From ancient times, cultural, political and philosophical movements originating on the Indian subcontinent have had an immense influence on life in Southeast Asia. In this reading and composition course we will explore the history of Indian connections with Myanmar, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia.

This course is devoted to a study of selected literary texts set in various regions of Southeast Asia. The readings will include works by foreign authors who lived and traveled in Southeast Asia and translations of works by Southeast Asian writers. These texts will be used to make comparisons and observations with which to characterize coloniality, nationalism, and postcoloniality. This course satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement.

Reading and composition based on 10 classic works of Indian literature ranging from the ancient Sanskrit epics to modern novels by Indian and western authors. Weekly composition on texts and topics read and discussed in class. Satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement.

Spring 2025: THE SOUTH INDIAN NOVEL: FORM AND CONTEXTS

Whenever Pakistan comes up as a subject of sustained conversation in the US it usually is for all the wrong reasons: the worst nuclear proliferator in recent history, the refuge of Osama bin Laden, a major source of regional instability in South and Central Asia. Although Pakistan may be viewed with deep mistrust by US policy planners and the American public alike, this course seeks to remind us that it is also a country of great political, economic, religious, and social complexity.

This graduate seminar introduces students to the study of Buddhism in Theravada Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka through a critical survey of recent scholarship in such fields as religious history, cultural history and literary history, focusing on the modern era. Once dismissed as Buddhism of the “Lesser Vehicle”, Theravada Buddhism is a dynamic field of belief and practice whose responses to modernity include moral reform, textual purification, anticolonial protest, passive disobedience, meditation movements and militant nationalism.