PEOPLES AND CULTURES OF SOUTH ASIA
Anthropology 326 (Fall 2013)
T & Th 2-3:15 pm
Erica Bornstein, Associate Professor
Office: Sabin Hall 311
Office hours: Th 12-2pm & by appointment
Email: elbornst@uwm.edu -- when emailing always put Anthro 326 in subject heading
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course is an anthropological exploration of social life in South Asia. We will investigate the
interrelated themes of: families and persons, gender and performance, religion,
distinction/caste/class, nationalism, and globalization through ethnographic and historical cases
from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. Lecture, readings, discussion, and films
will focus on ethnographic attempts to write about and understand these themes. By learning
about the ethnography of the region, students will gain knowledge about important contemporary
theoretical debates in anthropology, which include: colonial history and its postcolonial
implications, the politics of competing claims to represent peoples and places, and the social
power of analytical categories.
PRE-REQUISITES
Satisfies L&S International req. Prereq: jr st; Anthro 102(R). Students enrolling in this course
should have familiarity with basic concepts in the social sciences and should have taken at least
some anthropology. Some prior knowledge of South Asia will be extremely helpful but is not
required.
REQUIREMENTS
This course is a lecture/discussion course, with considerable attention devoted to in-depth
discussion of assigned readings and films. You are expected to attend class regularly, keep up
with the readings and to be prepared to participate in discussion. Participation (10% of your
grade) includes oral presentations and participating in discussion. You will be required to submit
10 short summaries of at least one reading for an upcoming week during the course. Summaries
are due in the D2L dropbox by Tuesdays at 2pm, before we discuss the readings in class. The
dropbox will close for the week at 2pm on Tuesdays and no late summaries will be accepted.
Summaries should include a 1-paragraph summary and 3 discussion questions; 10 reading
summaries during the course are worth 30% of your grade. Only one reading summary may be
handed in per week. In addition, you are required to write 3 short (4-5 pages) papers (60%) based
on readings assigned for the course. See deadlines in syllabus.
Note: All papers must be submitted into the D2L dropbox in Word doc format, 12pt. doublespaced.
GRADUATE STUDENTS
In addition to the above requirements, graduate students will write a 10-12 page final research
paper. Please see me to discuss possible topics. All graduate paper topics must be approved first.
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REQUIRED READING
Two books are required for this course:
1. Everyday Life in South Asia (Second Edition). Diane P. Mines and Sarah Lamb, editors.
Indiana University Press. 2010. You need the 2nd edition for this course.
2. Joothan: an Untouchable’s Life. Omprakash Valmiki. Columbia University Press. 2003.
Readings marked with an (*) on the syllabus, are available on the UWM D2L website.
RECOMMENDED READING
Recommended reading on the syllabus is for students who take interest in a topic and would like
to explore it further. Graduate students should use the recommended readings as resources for
their final paper.
READING SUMMARIES (see following page detailed instructions)
Reading summaries and discussion questions should address the main points of a reading. As
conceptual outlines, the summaries will be useful resources for the three papers you will write
for the course. You are required to submit 10 summaries in the D2L dropbox (30% of your final
grade/ 300 points). Only one summary is allowed per week. Summaries (30 points each) will be
graded as follows: < 21 = needs improvement; 22-23 = average; 24-26 = good; 27-30 =
excellent. Summaries will NOT be accepted via email.
