Faculty of Arts & Sciences

Instruction in Hindi-Urdu in topics not covered in the regular curriculum.

An introduction to the lingua franca of the subcontinent in its "Hindustani" form. Students are introduced to both the Perso-Arabic and the Devanagari script systems. Conventional teaching materials are supplemented by popular songs and video clips from Bollywood.

A complete first year introduction, in one term, to the lingua franca of the subcontinent in its "Hindustani" form. Students are introduced to both the Perso-Arabic and the Devanagari script systems, encompassing all four skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing.

Continuation of Hindi-Urdu 101. Emphasis on written expression and texts in both Perso-Arabic and Devanagari script systems. Students are introduced to Hindi-Urdu fables, short stories, and various other genres of literature, including poetry.

Continuation of Hindi-Urdu 102; covers topics in advanced grammar; designed to improve proficiency in speaking, listening, reading, and writing.

Continuation of Hindi-Urdu 103a.

A survey of the popular literary genre including selections from poets such as Wali Dakkani, Siraj Aurangabadi, Mir Dard, Haidar Ali Atish, Mirza Ghalib, and others. Special attention to religious and mystical symbolism.

Individual reading course. A course for students with native or near-native proficiency with readings in a variety of genres from Hindi and/or Urdu literature based on student interest.

A course intended to raise levels of oral proficiency for advanced students and consolidate command over complex grammatical structures. By the end of the term, students will be expected to converse in a clearly participatory fashion, initiate, sustain and bring closure to a wide variety of communicative tasks using diverse strategies.

This class focuses on Hindi and Urdu informational media, particularly coverage of current events, to develop knowledge of South Asian regional issues. Vocabulary building is a key aspect of the course. Assignments involve listening exercises aimed at either basic comprehension or close analysis and discussion; drafting news reports; and reading long and short form journalism. Newspaper, TV, radio, and internet news reports and debates are featured, with some exposure to the emerging field of online social media analysis. This course may count towards a citation in Hindi-Urdu.

This course introduces the basic grammatical structures of modern Nepali, enabling students to read and produce simple, standard prose as well as engage in basic conversation by the end of the first year. Nepali is taught with a concern for the cultural context in which this language is spoken and written.

Continuation of Nepali 101a.

This course is designed to provide students with a more sophisticated knowledge of Nepali grammar. Students will also have an opportunity to use Nepali language for communication purposes and will be able to analyze more complex sentence types than the ones taught in the introductory course.

This course is designed to provide students with a more sophisticated knowledge of Nepali grammar. Students will also have an opportunity to use Nepali language for communication purposes and will be able to analyze more complex sentence types than the ones taught in the introductory course.

A reading course in Modern Nepali Literature, suitable for students who have at least three years of Nepali learning. This course is designed to help students understand some of the complex literary materials composed in modern Nepali language. The students will have an opportunity to read a wide variety of selected texts, understand the linguistic systems operative in those writings, and come up with their own informed understanding of them.

A reading course in Modern Nepali Literature, suitable for students who have at least three years of Nepali learning. This course is designed to help students understand some of the complex literary materials composed in modern Nepali language. The students will have an opportunity to read a wide variety of selected texts, understand the linguistic systems operative in those writings, and come up with their own informed understanding of them.

A reading course in Modern Nepali Literature, suitable for students who have at least three years of Nepali learning. This course is designed to help students understand some of the complex literary materials composed in modern Nepali language. The students will have an opportunity to read a wide variety of selected texts, understand the linguistic systems operative in those writings, and come up with their own informed understanding of them

A reading course in Modern Nepali Literature, suitable for students who have at least three years of Nepali learning. This course is designed to help students understand some of the complex literary materials composed in modern Nepali language. The students will have an opportunity to read a wide variety of selected texts, understand the linguistic systems operative in those writings, and come up with their own informed understanding of them.

Investigates the impact of the various non-Nepali speaking groups (janajati)on Nepali literature, as well as their linguistic contributions.

Investigates the impact of the various non-Nepali speaking groups (janajati)on Nepali literature, as well as their linguistic contributions.

