PEOPLES AND CULTURES OF SOUTH ASIA

Dr. Michele Gamburd
Office:  141-N Cramer Hall
Phone:  (503) 725-3317
gamburdm@pdx.edu

COURSE DESCRIPTION:
    This upper-level introduction to South Asia will focus on three main topics:  the nature of the caste system in India, the position of women in society, and the roles of religion, language, territory and identity in fueling violence in various areas of the subcontinent.  Lecture and discussion will emphasize issues of competing claims to authority in these areas:  the question of who gets to define the nation, the family, caste, Hinduism, and so forth.  Students will not only learn about the history and ethnography of the region, but will also gain an understanding of theoretical debates in anthropology through a critical evaluation of the modes of representation used by social scientists and others to describe cultural structures and practices in South Asia.

• Daniel, E. Valentine  (1996)  Charred Lullabies:  Chapters in an Anthropology of Violence.  Princeton:  Princeton University Press.
• Dumont, Louis.  1980 (1966).  Homo Hierarchicus:  The Caste System and its Implications.  Complete Revised English Edition.  Mark Sainsbury, Louis Dumont, and Basia Gulati, trans.  Chicago:  University of Chicago Press.
• Kakar, Sudhir  (1996)  The Colors of Violence:  Cultural Identities, Religion, and Conflict.  Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1996.
• Marriott, McKim ed.  (1990) India Through Hindu Categories.  New York:  Sage.
• Pandey, Gyandendra ed.  (1993).  Hindus and Others:  The Question of Identity in India Today.  Delhi:  Viking Penguin.
• Trawick, Margaret.  (1990)  Notes on Love in a Tamil Family.  Berkeley:  University of California Press.
• Roy, Beth.  1994.  Some trouble with cows : making sense of social conflict.  Berkeley : University of California Press.

In-class Midterm Exam
    The midterm exam, consisting of several short answer, short essay, and longer essay questions, will cover issues discussed in the first section of the course.  A study sheet will be handed out before the exam.

Take-home Final Exam
    The final exam will cover issues discussed in the second and third sections of the course.  A study sheet will be handed out before the exam, from which final essay questions will be selected.  Final exams should be typed and double spaced.

Term Paper and Presentation
    Students will write a 15-20 page term paper on a topic of their choice related to areas discussed in lecture and readings.  A separate sheet provides details of due-dates and sub-assignments related to this requirement.  Each student will make a brief presentation of his/her work to the class during the last week of the term.

INTRODUCTION:  Representing India

• Ramanujan, A.K.  "Annaiah, The Anthropologist" (full cite?)
• -----  ()  "Is there an Indian Way of Thinking?  An Informal Essay" in McKim Marriott, ed., India Through Hindu Categories.  Pp. 41-58.

CASTE
    The first section of the course focuses on the 'caste' system in India.  Dumont's classic structuralist analysis provides a starting point for more recent and more sophisticated discussions of religion, politics, colonial representations, dominance, and resistance.

Week 1:

• Marriott, McKim and Ronald B. Inden.  (1974)  "Caste Systems" Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th Edition, vol 3 pp 982-991.
• Dumont, Louis.  1980 (1966).  Homo Hierarchicus:  The Caste System and its Implications.  Complete Revised English Edition.  Mark Sainsbury, Louis Dumont, and Basia Gulati, trans.  Chicago:  University of Chicago Press.  (Selections)

Week 2:

• Appadurai, Arjun.  1986.  "Is Homo Hierarchicus?"  American Ethnologist 13(4): 745-761.
• Dirks, Nicholas  (1990)  "The original caste: Power, history and hierarchy in South Asia" in Marriott, McKim (ed).  India through Hindu Categories.  New York:  Sage. Pp. 59-77.
• Ghandi, M.K.  (1964).  Caste Must Go and the Sin of Untouchability.  R.K. Prabhu, compiler.  Ahmedaba:  Navajivan Publishing House.
• Joshi, Barbara, ed.  Selections from Untouchable!  (pp. 1-14, 26-31).
• Schwartz, Michael B. (1989)  "Indian Untouchable texts of resistance:  Symbolic domination and historical knowledge" in Seneviratne, H.L. (ed)  Identity, Consciousness and the Past.  Special Issue Series of Social Analysis #25.

Week 3:

• Marriott, McKim (1990)  "Constructing an Indian Ethnosociology" in India Through Hindu Categories, M. Marriott ed.  New York:  Sage.
• Raheja, G. G.  (1990)  "Centrality, mutuality and hierarchy:  Shifting aspects of inter-caste relationships in North India" in Marriott, McKim (ed).  India through Hindu Categories.  Pp.  ??

Recommended:
Readings on Colonialism in India:

• Ballhatchet, Kenneth.  (1980)  Race, Sex and Class Under the Raj:  Imperial Attitudes and Policies and their Critics, 1793-1905.  St. Martin's Press, New York.
• Dirks, Nicholas.  1992.  "Castes of Mind."  Representations 37:  55-78.
• Dirks, Nicholas (1989)  "The invention of caste:  Civil society in Colonial India" in Seneviratne, H.L. (ed)  Identity, Consciousness and the Past.  Special Issue Series of Social Analysis #25.
• Freitag, Sandria.  1991.  "Crime in the Social Order of Colonial North India."  Modern Asian Studies  25(2):  227-261.
• Guha, Ranajith and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (eds) (1988)  Selected Subaltern Studies.  Oxford:  Oxford University Press.

