

SAS 98a Independent Study

Usually offered every year.

HIST 179b India and the Superpowers (USA, USSR, and China): 1947 and Beyond
[ nw ss ]

Examines the history of modern India through its relationships with the "superpowers," USA, USSR, and China. Covering the period between 1947-2018, the course analyses ideological, economic, foreign policy shifts and subcontinental conflict in a constantly changing geo-political scene. Usually offered every second year.

Avinash Singh

IGS 165a Revolution, Religion, and Terror: Postcolonial Histories
[ djw nw oc ss ]

Examines religious conflict, revolutionary violence, and civil war in modern South Asia. It looks at Jihad, Maoist militancy, rising fundamentalism, and political violence. Usually offered every second year.

REL/SAS 152a Introduction to Hinduism, Yoga, and the Divine in South Asia
[ hum nw ]

Introduces Hindu practice and thought. Explores broadly the variety of forms, practices, and philosophies that have been developing from the time of the Vedas (ca. 1500 BCE) up to present day popular Hinduism practiced in both urban and rural India. Examines the relations between Hindu religion and its wider cultural, social, and political contexts, relations between the Hindu majority of India and minority traditions, and questions of Hindu identity both in India and abroad. Usually offered every second year.

SAS 100a India and Pakistan: Understanding South Asia
[ djw hum nw ss ]

Examines the making and unmaking of modern South Asia as a region, with particular focus on India and Pakistan as well as their connections to Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Using perspectives from history, politics, anthropology, literature, and film, the course introduces students to key themes in the study of South Asia, such as colonialism and anti-colonial struggles, legacies of empire, caste critique and Dalit thought, gender and sexuality, religion, and popular culture. Usually offered every year. Usually offered every year.

SAS 150b Love, Sex, and Country: Films from India
[ djw hum nw ]

A study of Hindi films made in India since 1947 with a few notable exceptions from regional film, as well as some recent films made in English. Students will read Hindi films as texts/narratives of the nation to probe the occurrence of cultural, religious, historical, political, and social themes. Usually offered every third year.

SAS 165a Cinemas of India: Caste, Gender, and State
[ djw hum ]

The Indian film industry is the largest in the world, catering to spectators within and outside the country. Often, however, the discussion of Indian cinema limits itself to the Hindi film industry or Bollywood. This course attempts to study cinema in India in different languages and genres through the categories of caste, gender, and state. It traces the beginnings of cinema in India, its development in the post-independence period, and contemporary digital cinema, focusing on Marathi, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam and going beyond a Bollywood-centric approach by complicating the discourse on region and nation. It endeavors to unpack the questions of ideology, aesthetics and affect in Indian cinema by examining the powers of caste, gender, and state in the cultural production of the country and how it is being contested in/through cinema. Special one-time offering, fall 2024.

SAS 180a Introduction to Critical Caste Studies
[ djw hum ]

WGS 135b Postcolonial Feminisms
[ hum oc ]

Examines feminist theories, literature, and film from formerly colonized, Anglophone countries in South Asia, the Caribbean, and Africa. It takes the shared path of decolonization and postcoloniality to discuss the development of feminist discourse and the diverse trajectories of gendered lives. Usually offered every third year.

SAS 100a India and Pakistan: Understanding South Asia
[ djw hum nw ss ]

Examines the making and unmaking of modern South Asia as a region, with particular focus on India and Pakistan as well as their connections to Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Using perspectives from history, politics, anthropology, literature, and film, the course introduces students to key themes in the study of South Asia, such as colonialism and anti-colonial struggles, legacies of empire, caste critique and Dalit thought, gender and sexuality, religion, and popular culture. Usually offered every year. Usually offered every year.

ANTH 134a Contemporary South Asia
[ djw ss ]

Explores contemporary life in a region called South Asia (including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal) through divergent histories, cultures, and concepts. Explores not just the region’s histories and cultures, but also a string of concepts and debates that simultaneously make and unmake the region as both a stable object of study as well as place on a map—including caste, Partition, ethnic conflict, religion, nationalism, gender, kinship, liberalization, postcoloniality, development, diaspora, and queerness. Usually offered every third year.

