1 Cultures and Contexts: India – CORE UA-516 Spring 2020/TTH 9:30-10:45 AM/Silver 414 Professor: Tejaswini Ganti Recitations Teaching Assistant: Leela Khanna 003: Friday 9:30-10:45AM – GCASL 384 004: Friday 11:00-12:15AM – Bobst LL142 Office: 25 Waverly Place, # 503 Hours: Mon. 3:00-4:30pm or by appointment Phone: 998-2108 Email: [email protected] COURSE DESCRIPTION This course introduces the history, culture, society, and politics of modern India. Home to over one billion people, eight major religions, twenty official languages (with hundreds of dialects), histories spanning several millennia, and a tremendous variety of customs, traditions, and ways of life, India is almost iconic for its diversity. We examine the challenges posed by such diversity as well as how this diversity has been understood, represented, and managed, both historically and contemporarily. Topics to be covered include the politics of representation and knowledge production; the long histories of global connections; colonialism; social categories such as caste, class, ethnicity, gender, and religion; projects of nation-building; and popular culture. LEARNING OBJECTIVES § To recognize that knowledge about a country/region/community whether it is historical or cultural is never produced in a vacuum but is always inflected by issues of power. § To develop the ability to question our assumptions and interrogate our commonsensical understandings about India that are circulated through the media, political commentary, and self- appointed cultural gatekeepers. § To recognize that what we take as given or as essential social and cultural realities are, in fact, constructed norms and practices that have specific histories. EXPECTATIONS § Attendance is mandatory and it will count for 5% of your grade § All assignments must be completed for a passing grade in the course. § Deadlines: EXTENSIONS WILL NOT BE GIVEN [except for authorized medical reasons/emergencies] § LATE WORK PENALTY: each day that an assignment is late, you will lose a half letter grade, i.e. if you turn in an assignment late by one day, and it was determined to be an A, you’ll get an A-, if it’s two days late, then a B+, etc. § Imagine you’re on a flight to India – all cell phones and electronic devices should be turned off. § Unless you have a very good reason, which you have to clear with me – please do not use laptops in my class. § Finally, please use the restroom before or after class and not during, as it is very distracting to have people exiting and entering the classroom during the lecture period. GRADING I. Exams: 55% 1) Midterm Exam - 25%; this exam will be comprised of two equally weighted components: 2 a) Take-Home Due MARCH 5 – uploaded by 5pm on NYU Classes i) A take-home, open-book, open-note portion that will consist of a series of essay questions. The questions for this portion of the exam will be distributed in advance [by Feb. 27] and you will have one week to complete them. b) IN CLASS EXAM, MARCH 12 i) An in-class portion that will be primarily short answer, identification and other objective elements. 2) Final Exam - 30% - Like the midterm this will be comprised of two equally weighted components: a) IN CLASS EXAM, MAY 7 [last day of class] i) An in-class portion that will be primarily short answer, identification and other objective elements covering material after the Midterm. b) Take-Home Due MAY 11 -- – uploaded by 5 PM on NYU Classes i) This will be a cumulative exam comprised of a series of essay questions that will be distributed in advance [by April 30]. II. Paper – 20% [More specific instructions and descriptions will be available on the course’s Classes site]. § Narrating/Mediating Caste [2000-3000 words]: DUE April 2, uploaded on NYU Classes by 5pm. This paper asks you to reflect upon and compare the representation and treatment of caste in the autobiography, Joothan, by Dalit writer Omprakash Valmiki and the recent Hindi film, Article 15. III. Recitations – 20%: Attendance is mandatory and the grade is broken down in the following way: § Discussion/Exercises – 15%: You may receive short homework assignments periodically in your recitation. § Attendance – 5%: if you miss more than 3 recitations [including those for which you have a valid excuse], you will receive a zero for this portion of your grade. IV. Attendance – 5%: once again, attendance is mandatory and your grade will suffer if you don’t come to class RECAP OF DUE DATES March 5: Take-home portion of midterm uploaded on NYU Classes by 5pm March 12: In-Class Midterm April 2: Narrating/Mediating Caste paper uploaded on NYU Classes by 5pm May 7: In-Class Final May 11: Take-home final exam uploaded on NYU Classes by 5pm COURSE MATERIALS § Required Texts [books available at the campus bookstore] Davis, Richard H. 2009 Global India circa 100 CE: South Asia in Early World History. Association for Asian