HIS 382N (39530)/ANS 384 (30850)
Talbot
Mondays 3-6 pm
Cynthia
GAR 1.122
Historical Traditions in India
DESCRIPTION
This seminar examines the nature of historical writing and consciousness in
India, a society often said to lack a sense of history because it produced little in the way
of traditional historical narratives. Rather than evaluating Indian texts by standard
measures of historicity, in this course we will attempt to understand indigenous
conceptions of the past as revealed in a number of different genres such as the puranaitihasa tradition, the inscriptional genealogy, regional-language narratives, bhakti and
Sufi hagiographies, and Indo-Muslim chronicles. The underlying premise is that such
material can indeed be fruitfully interpreted from the perspective of social, cultural, and
intellectual history, and so one of the objectives of the course will be to explore
innovative approaches and methods of analysis. The other goal is to provide a basic
familiarity with the range of historical writing and thinking in India, especially in the
period before 1800.
During the first few weeks of the semester, we will collectively read some
secondary works on historical consciousness, concepts of time, and genealogical
traditions, along with excerpts from several Indian works in translation (i.e.,
Mahabharata, Visnu Purana, a Cola inscription, and Ardhakathanak). We will also look
at some of the recent scholarship on the telling of life histories (biographies,
autobiographies, memoirs). In the second half of the semester, we will continue to do
some reading together as a group, but members of the class will also engage in
individual research on historiographic texts and traditions of their choice. (Note:
students whose training is focused on the modern period can choose to do their
projects on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.) The format of the course will be
mostly group discussion, with occasional short lectures by the instructor as well as oral
presentations by students.
GRADING
Among the requirements for the course are two written assignments. In the first
paper, you will be asked to assess one or more of the assigned original sources (in
translation) in light of the various scholarly theories and analyses covered thus far. In other
words, you can choose to focus either on the excerpt from the Mahabharata on the four
yugas, the specimen of a Chola inscriptional genealogy, the section from the Visnu Purana
on historic dynasties, and/or the Ardhakathanak. Your paper can take a number of forms -- it
might evaluate a specific essay on that work (e.g., Thapar on the Visnu Purana, Ali on the
Chola genealogy, Sharma on the yuga conception, Hasan on Ardhakathanak) or apply the
approach of a particular scholar (White, Nora, Spiegel, etc.) to that work or even propose a
far superior analysis. This assignment is meant to give you an opportunity to both digest the
various ideas discussed up to this point as well as to apply them concretely in the analysis of
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a particular piece. It should be at least 8 pages long and is due on October 18th.
At least two original historical works in translation or their equivalent must be
read for the second, longer, paper, based on individual research. (Note, in the case of
multi-volume texts, one volume will suffice). The texts can be very different in character or,
conversely, belong to the same historical tradition or genre. The paper must contain a large
analytical or interpretive component (for example, you might want to contrast Buddhist
concepts of time with Hindu ones, or compare two authors of Indo-Muslim chronicles, or
discuss changes within a particular genre like genealogy, or examine biographies of two
kings or saints.) Otherwise, the topic is largely up to you, although you MUST get my
approval beforehand -- individual meetings will be arranged on October 18th for this
purpose. This paper should be between 12-15 pages long and is due by noon on Friday Dec.
3rd, the last day of classes.
Students will also be required to make two oral presentations to the class. One
presentation will consist of a report on a book read for the individual research paper, to
be scheduled for a class session between Oct. 25th and Nov. 15th. A summary of the second
paper should also be presented during one of the last two class sessions.
The success of the seminar will depend largely on participation in discussion,
which will accordingly constitute a sizable component of the final grade for the course.
Various aspects of performance will be weighted as listed below:
presentations
10%
participation
20%
paper 1 (8 pp.)
30%
paper 2 (12-15 pp.)