ENG 20a Bollywood: Popular Film, Genre, and Society
[ djw hum nw ]

An introduction to popular Hindi cinema through a survey of the most important Bollywood films from the 1950s until today. Topics include melodrama, song and dance, love and sex, stardom, nationalism, religion, diasporic migration, and globalization. Usually offered every third year.

ENG 127a The Novel in India
[ djw hum nw ]

Survey of the novel and short story of the Indian subcontinent, their formal experiments in context of nationalism and postcolonial history. Authors may include Tagore, Anand, Manto, Desani, Narayan, Desai, Devi, Rushdie, Roy, Mistry, and Chaudhuri. Usually offered every second year.

ENG 152a Indian Love Stories
[ djw dl hum nw ]

Introduces students to writings on love, desire and sexuality from ancient India to the present. Topics include ancient eroticism, love in Urdu poetry, Gandhi's sexual asceticism, colonial regulation of sexuality, Bollywood, queer fiction and more. Usually offered every third year.

HIST 66a History of South Asia (2500 BCE - 1971)
[ djw nw oc ss ]

Introduces South Asian history from the earliest civilizations to the independence of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Surveys the formation of religious traditions, the establishment of kingdoms and empires, colonialism and its consequences, and post-independence political and economic development. Usually offered every second year.

HIST 179b India and the Superpowers (USA, USSR, and China): 1947 and Beyond
[ nw ss ]

Examines the history of modern India through its relationships with the "superpowers," USA, USSR, and China. Covering the period between 1947-2018, the course analyses ideological, economic, foreign policy shifts and subcontinental conflict in a constantly changing geo-political scene. Usually offered every second year.

Avinash Singh

HIST 187b Unequal Histories: Caste, Religion, and Dissent in India
[ djw dl nw oc ss ]

Examines the religious, political, and social dimensions of discrimination in India. In order to study caste, power, and representation, we will look at religious texts, historical debates, film, and literature from the Vedic Age to contemporary India. Usually offered every second year.

HIST/IGS 180b Modern India: From Partition to the Present
[ djw dl nw oc ss ]

Examines the history, culture, and economy of modern India (1947-2019) with a focus on key concerns, such as the environment, urbanization, gender/sexual relations, and the transformations of democratic politics. Usually offered every second year.

HIST/SOC 170b Gender and Sexuality in South Asia
[ djw nw ss ]

Prerequisite: Sophomore standing or permission of the instructor.

Explores historical and contemporary debates about gender and sexuality in South Asia; revisits concepts of "woman," "sex," "femininity," "home," "family," "community," "nation," "reform," "protection," and "civilization" across the colonial and postcolonial periods. Usually offered every second year.

IGS 165a Revolution, Religion, and Terror: Postcolonial Histories
[ djw nw oc ss ]

Examines religious conflict, revolutionary violence, and civil war in modern South Asia. It looks at Jihad, Maoist militancy, rising fundamentalism, and political violence. Usually offered every second year.

REL/SAS 152a Introduction to Hinduism, Yoga, and the Divine in South Asia
[ hum nw ]

Introduces Hindu practice and thought. Explores broadly the variety of forms, practices, and philosophies that have been developing from the time of the Vedas (ca. 1500 BCE) up to present day popular Hinduism practiced in both urban and rural India. Examines the relations between Hindu religion and its wider cultural, social, and political contexts, relations between the Hindu majority of India and minority traditions, and questions of Hindu identity both in India and abroad. Usually offered every second year.

SAS 150b Love, Sex, and Country: Films from India
[ djw hum nw ]

A study of Hindi films made in India since 1947 with a few notable exceptions from regional film, as well as some recent films made in English. Students will read Hindi films as texts/narratives of the nation to probe the occurrence of cultural, religious, historical, political, and social themes. Usually offered every third year.

