History beyond Empires and Nations: Kashmir 1846-2020

This course examines how histories of borderlands and margins, emanating from empires and nationstates, turn them into simultaneous objects of desire and control. Through the example of Kashmir—long conceptualized as a famed paradisaical land, which in the postcolonial era turned into a politically disputed and a heavily militarized zone—we will critically parse through orientalist, nationalist, academic, and popular histories about such regions. Building upon comparisons with similarly contested sites such as Palestine, the course will center a people’s understanding of the history of a place through an exploration of counter historical narratives, literary works, protest music, and poetry.