Current Debates in Modern South Asia

Abbreviated Course Description: This course provides a survey of the debates currently occupying scholarship on South Asia. Topics will include – the impacts of colonial modernity; the divergences as well as traffic between class, caste, and religion; the politics of representation in a democracy; forms of relatedness across intimate and geological scales; the distance or proximity between law and violence; the psychic and social consequences of economic liberalization. Throughout the course, we will examine debates over the pertinence of concepts considered to be from elsewhere to understanding South Asian life. Readings are drawn from the disciplines of anthropology, history, sociology, literary studies, political science, and media studies.