SAS 165a Cinemas of India: Caste, Gender, and State
[ djw hum ]

The Indian film industry is the largest in the world, catering to spectators within and outside the country. Often, however, the discussion of Indian cinema limits itself to the Hindi film industry or Bollywood. This course attempts to study cinema in India in different languages and genres through the categories of caste, gender, and state. It traces the beginnings of cinema in India, its development in the post-independence period, and contemporary digital cinema, focusing on Marathi, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam and going beyond a Bollywood-centric approach by complicating the discourse on region and nation. It endeavors to unpack the questions of ideology, aesthetics and affect in Indian cinema by examining the powers of caste, gender, and state in the cultural production of the country and how it is being contested in/through cinema. Special one-time offering, fall 2024.

SAS 180a Introduction to Critical Caste Studies
[ djw hum ]

WGS 135b Postcolonial Feminisms
[ hum oc ]

Examines feminist theories, literature, and film from formerly colonized, Anglophone countries in South Asia, the Caribbean, and Africa. It takes the shared path of decolonization and postcoloniality to discuss the development of feminist discourse and the diverse trajectories of gendered lives. Usually offered every third year.

AAPI/HIS 163a Asian American History
[ deis-us dl ss ]

Provides students an introduction to the history and study of Asian persons in the United States from the mid-19th century to the present, with a focus on how their presence has shaped American institutions, society, and culture. We ask: How does our narrative of the United States shift when we center the experiences of Asian Americans—a group largely excluded or invisibilized in discussions of our nation’s collective past? How does studying Asian Americans push us to think about race and inequality beyond a Black-white binary? How does understanding anti-Asian racism inform our understanding of the US as a gatekeeping nation, at the same time the nation’s leaders purport it to be a melting pot and nation of immigrants? How do global politics and US imperial ventures into Asia—from formal colonial rule in the 19th century to US-waged wars and military interventions abroad in the 20th century—create waves of displaced peoples who are pushed towards America’s shores? Key themes and major events covered in this course include Orientalism, migrant labor, nativism and xenophobia, Chinese exclusion, US colonial empire, Japanese internment, the Cold War, refugees, the Asian American movement, anti-Asian violence and the murder of Vincent Chin, Asian/Black relations and the 1992 LA uprising, religion, islamophobia, the Global War on Terror, and much more. Usually offered every second year.

AAS/AAPI 129b The Spirit of Bandung: Afro-Asian Insurgency and Solidarity
[ deis-us djw ss ]

Examines the racial conflicts between Black and Asian American communities and develops an understanding of how the Afro-Asia political project is an insurgent coalitional project. To do this, we will explore the historical and contemporary struggles, insurgencies, and solidarities of Black and Asian peoples. We will learn together how Afro-Asia serves as an insurgent site of critique, resistance, and revolutionary aesthetics that connects distant geographies, diasporas, and Black and Asian peoples to a global anti-racist, anti-imperialist, and anti-colonial political imaginary. Usually offered every year.

ANTH 111a Aging in Cross-Cultural Perspective
[ djw nw ss wi ]

Examines the meanings and social arrangements given to aging in a diversity of societies, including the U.S., India, Japan and China. Key themes include: the diverse ways people envision and organize the life course, scholarly and popular models of successful aging, the medicalization of aging in the U.S., cultural perspectives on dementia, and the ways national aging policies and laws are profoundly influenced by particular cultural models. Usually offered every second year.

ANTH 158a Urban Worlds
[ dl ss ]

Explores some of the essential concepts of urban theory and conducts an in-depth study of urban experiences around the world. Topics include the city and marginality, urban modernity, gender and public space, gentrification, suburbanization, transportation, transgression, and urban nature. Case studies may be from cities such as Mumbai, Lagos, New York, Paris, Dubai, and Rio de Janeiro. Usually offered every second year.

