LangAsia 300 Topics in Languages and Cultures of Asia

Metaphor and Migration: Writing in the South Asian Diaspora taught by Aparna Dharwadker

This course will introduce students to some major fiction, poetry, drama, and film produced by authors of the South Asian diaspora in Europe, the Caribbean, and North America. We will consider the historical, political, and sociological factors that have shaped patterns of migration from the subcontinent since about 1835, and rapid transformations in the nature of diaspora itself due to large-scale decolonization, changes in immigration law, transnational impulses, and the economics of globalization. The discussion of primary works will focus on the relation of geography to literary form and language, the processes of acculturation and identity formation, and the ubiquitous tensions between home/nation and the cultures of the countries of adoption. The course will attempt to "place" South Asian diasporic subjects of both genders in various locations, and in the changing socio-economic as well as political landscapes of the later twentieth century.

Modern Fiction from South Asia taught by Vinay Dharwadker

This course will focus on the study of prose fiction from the Indian subcontinent and its diaspora, written between 1875 and the present. The lectures, class discussion, and reading list will cover three main areas: (a) various theories of narrative and methods of analysis that help us understand novels, novellas, and short stories; (b) selected prose fiction by men and women authors, in different genres and styles from several South Asian literary languages and traditions, in English and in translation; and (c) scholarly criticism on these writers and works and on their historical and cultural contexts. Among the major writers on our reading list will be Rabindranath Tagore and Mahashweta Devi (Bengali), Premchand (Hindi), Sadat Hasan Manto and Qurratulain Hyder (Urdu), and Anita Desai, Bharati Mukherjee, and Rohinton Mistry (English). Background materials will include major films based on texts by Tagore and Premchand. Class activities will include lectures, discussions, and student presentations; assignments will consist of quizzes, a team-research project, two short papers, and a substantial essay-type final.

620 Proseminar: Studies in South Asian Religions

Theravada Buddhism taught by Charles Hallisey

An introduction to the diversity of thought, practice, and experience in the Theravadin communities of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.

LangAsia 873 Seminar in Languages and Literatures of South Asia

South Asian Literature in English taught by Vinay Dharwadker

This seminar will focus on three main areas of current research interest: (a) the social history of the English language on the Indian subcontinent, from the late 16th century to the present; (b) the general history of South Asian literary culture in English since the late 18th century; and (c) individual writers and their works, selected from the English-language literatures of India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka and their modern diasporas. The study of the
life of the English language in South Asia will involve readings in political and social history, anthropology, linguistics, and theory. The literary history of subcontinental writing in English will draw upon a variety of historical, theoretical, and interpretive studies in the humanities. The discussion of particular writers and texts will provide students with introductions to early figures like Din Muhammad, Rammohun Roy, Henry Derozio, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Toru Dutt, and Manmohan Ghose; and to more recent figures, such as Sarojini Naidu, R. K. Narayan, Raja Rao, Mulk Raj Anand, and G. V. Desani. More intensive discussion will concentrate on a range of contemporary figures, drawing on the literary output of Zulfikar Ghose and Sara Suleri (Pakistan); Salman Rushdie (India and Pakistan); Anita Desai, Bharati Mukherjee, Amitav Ghosh, Rohinton Mistry, Arundhati Roy, and Amit Chaudhuri (India); and Michael Ondaatje, Jean Aarasanayagam, Shyam Selvadurai, and Romesh Gunesekera (Sri Lanka). The seminar will seek to provide each student with a broad interdisciplinary foundation for productive research in South Asian literatures in English and in related fields; and will offer him or her an opportunity to explore particular writers, texts, genres, and issues in depth. Assignments will include a presentation on a historical topic; a bibliographic project; a short paper on a topic in theoretical, biographical, or interpretive criticism; and a substantial reserach paper on an author, a text, or a research problem of the student's choice. The discussion throughout the semester will be comparative and cross-cultural; it will cover poetry, fiction, and various forms of narrative and discursive prose; and it will refer to an unusually large selection of major women writers. This seminar will therefore be useful for students working more broadly in modern South Asia, in colonial and postcolonial studies, in English or Anglophone literatures in other parts of the world, and in comparative literature, gender studies, and cultural studies.