Requirements
Papers
Reading Summaries
Participation
Breakdown
3 papers (each paper is 200 pts, 20% of final
grade)
10 summaries (30 points each)
Attendance and general participatory
engagement (100 points)
Total
Final Grade Scale
970 – 1000
940 – 969
900 – 939
870 – 899
840 – 869
800 – 839
770 – 799
740 – 769
700 – 739
670 – 699
640 – 669
600 – 639
< 599
% of Final Grade
60% 600 pts
30%
10%
300 pts
100 pts
100% 1000 pts
A+
A
AB+
B
BC+
C
CD+
D
DF
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Weekly Schedule of Lectures, Readings, and Discussion Topics
Course Introduction
Week 1: September 3 & 5
Film: Jama Masjid Street Journal (1979, 22 min)
 Mines & Lamb, Introduction, pp. 1-6
Families & Persons
Week 2: September 10 & 12
 Part One Introduction, pp. 9-13
 (*) Ramanujan, A.K., “Is there an Indian way of thinking? An informal essay”. In India
through Hindu Categories. McKim Mariott, ed. (Sage 1990)
 Ch 1. Wadley, One Straw from a Broom Cannot Sweep
 Ch 2. Jeffrey & Jeffrey, Allah Gives Both Boys and Girls
Film: Dadi’s Family (1979, 46 min)
Week 3: September 17 & 19
 Ch 3. Leichty, Out Here in Kathmandu: Youth and the Contradictions of Modernity in
Urban Nepal.
 Ch 4. Kapur, Rethinking Courtship, Marriage, and Divorce in an Indian Call Center
 Ch 5. Lamb, Love and Aging in Bengali Families
 (*) Nanda, Serena. “Arranging a Marriage in India” in The Naked Anthropologist: Tales
from Around the World. Philip DeVita, ed. (Wadsworth 1992)
Film: Monsoon Wedding (2001, 114 min)
Gender & Performance
Week 4: September 24 & 26
 Part Two Introduction, pp. 75-79
 Ch 6. Gold, New Light in the House: Schooling Girls in Rural North India
 Ch 7. Seizer, Roadwork: Offstage with Special Drama Actresses in Tamil Nadu, South
India
 Ch 8. Gamburd, Breadwinners No More: Identities in Flux
Film: Keep Her under Control: Law’s Patriarchy in India (1998, 52 min)
Week 5: October 1 & 3
 Ch 9. Nanda, Life on the Margins
 Ch 10. Reddy, Crossing “Lines” of Difference: Transnational Movements and Sexual
Subjectivities in Hyderabad, India.
Film: Made in India (1999, 55 min)
PAPER #1 (Family & Gender) due: midnight, Friday 10/4 in D2L dropbox
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Distinction, Caste, & Class
Week 6: October 8 & 10
 Part Three Introduction, pp. 145-152
 Ch 11. Seven Misconceptions about India’s Caste System
 Ch 12. Parish, God-Chariots in a Garden of Castes: Hierarchy and Festival in a Hindu
City
 Ch 13, Viramma, High and Low Castes in Karani
Film: Gandhi (1964, 26 minutes)
Week 7: October 15 & 17
 Ch 14. Rashid, Weakness, Worry Illness, and Poverty in the Slums of Dhaka
 Ch 15. Dickey, Anjali’s Alliance: Class Mobility in Urban India
 Ch 16. Lukose, Recasting the Secular: Religion and Education in Kerala, India
 (*) Gandhi, Mohandas K., Caste and Untouchability, in The Penguin Gandhi Reader.
Rudrangshu Mukherjee (editor). Pp. 205-233. Penguin Books. 1993.
