This course introduces students to the history, texts, philosophies and rituals of South Asia's oldest living religious traditions, represented today by the term "Hinduism." At the same time, it problematizes the idea of a monolithic "Hindu Tradition", in favor of an approach that recognizes several distinct, dynamic, yet symbiotic Hindu religious cultures. The course also places emphasis on the vitality of today's Hinduism(s), and the various historical, ritual, cultural, and social contexts that they represent and constitute. The course is organized around six modules: (1)Issues in the Academic Study of Hinduism; (2) Sanskrit (textual) tradition; (3) Philosophy; (4) Theology; (5) Ritual; and (6) Modernity and Contemporary Politics.

Premodern India produced some of the world's greatest myths and stories: tales of gods, goddesses, heroes, princesses, kings and lovers that continue to capture the imaginations of millions of readers and hearers. In this course, we will look closely at some of these stories especially as found in Purana-s, great compendia composed in Sanskrit, including the chief stories of the central gods of Hinduism: Visnu, Siva, and the Goddess. We will also consider the relationship between these texts and the earlier myths of the Vedas and the Indian Epics, the diversity of the narrative and mythic materials within and across different texts, and the re-imagining of these stories in the modern world.

Drawing on the archaeology and landscape history of South Asia, this seminar explores place-making and social geographies as they play out through a series of inter-related themes: situated history, embodiment, monumentality, social memory, and appropriation. We consider approaches to site, monument, and image as experienced and construed through audience, circumstance, and politics; and how these conditions both inform and transform the meaningful construction of place, commemoration, and heritage. This discussion sets the stage for a broader consideration of the politics of heritage in contemporary South Asia.

This course surveys transformations in visual culture between the Mughal and British empires in India from the mid-eighteenth through the nineteenth centuries. We shall consider changes in artistic production, patronage, publics, and viewing protocols in the contexts of the court and bazaar. We shall examine the emergence of new technologies and its impact on visual forms, media, and genres, focusing on the interplay of photography, print, and painting. We shall explore the role of institutions -the art school, the museum, and the archeological survey- and the professions and practices they engendered. We shall analyze how architecture and urban planning created new built environments and social relationships in colonial India. We shall view objects first-hand in the Penn Museum, Penn Libraries, and Philadelphia Museum of Art. This is a reading- and writing-intensive course. Students with a background in related disciplines such as literature, history, religion, anthropology, and South Asian Studies are welcome.

This seminar engages topics in the history and theory of South Asian art from antiquity to the present emphasizing global connections and comparisons. Topics vary from year to year and might include the arts of the book in South Asia; Indian Ocean art worlds; and fragments, ruins, and traces in the art of South Asia. We shall explore objects in area collections and incorporate special excursions and programs when possible. A background in South Asian studies or languages is not required. Students from related disciplines such history, anthropology, literary studies, religious studies, feminist studies, cinema and media studies, and architecture are welcome.

This course on women in South Asian history has four objectives - 1. To acquaint ourselves with the historiography on South Asian women. 2. To gain an understanding of evolving institutions and practices shaping women's lives, such as the family, law and religious traditions. 3. To understand the impact of historical processes - the formation and breakdown of empire, colonialism, nationalism and decolonization - upon South Asian women between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. 4. To become familiar with some of the significant texts written about and by women in this period. We will read a wide variety of primary sources including a Mughal princess' account, devotional verse authored by women, conduct books, tracts, autobiographies and novels.

This lecture course will examine the relationship between religion and politics in a region which has seen renewed conflicts in the name of religious communities over the past thirty years: South Asia. The course will cover the history of such conflicts between 1800 and 2000 C.E., and the genealogy of present-day conflicts, whether rooted in the recent past or in the distant past. The emphasis will be on political patronage of religious shrines and its converse, iconoclasm; on religious conversions; on clashes that were perceived as clashes between religious communities; on doctrinal and legal reforms of religious traditions and on popular religious movements and their appeal at particular historical moments. We will explore the politics of religion and of religious affiliation from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries by reading primary sources and reviewing the rich historiography. No prior knowledge of South Asia is expected.

In the nineteenth century, philology was forged as a preeminent “science” that defined what it meant to be a rigorous scholar. Comparative philology, often modeled on the philological methods of Classical Studies, became central to the founding of Oriental Studies departments and, later, Area Studies departments. Philological methods, privileging the study of language, historical linguistics, and grammar, left a lasting mark on Area Studies fields and debates about the relationship between language, culture, history, and religion.
This course surveys a history of philology, its critiques and its revivals across Classical Studies and Area Studies, alongside alternative reading practices informed by intersectional scholarship, postcolonial theory, and queer theory. In this course, we will read and discuss scholarship alongside applied examples of philological and alternative close-reading methods drawn from a range of Area Studies disciplines. This course is open to graduate students working across disciplines and historical periods who want to engage in close reading of literary texts, textual archives, or oral archives. The course will prepare students to evaluate the stakes of reading practices in their own scholarship.

A continuation of Tabla I, also open to beginning students.