Considered sacred by the Theravada Buddhist tradition of Sri Lanka, India and Southeast Asia, as it was held to convey the actual "words of the Buddha", Pali came to be used as an authoritative, cosmopolitan language throughout the Theravada world. Pali texts display a rich variety of genres, including some of the earliest extant Indian poetry. The course is geared toward allowing the student to read Pali texts as quickly as possible.

Continuation of Pali 101a.

Developing the skills gained in Introduction to Pali, the student reads texts of greater linguistic complexity in a wide variety of genres. The choice of text can be influenced by the students' particular interests. Where applicable, we will use the Pali commentarial tradition as a tool to understanding the texts, thus providing the student with access to this illuminating but challenging body of material.

Continuation of Pali 102a.

Supervised reading of texts in Sanskrit not covered by regular courses of instruction.

Introduction to Classical Sanskrit, the translocal language of intellectual life in South Asia for much of the last two millennia. This course provides the essential grammar and reading proficiency necessary to take up the language's many rich literary traditions: scripture (Upanisad), epic (Ramayana and Mahabharata), poetry, Hindu and Buddhist philosophy, etc. After completing the textbook, we will read a narrative (Hitopadesa) drawn from one of the most popular literary works in the pre-modern world.

Continuation of Sanskrit 101a.

A reading course designed to give students the tools necessary for advanced study in Classical Sanskrit. Readings in epic (itihasa) or narrative (katha), poetry (kavya) or systematic thought (sastra) will introduce students to a variety of important genres and their distinctive conventions. A focus upon the Sanskrit tradition's categories of analysis - grammatical, commentarial and prosodic - will enable students to begin to make sense of original Sanskrit texts as generations of the tradition's own readers have.

Continuation of Sanskrit 102a.

This course examines the earliest texts which constitute Vedic Literature. The class will first read selections of the &#7770g Vedic 'apocrypha:' poetic material which was not accepted by all schools of &#7770g Veda. Next, the study of the Atharva Veda will yield insight into early Vedic systems of sorcery, cosmology, and politics. Finally, the focus turns to the earliest Indic prose commentary on the Agnihotra found in the Black Yajur Veda, which will prove foundational to the study of Vedic ritual generally.

Prose texts on ritual and early Indian philosophy are read and analyzed. Special attention is paid to the underlying method of establishing correlations between macro and microcosm in sacrificial proceedings.

Prose texts on early Indian philosophy are read and analyzed. Special attention is paid to the unfolding philosophical terminology. The main focus will lie on the concepts of atman and brahman: essential terms that come to dominate Indian philosophy for centuries. This course will provide the foundation for a successful engagement with philosophy in India.

This course will read selections of the "first kavya" in Epic Sanskrit. The objectives of the course include gaining speed and facility with the Epic poetic tradition, while focusing on the manner in which the text constitutes the figure of "the hero."

Selected readings from classical Sanskrit literature.

Selected readings from classical Sanskrit literary theory.

Topic to be announced.

Topic to be announced.

Reading and discussion of Sutras and Paddhatis.

Presents a history of Vedic texts and religion. Reading of pertinent texts from the period, 1200-500 BCE.

An advanced course for students who have completed at least four years of formal Sanskrit instruction. Texts and topics will vary from year to year.

Supervised reading leading to a long term paper in a topic or topics not covered by regular courses of instruction.

Individualized study of a South Asian language; emphasis on written expression, reading comprehension and oral fluency. Languages currently offered are Bahasa Indonesia and Bengali though others may be approved upon petition to the Director of Undergraduate Studies/Director of Graduate Studies.

This course examines concepts of personhood, community and culture in South Asia as expressed in contemporary film and literature. Works in Hindi-Urdu and in translation will be examined with emphasis on language as an index of cultural difference and of broad social shifts, notably the transformation of audiences from citizens to culture-consumers. Knowledge of Hindi-Urdu is not required. However, there will be a section for students with intermediate proficiency utilizing language materials.

The course discusses current and past approaches to comparative mythology and explores the new field of historical comparative mythology. Close interdisciplinary attention is given to genetics, linguistics and archaeology, and an outline of the development of mythologies from the late Stone Age until the rise of current world religions is presented.

This course aims at describing the methods and tools employed when critically editing Indian (mainly Sanskrit) texts, especially the use of stemma and modern computer-based editing and stemmatic programs, largely borrowed from biology.