40%
TEXTS
-- Banarsidas, Ardhakathanak (Half a Storyy, trans. Rohini Chowdhury
-- numerous essays provided on Blackboard course site, see schedule below
COURSE POLICIES
1) Attendance: Due to the emphasis on group discussion in this seminar, students will be
allowed no more than one absence unless there is a serious, documented, medical or personal
problem. (You need not provide an excuse for the one absence, provided it is not on a day
when presentations are scheduled.) Any additional absences will adversely affect the final
grade.
2) Lack of Preparation: Given the structure of this course, oral presentations are extremely
difficult to reschedule. Students will be expected to make their presentations on the assigned
date with no exceptions. Written assignments turned in late will be subject to a grade
penalty.
3) Plagiarism: At the graduate level it is understood that intentional plagiarism of written
assignments is unprofessional behavior and may lead to failure of the course.
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4) Special Accommodations: At the beginning of the semester, students who need special
accommodations should notify the instructor by presenting a letter prepared by the Services
for Students with Disabilities (SDD) Office. To ensure that the most appropriate
accommodations can be provided, students should contact the SSD Office at 471-6259 or
471-4641 TTY.
OFFICE HOURS:
Mondays 11 am-noon & Fridays 1:30-3:30 pm
OFFICE:
GAR 3.106, tel. no. 475-9303
E-MAIL:
ctalbot@mail.utexas.edu
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Schedule of Class Topics & Readings
Wk. 1 (Mon. 8/30) – Introduction to Course
Wk 2 (Mon. 9/13) – Did India Have History?
1) Lal, Vinay. “The History of Ahistoricity: The Indian Tradition, Colonialism,
and the Advent of Historical Thinking.” In The History of History:
Politics and Scholarship in Modern India, pp. 27-78. Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2003.
2) Chatterjee, Partha. "The Nation and Its Pasts" & "Histories and Nations."
Chaps. 4 & 5 in The Nation and Its Fragments, pp. 76-115. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1993.
3) Narayana Rao, V., David Shulman, & Sanjay Subrahmanyam. "Introduction:
A Palette of Histories." In Textures of Time: Writing History in South
India 1600-1800, pp. 1-23. NY: Other Press, 2003.
4) Novetzke, Christian L. "The Theographic and the Historiographic in an Indian
Sacred Life Story." Sikh Formations 3.2 (Dec. 2007): 169-84.
5) Amin, Shahid. "On Retelling the Muslim Conquest of North India." In
History and the Present, ed. Partha Chatterjee and Anjan Ghosh,
pp. 24-43. Delhi: Permanent Black, 2002.
Wk 3 (Mon. 9/20) -- What is History?
1) Finley, M. I. "Myth, Memory, and History." History and Theory 4.3 (1965):
281-302.
2) White, Hayden. "The Historical Text as Literary Artifact." In Tropics of
Discourse, pp. 81-100. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978
3) ________ . "The Fictions of Factual Representation." Ibid., pp. 121-34.
4) ________ . "The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality." In The
Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation,
pp. 1-25. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987.
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5) Nora, Pierre. "General Introduction: Between Memory and History." In
Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past vol. 1, ed. Lawrence D.
Kritzman & trans. Arthur Goldhammer, pp. 1-20. NY: Columbia
University Press, 1996.
6) Chakrabarty, Dipesh. “A Global and Multicultural ‘Discipline’ of History?”
History and Theory 45 (Feb. 2006): 101-9.
Wk 4 (Mon. 9/27) – Concepts of Time
1) Trautmann, Thomas R. "Indian Time, European Time." In Time: Histories
and Ethnologies, ed. Diane O. Hughes and Thomas R. Trautmann,
pp. 167-97. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995.
2) excerpt on yugas from book 3 of MBh -- The Mahabharata, Vol. 2,
trans. J. A. B. van Buitenen, pp. 585-98. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1975.
3) Farris, Nancy M. "Remembering the Future, Anticipating the Past: History,
Time, and Cosmology among the Maya of Yucatan." Comparative
Studies in Society and History 29.3 (1987): 566-93.
4) Sharma, R. S. "The Kali Age: A Period of Social Crisis." In Feudal Social
Formation in Early India, ed. D. N. Jha, pp. 186-203. Delhi: Chanakya, 1987.
