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Readings for Day Three – Wednesday, August 1

Session 10: Harvard Museums

Visit the Harvard Museums website here.

Please come prepared to answer the following question:

1) How can your existing programs leverage publicly available museums in Maharasthra?

2) What can you do to improve/augment the state of development of museums to make them useful research instructional vehicles?


Session 11: Perspectives on a Liberal Arts Education – The Importance of Education Conducted in a Spirit of Free Inquiry

Parimal Patil, Professor of Religion and Indian Philosophy; Chair of the Department of South Asian Studies, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University

Required reading:

Keohane, Nannerl O. “The Liberal Arts as Guideposts in the 21st Century.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 29, 2012.

Pollock, Sheldon. “The Real Classical Languages Debate.”

Recommended reading:

Flexner, Abraham. “The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge.” Harpers (179), June/November 2939.

Please come prepared to answer the following question:

1) Can the liberal arts be a guidepost for education in 21st century India? If so, how? If not, why not?


Session 12: Promoting Cultural and Religious Literacy: On Campus and Online

Ali S. Asani, Professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures, and Director, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program at Harvard University

Asani, Ali. (2011), “Enhancing Religious Literacy in Liberal Arts Education through the Study of Islam and Muslim Societies.” In E. Hammonds, S. Kosslyn, & J. Shephard (Eds.) The Harvard Sampler: Liberal Arts for the Twenty-First Century (pp. 1-31). Cambridge: Harvard University Press


Session 13: Research in the Social Sciences at Harvard: The Harvard Academy

Dinner with Laurence Winnie, Executive Officer, Harvard Academy for Area and International Studies and researchers at Harvard

Article on Harvard Academy Scholars Program