This course will examine histories of interactions, conflicts, violence, and nonviolence between Hindus and Muslims in South Asia. The course will begin by discussing histories of conflict, conversion, and syncretism in premodern South Asia, before turning to an exploration of Hindu-Muslim relations under colonialism, with an emphasis on the Mutiny, the nationalist movement, ideas of jihad and ahimsa, and Partition. The course will then delve into the nature and causes of Hindu-Muslim violence in independent India, with a focus on the Ram temple movement and the Gujarat riots. The course will conclude with a discussion of intimations of non-violent interactions, understandings, and co-struggles of Hindus and Muslims in present-day South Asia.

Despite great efforts, scientists and activists have found themselves unable to bring about political changes that might reverse environmental degradation. This degradation has been caused by humans, but humans have not able to stop the processes behind it. South Asia is exceptionally vulnerable to the effects of environmental degradation and critical to any global solutions to it. This seminar examines case studies of environmental politics in South Asia to explore fundamental questions about human agency and historical change, to understand how the environment is understood, why efforts to prevent its degradation have failed, and to explore interventions that might succeed.

The growth of diverse Buddhist traditions of Asia and elsewhere rests on the historical foundation of the evolution of Buddhism in South Asia. This course will examine different forms of historical representation found in both contemporary academic scholarship and pre-modern historical traditions. As a group we will collectively engage with the critical issues and major developments in the study of Buddhism on the South Asian subcontinent.

What prompts a person with a family to pick up a gun and join a militia? What drives a democratic state to engage in indiscriminate violence against its own citizens? Why do people frequently see George Washington as a "freedom fighter" but insurgents in Kashmir as "terrorists"? This course will consider such questions in the context of religious and ethnic conflict in modern South Asia. Using case studies on Gujarat, Kashmir, Panjab, and Nagaland, we will discuss the historical trajectory and dialectical interplay between different forms of nationalism led by Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Nagas in the colonial and post-colonial periods. Materials to be examined will be drawn from a wide range of sources, from theoretical texts and human rights reports to ethnographic accounts and films.

In the beginning of the second millennium, a major literary transformation occurred in South Asia leading to the rise of local literary cultures. The goal of the course is to introduce students to a range of north Indian literary cultures and genres in Awadhi, Bengali, Brajbhasha, Panjabi, Sindhi and Urdu with an emphasis on religious, political and regional identity, and the ways in which literary production intersects with music and art of the region. All reading will be in English and no knowledge of languages of the region is required.

This course will examine imaginaries and understandings of class and cities in Indian cinema. How are struggles for earnings and mobility in the city - of migrants, workers, and middle classes - represented in Indian cinema? In what ways is the city viewed as a space of ethical deviations and compromises? How does class shape experiences of friendship, family, and erotic love? What visions of politics, justice, and hope arise in Indian cinema? The course will explore these questions in commercial, art, and documentary films (in Bengali, Hindi, and Marathi, with English subtitles), along with readings in history, anthropology, and cinema studies. Screenings will include films by Satyajit Ray, Guru Dutt, Raj Kapoor, Yash Chopra, Muzaffar Ali, and Anand Patwardhan.

The objective of the course is to understand the rich and complex history of Hindu-Muslim interactions in one of most diverse regions in the world. Using literature, art, film and critical scholarship, we will study the ways in which religious identities have been negotiated and contested in the public sphere. We will attempt to respond to the question whether religious strife between Hindus and Muslims in South Asia represents a "clash of civilizations" or something more interesting.

This course is an advanced introduction to the literature of the Madhyamaka school of Buddhist thought in South Asia. Our initial goal is to trace the emergence and development of the Madhyamaka philosophical system as articulated by the school's founders and classical interpreters. The second part of the course will focus on the critical encounters of Madhyamaka writers with other South Asian philosophical traditions. Previous coursework in Buddhist studies or South Asian religions will be helpful, but not necessary.

This course will explore the lives, politics, and cosmologies of working-class persons in modern India. The course will examine contemporary debates on globalization, development, and ecology; workers' experiences of factory work, informality, and agitations; and workers' religious practices, theologies, and cosmological visions. Core concerns of the course will include inquiries into the appropriate categories for understanding workers' lives and visions, and the possibilities for autonomous, nonviolent politics among working people in India. The course will draw upon a range of sources, including anthropology, history, religious studies, epics, and Hindi cinema.

