Seminar on Subaltern Traditions and Counter-Traditions in South Asia

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Core seminar in South Asian Religions that covers religion as conceived, argued, and practiced by members of non-elite communities, in particular communities historically marginalized in Brahminical discourses. Primarily organized around debates in social theory, the reading list builds on some of the landmark works of the Subaltern Studies collective and moves on to consider recent ethnographic work on religious life in Dalit and Adivasi communities. What is a tradition, anyway? What does caste mean? Is subaltern still a useful analytic category?