Spring 2024 Course Offerings

Elementary Hindi and Urdu II
Subject associations
HIN 102 / URD 102

This course provides the second semester of training in Hindi and Urdu, allowing students to acquire linguistic skills in culturally authentic contexts. Equal emphasis is placed on both Hindi and Urdu, including writing systems, vocabulary, and culture. Course will focus on using language for communication. Students will be able to read and write both Hindi and Urdu scripts, communicate in social situations, and narrate in all three time frames: past, present and future. Classes are interactive.

Instructors
Robert L. Phillips
Intermediate Hindi II
Subject associations
HIN 107

This is a continuing proficiency-based course which refines and expands previously acquired linguistic skills in culturally authentic contexts. Focus is on expanding vocabulary, mastering more complex grammatical structures, and acquiring idiomatic expressions. Use of authentic Hindi materials from print and electronic media, literature, and films. Classroom activities are interactive and collaborative.

Instructors
Robert L. Phillips
Topics in Hindi/Urdu: Poetry, Performance, and the Public Sphere (LA)
Subject associations
HIN 305 / URD 305 / COM 248

Poetry occupies a significantly large space in the public sphere in South Asia. In addition to the expected areas of literature and performing arts, poetry is routinely performed in different domains of everyday life. This course will introduce students to various traditions, texts, and genres of Hindi-Urdu poetry that are routinely publicly performed as part of religious rituals, social practices, performing arts, and protest rallies. We will closely read some of the most widely performed Hindi/Urdu poems as independent literary texts, experience them as performances, and then analyze both texts and performances in their own contexts.

Instructors
Fauzia Farooqui
Elementary Sanskrit II
Subject associations
SAN 102

Continuing from SAN 101, this course provides a firm foundation in Classical Sanskrit grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. Students continue learning the rules for phonological change (sandhi), and other building blocks of Sanskrit grammar. Students will read Sanskrit texts of increasing difficulty, acquire the skill of recitation of Sanskrit poetry in several meters, and learn to compose small but cohesive narratives of medium difficulty in Sanskrit. By the end of the year, students will be ready to read independent texts in a variety of genres, using Sanskrit-English dictionaries and grammars.

Instructors
Nataliya Yanchevskaya
Intermediate Sanskrit II
Subject associations
SAN 107

Strengthens Classical Sanskrit grammar and vocabulary and builds knowledge of South Asian religion and culture through reading selections from Sanskrit epics, narrative, pre-philosophical, didactic, and poetic texts. Together with SAN 105 this course provides students an introduction to the major genres of Sanskrit literature.

Instructors
Nataliya Yanchevskaya
Time through Time: Readings in Advanced Sanskrit (LA)
Subject associations
SAN 305

This course introduces intellectual, philosophical, and poetic tradition of Classical India through readings selected from different Sanskrit texts of various periods, genres, and branches of Indian thought. All the readings are dedicated to the topic of TIME thus showing how this important notion has developed through ages and texts. The course will afford the students an opportunity to get acquainted with works in different genres and types of Sanskrit connected via a common theme. Not only will it show how ideas about time have evolved, but also demonstrate how the Sanskrit language has changed along with the ideas.

Instructors
Nataliya Yanchevskaya
Introduction to South Asian Studies (CD or HA)
Subject associations
SAS 200

This course is a multidisciplinary approach to the field of South Asian Studies with a particular focus on the research of Princeton University faculty. Students will gain and understanding and perspective on the region and how a diverse group of scholars and academic fields explore South Asia including history, literature, culture, politics, and religion. Students will directly engage with primary materials, analyze them within context, develop strong arguments and present their insights in class.

Instructors
Sadaf Jaffer
Gender, Sexuality, and Feminisms in South Asia (SA)
Subject associations
SAS 303 / GSS 412

This course surveys ideas regarding gender and sexuality at various points in the cultural history of South Asia and how these ideas have shaped women's and men's lives and experiences in the society. We examine how different communities pushed against gender norms and cultural expectations using different ideologies and strategies resulting in a diverse range of feminist projects in South Asia. The course explores ideas about gender, sexuality, and feminism in various domains of South Asian life. Apart from reading scholarship on relevant topics, we analyze primary textual sources, such as religious texts, literary genres, and folklore.

Instructors
Fauzia Farooqui
Intermediate Urdu II
Subject associations
URD 107

This is a continuing proficiency-based course which refines and expands previously acquired linguistic skills in culturally authentic contexts. Focus is on expanding vocabulary, mastering more complex grammatical structures, and acquiring idiomatic expressions. Use of authentic Urdu materials from print and electronic media, literature, and films. Equal emphasis on all skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing). Various aspects of the target language culture will be integrated with instruction. Activities will be conducted in Urdu and classes will be interactive.

Instructors
Fauzia Farooqui

Cross-listed with the Program in South Asian Studies

Global Cultures of Dissent (CD or SA)
Subject associations
ANT 318 / SAS 319 / GSS 439

How can dissent be a catalyst for change? What motivates people to challenge power and authority in all their myriad forms? Can acts of dissent be at once political and intimate, public and personal? What do ethnographic methods and anthropology as a discipline bring to the study of dissent? In this course we will examine these questions through an immersion in the multifaceted ways in which people dissent. We will investigate the social and historical underpinnings of dissent vis-à-vis a range of oppressive forces, be they authoritarian states, colonial power, patriarchal orders, or regimes of caste and religion.

Instructors
Harini Kumar
Redesigning Governance: The Globalization of India's Digital Public Infrastructure
Subject associations
EGR 421 / SPI 487 / SAS 421

This course explores the emerging phenomenon of "digital public infrastructures" (DPIs). These efforts -- which typically consist of technologies for identity management, payments, and data exchanges -- have been heralded as critical infrastructure for the twenty-first century economy. DPIs have the potential to spur innovation and economic development and to change the relationship between citizens and the state. The course will examine India's digital stack, which is among the most prominent and well-developed, but will take a global and comparative approach, discussing similar emerging systems in China, the EU and USA.

Instructors
Akash Kapur
Mihir E. Kshirsagar
Gender and Development (CD or SA)
Subject associations
POL 357 / SPI 314 / GSS 399 / SAS 357

This course will examine where and why women and men are not treated equally, how gender inequality impacts human welfare and development, and what works to minimize gender inequality in the Global South. This course will introduce students to cutting-edge research on gender inequality in countries as diverse as India, China, South Korea, Brazil, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, and Mali, as well as the reasons why some government efforts to reduce gender inequality are successful while others fail or even backfire. The course will emphasize the importance of culture and norms.

Instructors
Tanushree Goyal
Race, Caste, and Space: Architectural History as Property History (CD or HA)
Subject associations
URB 305 / SAS 351 / AAS 364 / ARC 325

This course is a cross-comparative spatial history of caste in South Asia and race in the United States. Exploring architecture's deep entanglement in property and capital, students will learn how modern property co-emerged with contextual assemblages of race, caste, class, ethnicity, gender, and citizenship. Taking a comparative and interdisciplinary approach to examine intertwined histories of settler colonial and colonial spatial practices in these different geographies, students will engage humanities research methods through critical reading and writing while simultaneously learning to analyze and draw from visual and material culture.

Instructors
Sonali G. Dhanpal

Questions?

Sam Evans
Program Manager
Call 609-258-2635