Week 8: October 22 & 24
 Joothan: an Untouchable’s Life. Omprakash Valmiki. Read first ½ this week:
Introduction & pages 1-51
Week 9: October 28 & 31
 Joothan: an Untouchable’s Life. Omprakash Valmiki. Read second ½ this week: pages
53-154
Religion
Week 10: November 5 & 7
 Part Four Introduction, pp. 219-225
 Ch 17. Mines, The Hindu gods in a South Indian Village
 Ch 18. Marriott. The Feast of Love
 Ch 19. Gutschow, The Delusion of Gender and Renunciation in Buddhist Kashmir
Film: Devi (1960, 93 min)
Week 11: November 12 & 14
 Ch 20. Marsden, Muslim Village Intellectuals: The Life of the Mind in Northern Pakistan
 Ch 21. Khan, In Friendship: A Father, a Daughter, and a Jinn
 Ch 22. Flueckiger, Vernacular Islam at a Healing Crossroads in Hyderabad
Film: Hinduism 330 million Gods (1977, 52 min)
PAPER #2 (Distinction & Religion) due: midnight, Friday 11/15 in the D2L dropbox
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Nationalism
Week 12: November 19 & 21
 Part Five Introduction, pp. 309-313
 Ch 23. Butalia, Voices from the Partition
 Ch 24. Ring, A Day in the Life
 Ch 25. Menon, Living and Dying for Mother India: Hindu Nationalist Female
Renouncers and Sacred Duty
Film: Amu (2005, 98 minutes)
Week 13: November 26 – No class 11/28, Thanksgiving break
 Ch 26. Bate, Political Praise in Tamil Newspapers: The Poetry and Iconography of
Democratic Power
 Ch 27. Lynch, Mala’s Dream: Economic Policies, National Debates and Sri Lankan
Garment Workers
 Ch 28. Trawick, Interviews with High School Students in Eastern Sri Lanka
Globalization & Diaspora
Week 14: December 3 & 5
 Part Six Introduction, pp. 399-405
 Ch 29. Pandian, Cinema in the Countryside: Popular Tamil Film and the Remaking of
Rural Life
 Ch 30. Mankekar, Dangerous Desires: Erotics, Public Culture, and Identity in LateTwentieth-Century India
 Ch 31. Richaman, A Diaspora Ramayana in Southall
Week 15: December 10 & 12
 Ch 32. Hall, British Sikh Lives, Lived in Transition
 Ch 33. Radhakrishnan, Examining the “Global” Indian Middle Class: Gender and Culture
in the Silicon Valley/Bangalore Circuit
 Ch 34. Narayan, Placing Lives through Stories: Second-Generation South Asian
Americans
 Ch 35. Daniel, Unexpected Destinations
PAPER #3 (Nationalism & Globalization) due: midnight, Friday 12/13 in the D2L dropbox
Graduate Students: Final paper due Sunday, December 15, midnight in the D2L dropbox
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Recommended reading (for graduate students and interested undergraduates)
This reading is not required and is not on reserve in the library. It is, however, available through
the library. These are just a few selections from a very partial list. Please talk to me if you would
like recommendations for more sources on a particular topic!
FAMILIES & PERSONS
Mines & Lamb, Introduction, pp.7-10
Mines, Mattison. Conceptualizing the Person: Hierarchical Society and Individual Autonomy in
India. American Anthropologist, Vol. 90. No.3. September 1988, 568-579.
Cohen, Lawrence. No Aging in India: Modernity, Senility and the Family. Oxford University
Press. 1998.
GENDER & PERFORMANCE
Gold, Ann Grodzins and Raheja, Gloria Goodwin. Listen to the Heron’s Words: Reimagining
Gender and Kinship in North India. University of California Press. 1994.
Mankekar, Purnima. National Texts and Gendered Lives: An Ethnography of Television Viewers
in a North Indian City. American Ethnologist. Vol. 20. No. 3 (Aug, 1993). 543-563.
DISTINCTION, CASTE & CLASS
Raheja, Gloria Goodwin. Caste, Kingship, and Dominance Reconsidered. Annual Review of
Anthropology. Vol. 17 (1988), 487-522.
Dumont, Louis. Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and its Implications. University of
Chicago. 1980.
Das, Veena. Structure and Cognition: Aspects of Hindu Caste and Ritual. Oxford University
Press. 1990 (second edition).
Dirks, Nicholas B. Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India. Princeton.
2001.
RELIGION
Parry, Jonathan. Death in Benaras. Cambridge University Press. 1994.
Narayan, Kirin. Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels: Folk Narrative in Hindu Religious
Teaching. University of Pennsylvania Press. 1989.
Khandelwal, Meena. Women in Ochre Robes: Gendering Hindu Renunciation. State University
of New York Press. 2004.
