Since the recent election of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the question of who belongs has become central to South Asian politics. These questions of power and belonging reverberate in the diaspora. Because the US is a settler-colonial state, many South Asians find themselves at the interstices of American and South Asian systems of power and flows of capital. In order to examine these processes, this class will use interdisciplinary thematic units across South Asian and Asian American Studies to examine caste, race/racialization, gender/gendering processes and colonialism in the Indian American diaspora.

Who is a minority? In contemporary South Asia, "minority" often defined by religion, linguistic identity, caste, ethnicity, or other social markers. But the category of "minority" is not static. It has been constructed, remade, and enforced through both colonial and post-colonial legal and political projects. In this course, we study the ways that minorities have been defined in South Asia over the last two centuries. We historicize the fraught categorization of religious, linguistic, caste, and other minority groups, and we ask how minoritized people have attempted to avert or contest forms of majoritarian rule.

An introduction to the Indian Buddhist philosophical tradition from the time of the Buddha until its decline (c. 400 B.C.E - 1200 C.E.). Topics include Buddhism's view of the world, the person, and the path to nirvana; equanimity, compassion and meditation as core elements in Buddhist ethics; early Buddhist metaphysics; the doctrine of "emptiness" and its various interpretations in the Great Vehicle schools; Buddhist epistemology and philosophy of language; and modern attempts to apply Buddhist philosophy to contemporary philosophical issues.

This course will introduce students to the richness and diversity of women's writing in India; it will open many windows into regional Indian societies, cultures, and subcultures; and it will allow students to examine social issues and cultural values from women's perspectives. By studying women's writings from at least ten major Indian languages (in English translation), students will be able to identify differences and disagreements among different canons as well as some common features among them that justify the category of Indian women's writing.

This course examines literature and film by South Asians in North America. Students will gain perspective on the experiences of immigration and diaspora through the themes of identity, memory, solidarity, and resistance. From early Sikh migration to the American West Coast, to Muslim identity in a post 9/11 world, how can South Asian American stories be read as symbolic of the American experience of gender, class, religion, and ethnicity more broadly? Students will hone their skills in reading primary materials, analyzing them within context, writing persuasively, and speaking clearly.

This seminar will consider the modern South Asian coastline to understand the past, present, future of coasts in an era of climate change. Historical maritime trade routes, massive development projects, and rising influence of environmental change all shape the South Asian coast as a new frontier of resource control. Students will explore the cultural political desires and discontents that become entangled in coastlines, search for alternative imaginations of life that people mark out on the coastline. In doing so, we move towards an environmental justice perspective of the South Asian coastline.

India's post-independence journey is a lens to study fundamental questions of economic development and political economy. Despite attempts at big-push industrialization, followed by economic liberalization in the 1990's, the country struggled to create jobs and provide public goods at par with rapid population growth. Extreme economic inequality is now only one concern amidst environmental degradation, gender-based violence, and a Hindu-nationalist political agenda. When, and how, will India achieve sustainable development? The seminar will draw on scholarly works and Indian cinema for a well-rounded economic, social and political commentary.