Center for South Asian Studies       University of Michigan
SAS 501                              Fall 2012

SYLLABUS

Course Title: South Asia Proseminar

Class Schedule: Tuesday, 4-6, 3353 MH
Office Hours: 2527 Haven Hall, Thurs. 1:30-2:30 and by appt.
Instructor: Juan Cole
Telephone: 764-6305; e-mail: j r c o l e /at/ u m i c h /dot/ e d u

This course introduces MA students and others to the field of South Asian studies through weekly readings and discussions, especially taking account of the work of University of Michigan faculty in this field.

Optional coursepack at Dollar Bill's, 611 Church St.

Texts:

Leela Fernandes, India's New Middle Class: Democratic Politics in an Era of Economic Reform (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2006).

William S. Glover, Making Lahore Modern (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2007)

Class Sessions

Sept. 4      Orientation

Sept. 11      Late Mughal India

     Juan Cole, Roots of North Indian Shi'ism in Iran and Iraq (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), first half (online).

     Cole, Roots of North Indian Shi'ism, second half (online).

      Suzana Sawyer and Arun Agrawal, "Environmental Orientalisms," Cultural Critique, No. 45 (Spring, 2000), pp. 71-108
      Arun Agrawal, "The State Formation in Community Spaces? Decentralization of Control over Forests in the Kumaon Himalaya, India" The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Feb., 2001), pp. 9-40
      Jennifer Wenzel, "Epic Struggles over India's Forests in Mahasweta Devi's Short Fiction," Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, No. 18, (1998 ) pp. 127-158.

      Aswin Punathambekar, Bollyspace 2.0
      Reading on Indian Idol at C-Tools, "Resources"

PRECIS DUE OCT. 4

Oct. 9      Farina Mir

Farina Mir, "Genre and Devotion in Punjabi Popular Narratives" (Review Article): Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 48, No. 3 (Jul., 2006), pp. 727-758.
Farina Mir, "Imperial policy, provincial practices," The Indian Economic and Social History Review Vol. 43, Issue 4. Date: 10/2006 Pages: 395-427.

Oct 23       Gender and Modern Indian History Pt. I

    Sinha, Specters of Mother India, Chs. 1-3

    Sinha, Specters of Mother India, chs. 4-5, epilogue

      H. A. Rizvi, "Democracy in Pakistan," PANORAMA: INSIGHTS INTO ASIAN AND EUROPEAN AFFAIRS, 02/10 (CTOOLs Resources)
      Matthew Hull, "The File: Agency, Authority, and Autography in a Pakistan Bureaucracy," Language and Communication, 23(2003), 287-314 (CTOOLs Resources)
      Matthew Hull, "Ruled by Records: The Appropriation of Land and the Misappropriation of Lists in Islamabad," American Ethnologist, Vol. 34, No. 4 (2008). (CTOOLs Resources)
      Matthew Hull, "Democratic Technologies of Speech: From WWII America to Post-colonial Delhi," Journal of Linguistic Anthropology ,Vol 20, no. 2, 2010.(CTOOLs Resources)

Will Glover, Making Lahore Modern"

      Leela Fernandes, India's New Middle Class, chs. 1-3

Nov. 27     Buddhism

Lopez, Buddhism and Science

      Leela Fernandes, India's New Middle Class, chs. 4-5