SAI’s current South Asian Studies Fellow, Anand Vaidya, and former Fellow, Shankar Ramaswami, will be teaching courses in the spring 2015 term in the South Asian Studies department. Here is a preview:
South Asian Studies 188: South Asian Political Ecology (New Course)
Instructor: Anand Vaidya, SAI South Asian Studies Fellow
Meetings: Spring 2015, Wednesdays, 3-5 pm
Despite great efforts, scientists and activists have found themselves unable to bring about political changes that might reverse environmental degradation. This degradation has been caused by humans, but humans have not able to stop the processes behind it. South Asia is exceptionally vulnerable to the effects of environmental degradation and critical to any global solutions to it. This seminar examines case studies of environmental politics in South Asia to explore fundamental questions about human agency and historical change, to understand how the environment is understood, why efforts to prevent its degradation have failed, and to explore interventions that might succeed
Co-taught by Ajantha Subramanian, Professor, Social Anthropology Program, Harvard University
Contact: avaidya@fas.harvard.edu
South Asian Studies 196: Capitalism and Cosmology in Modern India
Instructor: Shankar Ramaswami, Lecturer on South Asian Studies, Department of South Asian Studies, former SAI South Asian Studies Fellow
Meetings: Spring 2015, Wednesdays, 1-3 pm, One Bow Street, Room 330
This course will explore the lives, politics, and cosmologies of working-class persons in modern India. The course will examine contemporary debates on globalization, development, and ecology; workers’ experiences of factory work, informality, and agitations; and workers’ religious practices, theologies, and cosmological visions. Core concerns of the course will include inquiries into the appropriate categories for understanding workers’ lives and visions, and the possibilities for autonomous, nonviolent politics among working people in India. The course will draw upon a range of sources, including anthropology, history, religious studies, epics, and Hindi cinema.
Note: Offered jointly with the Divinity School as 3529.
Contact: sramaswami@fas.harvard.edu
South Asian Studies 193. Class and the City in Indian Cinema (New Course)
Instructor: Shankar Ramaswami, Lecturer on South Asian Studies, Department of South Asian Studies, former SAI South Asian Studies Fellow
For Undergraduates and Graduates
Meetings: Spring 2015, Mondays, 1-3 pm
This course will examine imaginaries and understandings of class and cities in Indian cinema. How are struggles for earnings and mobility in the city – of migrants, workers, and middle classes – represented in Indian cinema? In what ways is the city viewed as a space of ethical deviations and compromises? How does class shape experiences of friendship, family, and erotic love? What visions of politics, justice, and hope arise in Indian cinema? The course will explore these questions in commercial, art, and documentary films (in Bengali, Hindi, and Marathi, with English subtitles), along with readings in history, anthropology, and cinema studies. Screenings will include films by Satyajit Ray, Guru Dutt, Raj Kapoor, Yash Chopra, Muzaffar Ali, and Anand Patwardhan.
Contact: sramaswami@fas.harvard.edu