Gold, Ann Grodzins. Fruitful Journeys: The Ways of Rajasthani Pilgrims. Waveland Press.
1988.
NATIONALISM
Mazarella, William. Shoveling Smoke: Advertising and Globalization in Contemporary India.
Duke University Press. 2003.
GLOBALIZATION & DIASPORA
Aneesh, A. Virtual Migration: The Programming of Globalization. Duke University Press. 2006.
Daniel, E. Valentine. Charred Lullabies: Chapters in an Anthropology of Violence. Princeton
University Press. 1996.
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READING SUMMARIES (including DISCUSSION QUESTIONS)
The reading summaries are brief – one paragraph, typed WORD documents ONLY - summaries
of assigned articles. These summaries are aimed to serve as resources for the papers you write in
this class. You are required to upload 10 summaries during the course in the D2L dropbox. Only
one summary is allowed per week. Summaries can address one or more of the assigned readings
for the week. They are due in the D2L dropbox by Tuesday at 2pm, before we discuss the
reading in class. Absolutely NO late summaries will be accepted. One goal of this weekly task is
to help you learn to read highly detailed ethnographic material and to recognize the main points.
Ten reading summaries will constitute 30% of your final grade. Summaries (30 points each) will
be graded as follows: 27-30 = excellent; 24-26 = good; 22-23 = average; < 21 = needs
improvement. Summaries will NOT be accepted via email.
Here are a few suggestions that may help you to write the summaries:
- While reading, ask yourself: what is the main point? What is the author trying to say?
- You may have to read the article more than once, the first time quickly to see the structure of
the author's argument, and the second time in more close detail.
- Write on the page. Do not highlight entire paragraphs. Writing on the page gives you visual
markers and helps you to engage with the reading.
- If something is confusing, put a question mark in the margin of the reading. If you agree or
don't agree with something, also, write it in the margin. These comments will help you
critically engage with the material and you can use them in the discussion question part of the
assignment.
- Outline the reading. This will help you to see the logic of the argument and to summarize it
in one paragraph. Keep the outline for study purposes later.
Your summaries should include the following:
SUMMARY PARAGRAPH:
Begin with a summary of the main points of the article. What is the main argument that the
author is making? What are the most important ideas? Sometimes, there will be an abstract on
the first page of the assigned reading - DO NOT COPY this paragraph - that is plagiarism. Your
summary paragraph should be in your own words and should represent what you think are the
main points. If you were to describe the reading to a friend who had not read it, how would you
describe it?
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS (3 per week):
This part of the assignment is aimed to help you engage critically with the reading. Use your
engagement to develop discussion questions for class. Try to go beyond what you think of the
reading – for example whether you liked it or not – to question how the concepts in the reading
relate to other concepts we have discussed in class, in lecture, other readings, or the films. Are
there things that are confusing or striking in the article? Are there ideas that interest you?
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Department of Anthropology
University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee
University and Departmental Policies
University Policies. Links to the following policies can be found on the Secretary of the University Web site:
http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/SecU/SyllabusLinks.pdf
Students with disabilities. If you need special accommodations in order to meet any of the requirements of this course, please
contact the instructor as soon as possible. Verification of disability, class standards, the policy on the use of alternate materials and
test accommodations can be found at: http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/DSAD/SAC/SACltr.pdf
Religious observances. It is the policy of the board of regents that students' sincerely held religious beliefs shall be reasonably
accommodated with respect to all examinations and other academic requirements. Students shall notify the instructor, within the first
three weeks of the beginning of classes (within the first week of summer session and short courses), of the specific days or dates on
which he or she will request relief from an examination or academic requirement. More detailed policy regarding accommodations
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must be acceptable to the instructor. Requires extraordinary circumstances or substantiated cause beyond the student's control, not
related to the performance in the class, such as illness or a family emergency, that have prevented the student from finishing some
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