Department of History

September 30
Empire and Toleration: Some Comparative Thoughts
Karen Barkey, Department of Sociology, Columbia University

October 28
Law, Crime and Sovereignty on the Hyderabad-Bombay Frontier
Eric Lewis Beverley, Department of History, SUNY-Stony Brook

November 18
Be a Shareholder in Victory! Financial Nationalism and the American Citizen Investor in World War I
Julia Cathleen Ott, Committee on Historical Studies, The New School for Social Research

All meetings in Wednesdays 12:50-2:10 pm in SBS N320.

See IHSS homepage for more information.

This seminar takes legal systems and the criminalization of social groups as lenses on modern states’ techniques for disciplining populations, reproducing structures of privilege, and articulating nationalist ideologies. In addition to looking from the perspective of states, we consider the ways subjects and citizens manipulate, modify and evade legal regimes. Moving from the early modern period through the contemporary, the course takes on themes ranging from legal pluralism, social banditry, law and cultural difference under colonial regimes, prisons and rehabilitation, ethnic profiling and criminalization, and the place of outlaws in nationalist rhetoric. The course will be interdisciplinary, incorporating comparative and monographic historical and anthropological studies, theoretical works and literary texts; and transregional, with units examining particular themes in South Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, the US, and other other locations. Readings may include books or articles by scholars Lauren Benton, Michel Foucault, Carlo Ginzburg, Ranajit Guha, Eric Hobsbawm, Eric Tagliacozzo, Richard L. Roberts, Nicolas Shumway, Radhika Singha, and some selections from literary or historical primary sources.

Colonial South Asia comprised much of what is now India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and was dubbed ‘the jewel in the crown’ of the British Empire at its height. The Subcontinent’s status as the most populous and lucrative colony of the world’s largest empire profoundly shaped the world of both colonized and colonizer there. This course will consider the political, social, economic and cultural effects of Britain’s rule in the South Asia from about 1700 to 1950. We will examine in detail key themes such as the rise of the colonial state and changes in sovereignty, the formation of the colonial economy, the remaking of social categories (caste, religious community, gender relations), anti-colonial and nationalist movements, and decolonization. Overall, the course seeks to develop a narrative about South Asia that is attentive to both the profound violence and change wrought by colonialism and the agency of South Asians in the making of their own modernity.

The South Asia region – contemporary India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Afghanistan – has been a crossroads of diverse people, ideas and commodities for millennia. This course covers key themes and developments in South Asia between about 1000 and 1750. British colonial rule from the late eighteenth century remade South Asia, and contemporary understandings of pre-modern history have been shaped in large part by colonial knowledge. The course seeks to understand the way colonialism has effected knowledge of the past, and to reconstruct key developments and trends in light of recent scholarship. We will begin by covering major issues in early South Asia, then proceed to consider closely the medieval and early modern periods. Central themes include pre-modern dimensions of the Hindu-Muslim encounter, emergence of South Asian regions, the subcontinent in global networks, and early presence of European powers. In addition to surveying diverse political, socio-economic and cultural developments across South Asia, the course also raises methodological questions about how different sources provide different perspectives on history. Accordingly, we consider material evidence alongside various narrative primary sources, as well as scholarly writings. The course also highlights the importance of historical memory and the continuing relevance of the pre-colonial period in contemporary South Asia. Overall, the course seeks to provide students with scholarly tools and sources to better understand the formation of religious, ethnic and linguistic communities in South Asia before colonialism.

Taking oceans, rather than nations or empires, as key units for historical study focuses attention on the movement of people, ideas and commodities across space, and the political and cultural formations that emerge from these circulations. This course will accordingly consider several different stages of globalization from antiquity to the present along the Indian Ocean littoral. We will focus on South and Southeast Asia, eastern and southern Africa, and West Asia (commonly known as the Middle East). A methodological section on oceanic history, and examples of concrete connections with other locations will take us, on occasion, beyond the limits of the Indian Ocean itself. The course will consider, both in minute detail and from a bird’s eye view, inter-regional connections spanning the Indian Ocean world forged by religious solidarities, far-flung trade networks, labor migration, imperial domination, and anti-colonial nationalism.

Popular perceptions and representations of Islam and Muslims are often founded on ignorance and outright prejudice.  Fundamental to these understandings are narrow and highly politicized notions of history, frequently accepted uncritically.  Accordingly, this course seeks first to introduce analytical approaches crucial to developing nuanced understandings of historical and contemporary depictions of Islam and Muslims.  In addition, the course provides a broad outline of the history of Islamic Civilizations from Iberia and North Africa to South and Southeast Asia, and a basic understanding of key religious and secular institutions that characterize Muslim societies.  While the course is broadly chronological, we will also examine key topics in detail, including conversion and the global spread of Islam, colonialism and imperialism, radical militant and progressive Muslim politics, media representations, and Islam in the US and Europe.  The course is not comprehensive, but seeks to provide a basic understand of the history of Islam from Muhammad to the present, and a solid empirical and methodological foundation for further inquiry.  Requirements include regular attendance and participation, map quiz, one short paper, take-home midterm and final exams, and a media analysis project.

This course will provide an advanced introduction to South Asian history and historiography from the early modern period to the present. We will cover major works on key themes, including precolonial cultural relations, colonialism and imperialism, the politics of religious identity, anti-colonialism and nationalism, decolonization and partition, and postcolonial developments. Readings of classics of the field – drawn from various schools of historiography – will be supplemented with selections from relevant primary sources. This is not a survey course, and does not attempt to be comprehensive. No prior knowledge of the field is prerequisite, and the course will begin with a rapid thematic survey of South Asian history. This course is designed for MAT students who intend to teach South Asian and global history at the advanced secondary level, but will also provide a solid foundation for MA/PhD students for whose research and teaching a knowledge of South Asian history will be useful. Requirements include preparation and participation, teaching practicum, a series of short response or feedback papers, and a final essay surveying scholarship and source materials on a topic of their choice.