ANTH 166b Queer Anthropology: Sexualities and Genders in Cross-Cultural Perspective
[ djw oc ss ]

When held together, “Queer Anthropology” might name something akin to a systematic way of cross-culturally studying human sexuality, gender, and desire that runs against the grain of dominant, socially held beliefs of normalcy (or what we now call normative/heteronormative). Sitting with this definition, we will chart the different worlds that Queer Anthropology might enable us to see and imagine. From transfeminine women who claim to experience pregnancy to sex between straight white Frat brothers to lesbian women finding community through anonymous love letters, this course moves between different scales and registers for talking about sexuality, gender, bodies, and difference. Together, we will trace Queer Anthropology's origins, examine its present moments, and speculate on its potential futures. Usually offered every second year.

ECON 176a Health, Hunger, and the Household in Developing Countries
[ djw nw ss ]

Prerequisites: ECON 80a and ECON 184b or permission of the instructor.

Examines aspects of poverty and nutrition that are confronted by households in low-income countries. Examines these issues primarily from a microeconomic perspective, although some macroeconomic angles are explored as well. Usually offered every second year.

FA 33b Islamic Art and Architecture
[ ca djw nw ]

Through case studies of cities, sites, and monuments, the course presents an overview of the art and the architecture of the Islamic world beginning from the seventh century up to the present. Some of the themes include, but are not limited to, Islamic material culture, orientalist imaginations, systems of governance and the colonial present, search for the local identity, urban modernity and nationalism, and globalization. Usually offered every second year.

FA 34a History of Asian Art
[ ca nw ]

A selective survey of the art of the three major Asian areas: India, China, and Japan. Usually offered every second year.

FA 171b Buddhist Art
[ ca nw ]

Surveys Buddhist art and architecture in different parts of the world. Primarily, religious buildings, artworks, and monuments from South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia will be examined within their historical, cultural, and social contexts. Usually offered every fourth year.

HS 236a International Health Systems and Development

Provides students with the framework to understand how health systems are organized and to understand what affects their performance. Students also will be able to describe key features of health systems; how health system performance is measured; and how lessons from other countries can be applied to their own countries. The course examines different health system frameworks, how to use these frameworks to ask health system questions, different aspects of health systems, how national health systems differ, and what measures are being implemented in different countries to improve their health system performance and eventually health outcomes. The course will also take a broader look at the relationships between health policy, economic policy and development policy, examining some of the main economic and development theories shaping global policies and also examine the international institutions and political dynamics in health policy making. Usually offered every year.

HSSP 102a Introduction to Global Health
[ ss ]

A primer on major issues in health care in developing nations. Topics include the natural history of disease and levels of prevention; epidemiological transitions; health disparities; and determinants of health including culture, social context, and behavior. Also covers: infectious and chronic disease incidence and prevalence; the role of nutrition, education, reproductive trends, and poverty; demographic transition including aging and urbanization; the structure and financing of health systems; and the globalization of health. Usually offered every year.

IGS 171a The Asian Wave: Global Pop Culture and its Histories
[ djw ss ]

Asia is not only remaking itself but also exporting images and ideas across the world. This course explores how Asian pop culture shapes global modernity, as countries project their values and aspirations to a global audience through increasing connectivity. Usually offered every second year.

IGS 175a Digital Asia: Democracy in the Internet Age
[ djw dl nw oc ss ]

Analyzes the transformative potential of the internet as an agent of development and as a mechanism for disrupting social and political orders in Asia, home to the world's largest democracy and also the world's largest authoritarian regime. Usually offered every second year.

REL 151a Introduction to Buddhism: Mind and Meditation
[ hum nw ]

Explores Buddhist teachings starting from the life of the Buddha and into the present day. Examines practical Buddhist methods for achieving transformation, inner freedom, and joy, and considers how different Buddhist traditions respond to the challenges of today’s world. Usually offered every year.

SOC 126a South Asian Diasporas
[ deis-us ss ]