5) Sarkar, Sumit. “Colonial Times: Clocks and Kali-Yuga,” In Beyond
Nationalist Frames: Postmodernism, Hindu Fundamentalism, History,
pp. 10-37. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002.
Wk 5 (Mon. 10/4) – Genealogy as a Mode of Historical Thinking
1) Spiegel, Gabrielle. "Genealogy: Form and Function in Medieval Historical
Narrative." History and Theory 22 (1983): 43-53.
2) Thapar, Romila. "Genealogical Patterns as Perceptions of the Past."
Studies in History n.s. 7.1 (1991): 1-36.
3) excerpt on historic dynasties from Vishnu Purana, trans. H.H. Wilson,
pp. 368-93. Calcutta: Punthi Pustak, 1972.
4) Ali, Daud. "Royal Eulogy as World History: Rethinking Copper-Plate
Inscriptions in Cola India." In Querying the Medieval, ed. Ronald
Inden et al., pp. 165-229. N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2000.
5) Chatterjee, Kumkum. "The King of Controversy: History and Nation-Making
in Late Colonial India." American Historical Review 110, no. 5 (2005):
1454-75.
optional -- "Tiruvalangadu Copper-plates of the Sixth Year of Rajendra-Chola I."
South Indian Inscriptions Vol. 3 Pt. 2, online starting at
<http://www.whatisindia.com/inscriptions/south_indian_inscriptions/volume_3/no_205_adit
ya_ii_karikala.html> and continuing on for 6 more webpages.
Wk 6 (Mon. 10/11) – Narrating Life Histories in India
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1) Arnold, David & Stuart Blackburn. "Introduction." In Telling Lives in India:
Biography, Autobiography, and Life History, ed. D. Arnold & S.
Blackburn, pp. 1-28. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
2) Granoff, Phyllis. "Holy Warriors: A Preliminary Study of Saints and Kings in
the Classical Indian Tradition." Journal of Indian Philosophy 12 (1984):
291-303.
3) Walters, Jonathan S. "Stupa, Story, and Empire: Constructions of the Buddha
Biography in Early Post-Asokan India." In Sacred Biography in the
Buddhist Traditions of South and Southeast Asia, ed. Juliane Schober,
pp. 160-92. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997.
4) Hasan, Farhat. "Representing the Self: Norms and Emotions in
Ardhakathanaka." In Biography as History: Indian Perspectives,
ed. Vijaya Ramaswamy & Yogesh Sharma, pp. 105-22. Delhi: Orient
Black Swan, 2009.
5) Banarasidas. Ardhakathanak: A Half Story, trans. Rohini Chowdhury. Delhi:
Penguin Books, 2009.
Wk 7 (Mon. 10/18) – individual meetings with instructor (no class)/ paper 1 due
During weeks 8 through 11, we will explore a variety of historical genres. The exact
readings will be determined by week 7, depending on the interests of class members. The
entire class will only read a couple of items together as a group on any given week. The
readings might cover genres such as temple chronicles narrating medieval Hindu-Muslim
encounters (with, for example, an interpretive essay by Richard H. Davis and an excerpt from
the Koil Olugu chronicle of the Srirangam temple), or hagiographies (either Sufi, bhakti, or
Buddhist), or twentieth-century Hindutva history (with an extract from V. D. Savarkar’s Six
Glorious Epochs of Indian History), or subaltern memories, or modern historical fiction, or
Indo-Persian memoirs. In addition, each week three or four class members will make
presentations on historical texts in translation relating to their individual projects.
Wk. 8 (Mon. 10/25) – topic & readings to be announced
Wk 9 (Mon. 11/1) – topic & readings to be announced
Wk 10 (Mon. 11/8) – topic & readings to be announced
Wk 11. (Mon. 11/15) – topic & readings to be announced
Wk 12. (Mon. 11/22) – Presentations of Individual Research
Wk 13. (Mon. 11/29) – Presentations of Individual Research
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paper 2 due at noon Dec. 3rd, the last day of classes