This course seeks to introduce students to the diversity of doctrines held and practices performed by Buddhists in Asia. By focusing on how specific beliefs and practices are tied to particular locations and particular times, we will be able to explore in detail the religious institutions, artistic, architectural, and musical traditions, textual production and legal and doctrinal developments of Buddhism over time and within its socio-historical context. Religion is never divorced from its place and its time. Furthermore, by geographically and historically grounding the study of these religions we will be able to examine how their individual ethic, cosmological and soteriological systems effect local history, economics, politics, and material culture. We will concentrate first on the person of the Buddha, his many biographies and how he has been followed and worshipped in a variety of ways from Lhasa, Tibet to Phrae, Thailand. From there we touch on the foundational teachings of the Buddha with an eye to how they have evolved and transformed over time. Finally, we focus on the practice of Buddhist ritual, magic and ethics in monasteries and among aly communities in Asia and even in the West. This section will confront the way Buddhists have thought of issues such as "Just-War," Women's Rights and Abortion. While no one quarter course could provide a detailed presentation of the beliefs and practices of Buddhism, my hope is that we will be able to look closely at certain aspects of these religions by focusing on how they are practiced in places like Nara, Japan or Vietnam, Laos.

This course seeks to introduce students to the diversity of doctrines held and practices performed by Buddhists in Asia. By focusing on how specific beliefs and practices are tied to particular locations and particular times, we will be able to explore in detail the religious institutions, artistic, architectural, and musical traditions, textual production and legal and doctrinal developments of Buddhism over time and within its socio-historical context. Religion is never divorced from its place and its time. Furthermore, by geographically and historically grounding the study of these religions we will be able to examine how their individual ethic, cosmological and soteriological systems effect local history, economics, politics, and material culture. We will concentrate first on the person of the Buddha, his many biographies and how he has been followed and worshipped in a variety of ways from Lhasa, Tibet to Phrae, Thailand. From there we touch on the foundational teachings of the Buddha with an eye to how they have evolved and transformed over time. Finally, we focus on the practice of Buddhist ritual, magic and ethics in monasteries and among aly communities in Asia and even in the West. This section will confront the way Buddhists have thought of issues such as "Just-War," Women's Rights and Abortion. While no one quarter course could provide a detailed presentation of the beliefs and practices of Buddhism, my hope is that we will be able to look closely at certain aspects of these religions by focusing on how they are practiced in places like Nara, Japan or Vietnam, Laos.

Caste is one of the oldest surviving forms of hierarchy, and it has many avatars and forms. While color is a recent invention that has taken the form of race, ethnicity, and nationality in the West, caste refers to a much older order comprising diverse socio-cultural relations. This course explores these systems of hierarchies through the lens of caste and color tracing how 20th-century political upheavals—from global decolonization to the U.S. Civil Rights movement—to the Reconstruction of modern Europe—reshaped how we understand identity and belonging in a mobile, post-war world. We will examine iconic movements from the 1920s to 2020s, including anti-caste resistance in India and Nepal, as well as the Civil Rights Campaigns and Black Solidarity Movements of the UK and beyond.

This course will look at Urdu-Hindi expressions of resistance to militant fundamentalism trends, as well as literature resisting the influence of liberal progressive thought. Through comparisons of these divergent trends, we will explore the real inersections, comfortable comprises and contradictions that are internalized by people on the ground in developing societies. The historical and linguistic roots of resistance poetry will be studied, contrasting South Asian Urdu-Hindi poetry and prose (original and translated) with resistance movements from other parts of the world. This course provides students with the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of Urdu culture, literature, and society while expanding and refining their Urdu language skills. We will explore various social, political, and cultural issues through authentic sources such as journalism and media, prose literature and poetry, and film and music. The course is designed to be flexible to address students' needs and interests. It targets students with two years of Urdu study or the equivalent proficiency. Prerequisite: Intermediate reading, writing and speaking skills in Urdu are recommended but contact the instructor if you are unsure of your eligibility and want to discuss further.

Can we deploy a comparative lens to understand the categories of caste and race better? Does their juxtaposition illuminate new facets of these two structures of ‘global inequalities’? The course seeks to explore these questions by systematically studying how both caste and racial institutions, structures, and identities were historically produced, transformed, and challenged through their global circulation from the nineteenth-century to the present. Caste and race have been old co-travelers, and their various points of intersection can be traced at least to the nineteenth century. And so, in this course we will embark upon a historical adventure, one replete with stories of violence, political intrigue, intense emotions, as also episodes of incandescent resistance. Together, we will trace the genealogy of how modern categories of ‘caste’ and ‘race’ were systematically composed by colonial knowledge production, orientalist writings, and utilitarian discourse, both in Europe and the colonies. While colonialism and the global hegemony of European modernity were crucial to the co-constitution and the circulation of caste and race, anti-caste and anti-race politics too have historically brought a unique comparative lens to these two categories. And so, this course will also include a close analysis of critical works on caste and race by activists and intellectuals from the nineteenth century to the present from all over the world.

This course will serve as an introduction to frameworks for studying gender and sexuality through the lens of early modern South Asian history, literature, and art, covering what are today the countries of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Taking the fundamental questions of “what is gender?” and “what is sexuality?” as our starting point, we will examine the diversity of social practices and beliefs related to these concepts expressed in early modern South Asian writings and visual art, as well as how this past relates to contemporary debates, in contexts including Hindu mystical traditions, Islamic courtly culture, and early colonial society. The course will emphasize direct engagement with primary sources ranging from memoirs, legal documents and advice manuals to mystical tales, satirical poetry, and paintings. Topics covered include formulations of masculinity and femininity, notions of the home and the family, representations of queer sex and desire, and conceptualizations of the categories of intersex and transgender. Students will complete the course with an understanding of comparative lenses for thinking about gender and sexuality in addition to proficiency in applying and interpreting those lenses in relation to a variety of sources, from literature to technical prose to visual culture. No prior knowledge of South Asian history, languages or literature is required.