Buddhist literary texts were an innovative force in the cultures of many parts of Asia. This course explores major Buddhist themes and genres in India, ranging from biographies of the Buddha, stories of his former lives, tales of magnificent exploits, to poetry and drama, and their continuing forms in other Asian literatures. While reading Asian Buddhist texts in translation, we will examine such questions as the role of language, the different functions of prose and verse, and the extent to which these texts are to be considered Buddhist.

The philosophical writings of the seventh century Indian scholar Candrak&#299rti became increasingly influential in late Indian Buddhism and during the Second Dissemination of Buddhism in Tibet. Since then the interpretation of his thought has occupied a prominent place in the intellectual history of Buddhism. The primary goal of this course is to examine Candrak&#299rti's philosophical ideas through studying his major writings in translation. We will pursue this objective with an attention to Candrak&#299rti's intellectual context and the reception of his work. Prior study of Indian philosophy or Buddhist intellectual history will be helpful but there is no prerequisite for this course.

This course will explore histories, politics, social relations, and subjectivities in modern India through close readings of novels, short stories, and autobiographies. The course will consider the depictions, understandings, and illuminations in these narrative forms of deprivation, conflicts, and intimate relations in villages; nationalism, civil disobedience, and Gandhi; Hindu-Muslim relations and experiences of Partition; and the workings of caste and gender relations in modern India. Readings will include works (in English translation) by Bibhutibhushan Banerji, Munshi Premchand, Rahi Masoom Reza, Saadat Hasan Manto, and U. R. Ananthamurthy.

Reading and discussion of the oldest Indian prose texts. Long despised and derided for alleged illogical contents they constitute instead the beginning of sustained and trenchant discussions. Their underlying method, their narrative and their ritual contents will be discussed, along with an introduction to the language and grammar of Vedic prose, as far as it is different from Classical Sanskrit.

Discusses the origin and development of the seminal Indian concepts of Rebirth and Karma as well as their eventual combination in the Upanishadic period. Follows some of their developments in the subsequent texts and beliefs of the past 2500 years

A detailed treatment of specific topics in Indian Buddhist Philosophy. This term our focus will be the Buddhist theory of momentariness.

This course is designed to help students develop their skills in reading Buddhist texts in Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese. Parallel texts that exist in Sanskrit as well as in Tibetan and Chinese translations will be chosen. The course package will include selection from at least one Yog&#257c&#257ra text, while other Buddhist text traditions will also be represented in the reading materials.

An introduction to the oldest of the Dravidian languages of South India, Tamil holds official language status in Tamil Nadu, Singapore, and Sri Lanka. Tamil has one of the oldest uninterrupted literary traditions in the world, ranging from classical love poetry, devotional compositions and epics to the modern novel and short story. Students will be introduced to the Tamil script and to reading, writing, and speaking. Materials from popular culture will supplement modern teaching materials.

Continuation of Tamil 101a.

Continuation of Tamil 101. Focus will be on further developing reading, writing, and speaking skills. Students will read fables, newspapers, short stories, and other genres of literature including poetry. Tamil cinema and audiovisual materials presenting contemporary and traditional Tamil culture will be used as supplementary class material.

Continuation of Tamil 102a.

Continuation of Tamil 102. Covers topics of advanced grammar and is designed to further develop proficiency in speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Texts include modern literature, classical poetry, devotional literature, epic literature, and selections from minor literary forms. Films and other audiovisual materials will be used as well.

Continuation of Tamil 102. Covers topics of advanced grammar and is designed to further develop proficiency in speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Texts include modern literature, classical poetry, devotional literature, epic literature, and selections from minor literary forms. Films and other audiovisual materials will be used as well.

This course introduces the basic grammatical structures of modern Thai, enabling students to read and produce simple, standard prose as well as engage in basic conversation by the end of the first year. Thai is taught with a concern for the cultural context in which this language is spoken and written.

Continuation of Thai 101a.

A two-term continuation of the study of Thai at the intermediate level. Students build on acquired proficiency at the elementary level (or its equivalent) towards achieving more fluency in reading, speaking, writing, and listening comprehension of standard Thai, as well as in cultural-social skills. Introduces new vocabulary and grammar through communicative tasks and text readings, mainly using the situational-communicative methodology.