Studies. Jeffrey, Craig 2017 Modern India: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford U.P. Kapoor, Raj 1951 Awara [feature film – available on YouTube] 3 Mines, Diane P. 2009 Caste in India. Association for Asian Studies. Valmiki, Omprakash 2003 Joothan: An Untouchable’s Life, transl. from Hindi by Arun Prabha Mukherjee. Columbia U.P. § There will also be a series of readings available for you to read/download/print from the course’s NYU Classes site, these will be marked with a C on the syllabus Special Accommodations If you have a disability, which may require classroom, test-taking, or other reasonable modifications, please see me as soon as possible and be sure to register with the Center for Students with Disabilities (212-998-4980). COURSE OUTLINE PART I: INDIA IN THE WORLD Wk 1 Tue. 1/28 Introduction Readings: Jeffrey, Craig 2017 Modern India: A Very Short Introduction, pp. 1-10 (Ch. 1 – “Hope”) Thu. 1/30 Representations of India Over Time Readings[C]: Asher, Catherine B. & Cynthia Talbot 2006 Introduction: situating India, In India Before Europe, Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-24. Metcalf, Barbara D. 2009 “Islam in South Asia in Practice;” In Islam in South Asia in Practice, pp. xvii-xxv. Singer, Milton 1972 Passage to More than India: A Sketch of Changing European and American Images, In When a Great Tradition Modernizes, New York: Praeger, pp. 1-38. Wk 2 Agents of Globalization in Early World History Tue. 2/4 Readings: Davis, Richard H. 2009 Global India circa 100 CE: South Asia in Early World History. [all] Khair, Tabish, et. al. 2005 “Three Chinese Scholars go “West” to India (5th-7th century), In Other Routes: 1500 Years of African and Asian Travel Writing, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 32-41. Thu. 2/6 Readings[C]: Metcalf, Barbara D. 2009 “A Historical Overview of Islam in South Asia.” In Islam in South Asia in Practice, pp. 1-20. Khair, Tabish, et. al. 2005 “Al-Buruni’s Defence of Hindu India (1030 AD)” In Other Routes: 1500 Years of African and Asian Travel Writing, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 78-84. 4 Wk 3 INDIA IN THE COLONIAL WORLD SYSTEM Tue. 2/11 Readings[C]: Bose, Sugata & Ayesha Jalal 2003 Modern South Asia, 2nd ed. ch. 7, “The First Century of British Rule, 1757-1857” Dutt, Romesh Chunder 1901 “The Causes of India’s Poverty” from The Economic History of India Under Early British Rule. In Sources of Indian Tradition, Ed. Stephen Hay, 2nd ed. Volume 2, 1988, Columbia University Press, pp. 120-27. Jeffrey, Craig 2017 Modern India: A Very Short Introduction, pp. 11-33 (Ch. 2 – “Colonial India: impoverishment”) Robins, Nick 2006 The Corporation that Changed the World: How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational, ch. 4: pp. 58-80. Thu. 2/13 Readings[C]: Bose, Sugata & Ayesha Jalal 2003 Modern South Asia, 2nd ed. ch. 9, “Eighteen Fifty-Seven: Rebellion, Collaboration and the Transition to Crown Raj.” ch. 10, “High Noon of Colonialism, 1858-1914: State and Political Economy.” Macauley, Thomas Babington 1835 “Minute on Indian Education” In Postcolonialisms: An Anthology of Cultural Theory and Criticism. Eds. Gaurav Desai & Supriya Nair. 2005. Rutgers. pp. 121-31. Metcalf, Barbara D. 2009 “Islam in Colonial India: Law, Jihad, and Mutiny.” In Islam in South Asia in Practice, pp. 20- 22. Wk 4 GLOBAL CULTURAL FLOWS: MUSIC Tue. 2/18 Origins and History of Jazz in India Readings[C]: Fernandes, Naresh. 2012 Taj Mahal Foxtrot: The Story of Bombay’s Jazz Age. Roli Books. “Forgetting the Ganges”; “Bombay Speed”; “Attaining Hindustanese”; “Italians of the East”; “Black Commotion”; “Indian Theme”; “Music Without Birth Control”; “Damned Good Show”; pp. 12-17; 20-33; 44-53; 54-63; 65-77; 98-107; 110-125; 138-155. 2011 “Remembering Anthony Gonsalves,” In The Greatest Show on Earth: Writings on Bollywood. Ed. Jerry Pinto. New Delhi: Penguin, pp. 271-81. Thu. 2/20 Cosmopolitan Nature of Film Music Readings[C]: Beaster-Jones, Jason 2014 Bollywood Sounds: The Cosmopolitan Mediations of Hindi Film Song. New York: Oxford University Press, ch. 1: “Bollywood Sounds”; ch. 3: “But My Heart Is Still Indian”; ch. 5: “Songs in the Key of the Angry Young Man and the Cabaret Woman” Shope, Bradley 2014 “Latin American Music in Moving Pictures and Jazzy Cabarets in Mumbai, 1930s-1950s,” In More than Bollywood: Studies in Indian Popular Music. Eds. Gregory Booth & Bradley Shope. 5 New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 201-15. Wk 5 GLOBAL CULTURAL FLOWS: CINEMA *Please watch Awara prior to this class Tue. 2/25 Hindi Cinema as a Cultural Hybrid Readings[C]: Ganti, Tejaswini 2013 Bollywood: A Guidebook to Popular Hindi Cinema. London: Routledge Press, chs. 1,3,4 Kesavan, Mukul 1994 “Urdu, Awadh and the Tawaif: the Islamicate roots of Hindi Cinema,” In Forging Identities: Gender, Communities and the State in India.