Harvard offers a wide array of courses on South Asia, ranging from language to history, politics, economics, religion, and much more. Check out a selection of what is offered during Spring 2025. Please refer to the Course Catalog for the most up-to-date information. We will continue to add to this list as we hear about more courses.
Each semester, the Mittal Institute offers grants to Harvard students to further their research, language study, or internship opportunities. For winter 2024-25, 14 students received funding to pursue projects across five countries. Their work spans a wide range of topics, from rethinking urban waste infrastructure in Mumbai, to studying opium economies across empires, to developing AI solutions for disaster response.
As 2024 draws to a close, we reflect on the meaningful research, engaging events, and vibrant community that define the Mittal Institute. To bid the year a proper farewell, we’ve curated a list of our most newsworthy highlights. And as we step into 2025, we do so with a sense of optimism and ambition. Here’s to a year filled with possibility, progress, and purpose.
The Mittal Institute is excited to announce the release of the 2023–24 Year in Review and 2023–24 Arts Program reports. Like every year, the comprehensive Year in Review Report includes updates on all major faculty-led programs, lists awards and fellowships, highlights the work of students, student organizations, and scholars, and summarizes events and other achievements. The Arts Program Report highlights the incredible impact and accomplishments of the Mittal Institute’s various arts initiatives, which include fellowships, exhibitions, and events. Both reports offer valuable insights into the institute’s mission of connecting Harvard with South Asia.
The winter chill in the air invites us to slow down and savor one of life’s simple pleasures: a good book. Reading in the winter is a ritual of comfort, reflection, and escape. We invite you to explore our list of reading recommendations – there is sure to be something for everyone on this list! We hope it inspires your own reading pursuits. We would also love to hear some of your recommendations. Tag us on Instagram or Twitter with #HarvardSouthAsiaReads. Happy reading!
The Mittal Institute’s Visiting Artist Fellowship is a unique opportunity for mid-career visual artists from around South Asia to spend eight weeks on the Harvard campus. The program differs from a typical artist residency program in that it is research-centered, providing artists with the vast resources of Harvard’s intellectual community to enhance their artistic practice. Applications are open until January 9, 2025.
The Seed for Change (SFC) student grant competition provides up to $30,000 to bold, creative student projects that have the potential for widespread impact in India. Applications are open until February 7, 2025.
This winter, three Harvard Law School students will be the inaugural cohort of interns with a judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, based in Islamabad, Pakistan, through a new program facilitated by the Mittal Institute called the HLS J-Term Clinical Internship. Through this internship, students will get an opportunity to attend the court proceedings at the Supreme Court, prepare bench memorandums, conduct legal research, draft opinions, assist the Honorable Justice on complex cross-cutting legal issues, and contribute to the overall functioning of the Chambers.
For the first time at Harvard, scholars will gather on November 14-15 for a conference on “Reincarnation in Tibetan Buddhism and the Institution of the Dalai Lama.” Reincarnation recognition, which began in the 13th century as a distinctive practice in Tibetan Buddhism, is the belief that after death, the soul or consciousness is reborn in a new body. The conference, co-sponsored by the Mittal Institute, will look at the history across the region, the esoteric practices of rebirth and divination, and the modern-day geopolitical implications of the continuation of this practice across the Buddhist world in Asia and beyond.
In 1970, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) was hit by a cyclone that killed 300,000 to 500,000 people. Prof. Mushfiq Mobarak, Yale University, and Prof. Sultan Mehmood, New Economic School of Moscow, provide empirical evidence that the cyclone’s devastation and the Pakistani government’s “callous response” to it were instrumental in galvanizing support for an independence movement. The two authors share their work in this Q+A ahead of a November 15 Joint Seminar on South Asian Politics.
The Mittal Institute invites Harvard faculty from across the university to apply for funding for research related to any of the countries we work with in South Asia: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, and/or Sri Lanka. This opportunity is open to all Harvard University faculty members. Applications are due on December 13, 2024.
Vidya Subramanian, former Raghunathan Fellow at the Mittal Institute and STS Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, has been busy in the years since her 2020 stint at Harvard. We caught up with Vidya to learn more about her work at the intersection of technology and society, and her research into the changing nature of citizenship in our technological society.