Continuation of Thai 102a

This course is designed to focus on reading and comprehension. Selected readings will be both for academic purposes and for pleasure. Students will read newspaper and magazine articles; short stories; and passages covering topics such as history, science, politics, medicine, technology and more. This reading course will help students become more proficient with nuanced/implied meanings, bolster vocabulary and acquire familiarity with various professional jargon.

Continuation of Thai 103ar.

Supervised reading of texts in Tibetan not covered by regular courses of instruction.

A introductory course designed for students with no background in classical Tibetan. Students begin with the Tibetan script, its standard transliteration into Roman characters, and pronunciation before proceeding to the basics of Tibetan grammar. After mastering a foundational vocabulary, students begin translating simple Tibetan texts.

Continuation of Tibetan 101a

An intermediate classical Tibetan course emphasizing reading and translation of various Tibetan texts covering different genres, such as religious history, biography of Tibetan masters and folk literature writings. Please check the course website for the most updated information.

Continuation of 102a.

An introduction to spoken standard Central Tibetan: its phonology and basic grammar and syntactic structures - with drill sessions.

Continuation of Tibetan 104ar.

This course will cover more complex grammatical and syntactic structures of spoken standard Central Tibetan - with drill sessions.

Continuation of Tibetan 105ar.

Continuation of Tibetan 106ar.

This course will examine the geography of Bod and Bod chen po, the division of its territories, and a variety of key place-names from an historical perspective. This will be a seminar-cum-reading course using Tibetan (and some Chinese) sources from the ninth to the nineteenth century.

This course will examine the politics of the Dga' ldan pho brang court and the arts and sciences cultivated by the Fifth Dalai Lama and his governors (sde srid), with special attention given to Sde srid Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho (1653-1705). This will be a seminar-cum-reading course with readings taken from the Fifth Dalai Lama's autobiography, his and Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho's treatises on the astral sciences, and several "afterwords" (par byang) to the xylograph-publications that they sponsored.

This course introduces two histories of Tibet. The first history begins from the remote past, covering the evolution of political, religious and ideological institutions on the Tibetan plateau from the 7th century until the present. The second history is that of the more recent past, when the first history was used, misused or abused in the scholarly domain and beyond. The close intermingling of these two histories - and the frequent pretense of one as the other - makes "Tibet" uniquely useful in our understanding the very nature of the humanistic inquiry that we call history. Instead of looking at the Tibetan plateau as a self-sufficient unit of historical analysis, this course situates the Tibetan plateau between China, India, Central Asia, Western Asia and the "West." Specifically, students will be introduced to themes such as: the changing domains of the Tibetan cultural areas; Buddhism's historical and historiographical conquests of Tibet; the usefulness of the vocabulary "Golden" as well as "Dark" ages in linear historical narratives; the process of consecration of historical persons such as Songtsen Gampo and the Dalai Lamas; the subjugation of and resistence to Tibet as a part of "Chinese" history; the highly contextual representations of Tibet and Tibetan history. No prior knowledge is required.

This course will focus on a select number of Tibetan texts uncovered from the Dunhuang area at the beginning of the twentieth century, texts that do not postdate the early eleventh century. The subject matter of the selected texts will range from historiography, belles lettres, and Buddhist theory and practice.

In this course, we will be reading different kinds of inscriptions from the eighth to the ninth century. Special attention will be given to several of these, including the famous Sino-Tibetan inscription of 822-3.

In this course, we will be reading &#346a&#7749karasv&#257min's primer on logic, the Ny&#257yaprave&#347a, using the Sanskrit text, the two slightly different Tibetan translations, and the Chinese translation.

An intermediate to advanced reading class in Tibetan religious literature. The topic in Spring 2013 is Tibetan historiography. We will read several outstanding works that recount the past, including histories of the world, of Buddhism, of specific traditions, and of specific monasteries and places. Each present disparate notions of the past and its status vis-a-vis the present, how knowledge should be constituted and organized, how various discursive and poetic forms can effect that presentation, what kinds of things are most important to recount, and what is thereby accomplished.

Various Tibetan biographies of the life of this influential scholar will be examined and special problem areas will be analyzed in full detail.