Universität Wien

240020 VO BM6 The anthropology of India and South Asia: An introduction (2025S)

5.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 24 - Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie
Moodle
Fr 27.06. 13:15-16:30 Hörsaal C, NIG 4. Stock

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Details

Sprache: Englisch

Prüfungstermine

Lehrende

Termine (iCal) - nächster Termin ist mit N markiert

UPDATE 04.06.2025: changed dates

  • Mittwoch 21.05. 13:15 - 16:30 Hörsaal A, NIG 4.Stock
  • Mittwoch 28.05. 13:15 - 16:30 Hörsaal A, NIG 4.Stock
  • Mittwoch 04.06. 09:45 - 13:00 Hörsaal A, NIG 4.Stock
  • Mittwoch 11.06. 13:15 - 16:30 Hörsaal A, NIG 4.Stock
  • Mittwoch 25.06. 11:30 - 14:45 Hörsaal A, NIG 4.Stock

Information

Ziele, Inhalte und Methode der Lehrveranstaltung

India and South Asia have been a very important subject of anthropological interest resulting in a rich body of literature. This course will provide students with key entry points into Indian and South Asian societies that illuminate some of their fundamental dynamics and allow students to build up on them and expand their knowledge on the subcontinent. In particular, the course will discuss ethnographies that vividly illustrate the features of categories such as caste, gender, class and religion (and their intersections) in conjunction with processes of education, social mobility and migration among others. Against this backdrop, the course aims to stress historical transformation within South Asian societies, often understood as sites of immobility, timelessness and tradition. What is more, the course will combine the readings with media representations of the topics discussed in class. After completing this course, students should be able to:

• critically approach India and South Asia through a body of ethnographic works
• understand both shared features and internal diversity within South Asia
• identify elements testifying to South Asian societies’ historical transformation
• place South Asian societies within global trends
• make connections between the readings assigned for the course and the media sphere

Art der Leistungskontrolle und erlaubte Hilfsmittel

Multiple-choice examination

Mindestanforderungen und Beurteilungsmaßstab

For a positive grade, 51 % is required

90-100 %= 1
77-89 %= 2
64-76 %= 3
51-63 %= 4
0-50 % = 5

Prüfungsstoff

Multiple-choice examination covering all the topics discussed in class. The examination will assess the students’ critical understanding of the readings

Literatur

Fuller C. 2004. The camphor flame: Popular Hinduism and society in India - Revised and expanded edition. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, pp. 3-28

van der Veer P. 2002. Religion in South Asia. Annual Review of Anthropology 31: 173-187

Jodhka S.S. 2017. Caste in contemporary India. London: Routledge, pp. 1-18

2010. Seven prevalent misconceptions about India’s caste system. In D.P. Mines and S. Lamb (eds.) Everyday life in South Asia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 153-154

Michelutti L. 2004. ‘We (Yadavs) are a caste of politicians’: Caste and modern politics in a north Indian town. Contributions to Indian sociology 38 (1-2): 43-71

Gorringe H. 2008.The caste of the nation: Untouchability and citizenship in South India. Contributions to Indian Sociology (n.s.) 42(1): 123-49

Ahearn L.M. 2004. Literacy, power, and agency: Love letters and development in Nepal. Language and Education 18(4): 305-316

Del Franco N. 2010. Aspirations and self‐hood: Exploring the meaning of higher secondary education for girl college students in rural Bangladesh. Compare 40(2): 147-165

Ciotti M. 2006. ‘In the past we were a bit “Chamar”’: Education as a self- and community engineering process in northern India. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 12: 899-916

Khurshid A. 2017. Does education empower women? The regulated empowerment of parhi likhi women in Pakistan. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 48(3): 25-268

Alter J. 1997. Seminal truth: A modern science of male celibacy in north India. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 11(3): 275-298

Nahar P. and Richters A. 2011. Suffering of childless women in Bangladesh: The intersection of social identities of gender and class. Anthropology & Medicine 18(3): 327-338

Hossain A. 2012. Beyond emasculation: Being Muslim and becoming hijra in South Asia. Asian Studies Review 36(4): 495-513

Zaman M.F. 2019. Segregated from the city: Women’s spaces in Islamic movements in Pakistan. City & Society 31(1): 55-76

Liechty M. 2010. “Out here in Kathmandu”: Youth and the contradictions of modernity in urban Nepal. In D.P. Mines and S Lamb (eds.) Everyday life in South Asia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 40-49

Osella C. and Osella F. 1998. Friendship and flirting: Micropolitics in Kerala, South India. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4(2): 189-206

Ciotti M. 2011. Remaking traditional sociality, ephemeral friendships and enduring political alliances: ‘State-made’ Dalit youth in rural northern Indian society. Focaal – Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 59: 19-32

Tyagi A. and Sen A. 2020. Love-jihad (Muslim sexual seduction) and ched-chad (sexual harassment): Hindu nationalist discourses and the ideal/deviant urban citizen in India. Gender, Place & Culture 27(1): 104-125

Ciotti M. 2010. ‘The bourgeois woman and the half-naked one’: Or the Indian nation's contradictions personified. Modern Asian Studies 4: 785-815

Fuller C. J. and Narasimhan H. 2013. Marriage, education, and employment among Tamil Brahman women in South India, 1891–2010. Modern Asian Studies 47(1): 53-84

Simpson E. 2003. Migration and Islamic reform in a port town of western India. Contributions to Indian Sociology 37(1-2): 83-108

Zharkevich I. 2019. Money and blood: Remittances as a substance of relatedness in transnational families in Nepal. American Anthropologist 121(4): 884-896

Zuordnung im Vorlesungsverzeichnis

Letzte Änderung: Mi 04.06.2025 16:07