Other:

• O'Hanlon, Rosalind.  1988.  "Recovering the Subject:  Subaltern Studies and Histories of Resistance in Colonial South Asia."  Modern Asian Studies 22(1): 189-224.
• Omvedt, G. (1989)  "Class, Caste and Land in India" in Alavi, H. and J. Harriss (eds) Sociology of "Developing Societies" South Asia.  London:  Macmillan.
• Raheja, G. G.  (1988) The Poison in the Gift:  Ritual, Prestation, and the Dominant Caste in a North Indian Village.  Chicago:  University Press.
• Raheja, Gloria Goodwin.  1988.  "India:  Caste, Kingship, and Dominance Reconsidered."  Annual Review of Anthropology 17.  497-522.
• Srinivas, M.N. (1976)  The Remembered Village Berkeley : University of California Press.
• Yalman, Nur  (1989)  "On royalty, temples and caste in Sri Lanka and South India" in Seneviratne, H.L. (ed)  Identity, Consciousness and the Past.  Special Issue Series of Social Analysis #25.

WOMEN AND THE FAMILY
     The second section of the course examines women's positions in colonial and contemporary Indian society.  We will explore the construction of gender roles, kinship, and family units as they affect larger social structures and practices.

Week 4:

• Trawick, Margaret.  (1990)  Notes on Love in a Tamil Family.  Berkeley:  University of California Press.

Week 5:

• Bhatt, Ela.  1989.  "Organizing Self-Employed Women for Self-Reliance".  In Carla M. Borden, ed.  Contemporary Indian Tradition. Washington:  Smithsonian Institution Press. pp. 203-219.
• Gough, Kathleen.  "The Nayars and the Definition of Marriage" (FULL CITE?) Perhaps in:  Rural society in southeast India. Cambridge [England] ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1981.
• Jacobson, Doranne (1994) …on jewelry…
• Susan Wadley (1994) .. on the village Indira….
• Chatterjee, Partha.  1989.  "Colonialism, Nationalism, and Colonialized Women:  The Contest in India."  American Ethnologist 16(4):  622-633.
• Stein, D. K.  1978 "Women to Burn:  Suttee as a Normative Institution"  Signs 4 (2) pp. 253-268.
• Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty.  1985.  "Can the Subaltern Speak?  Speculations on Widow Sacrifice."  Wedge 7/8:  120-130.

Recommended:

• Carstairs, G. Morris.  (1958)  The Twice Born:  A Study of a Community of High-Caste Hindus. Bloomington, Indiana University Press.  pp. 63-76.
• Datta, V. N.  1988   Sati:  A Historical, Social and Philosophical Enquiry into the Hindu Rite of Widow Burning.  New Delhi:  Manohar.
• Inden, Ronald B. and Ralph W. Nicholas.  (1977)  Kinship in Bengali Culture.  Chicago : University of Chicago Press.  pp. 3-34.
• Jacobson, Doranne, and Susan S. Wadley.  1995.  Women in India:  Two Perspectives.  Third Edition.  Columbia, Missouri:  South Asia Publications.
• Mandelbaum, David G.  1970.  Society in India.  Volume 1:  Continuity and Change.  Berkeley, Los Angeles, London:  University of California Press.
• Markandaya, Kamala.  1956.  Nectar in a Sieve: A Novel of Rural India. Delhi:  Jaico Books.
• … book on Arranged Marriages…  (FULL CITE?)
• Miller, Barbara D.  (1987)  "Female Infanticide and Child Neglect in Rural North India" in Nancy Scheper-Hughes, (ed.), Child Survival.  Dordrecth:  D. Reidel Publishing Co.  pp. 95-112.

MIDTERM EXAM

LANGUAGE, RELIGION, TERRITORY AND IDENTITY:  Concordance and Discordance in S. Asia
     The third and final section of the course touches on political and representational issues surrounding religion, language, territory and identity in South Asia.

Week 6.

• Harris, Marvin, et. al.  1966.  "The Cultural Ecology of India's Sacred Cattle."  Current Anthropology 7: 51-60.
• Leaf, Murray.  (1972)  "The Sikh religion as a conscious social model" in Information and Behavior in a Sikh Village:  Social Organization Reconsidered.  Berkeley, University of California Press.  pp. 147-167.
• Obeyesekere, Gananath.  1963.  "The Great Tradition and the Little in the Perspective of Sinhalese Buddhism."  Journal of Asian Studies 22:  139-153.
• Southwold, Martin.  (1985)  "The Concept of Nirvana in Village Buddhism" in Richard Burghart and Audrey Cantlie (eds.), Indian Religion.  New York: St. Martin's Press.  pp. 15-50.
• Trawick, Margaret.  1988.  "The Guru in the Garden:  Ambiguities in the Oral Exegesis of a Sacred Text."  Cultural Anthropology 3(3):  316-351.

Recommended:

• Halbfass, Wilhelm.  (1991)  Tradition and Reflection:  Explorations in Indian Thought. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press.  (On Islam).
• Madan, T.N., ed.  (1991)  Religion in India. New York : Oxford University Press, 1991.
• Mandelbaur, David.  "Social Stratification among the Jews in India and Israel" in T. Timberg (ed.), Jews in India.  (FULL CITE?)

Week 7:

• Narayan, Kirin.  1993.  "Refractions of the Field at Home:  American Representations of Hindu Holy Men in the 19th and 20th Centuries."  Cultural Anthropology 8:476-509.
• Pandey, Gyandendra ed.  (1993).  Hindus and Others:  The Question of Identity in India Today.  Delhi:  Viking Penguin.  (selections).
• Pollack, Sheldon.  1993.  "Ramayana and Political Imagination in India."  Journal of Asian Studies 52(2):261-297.
• Narayana Rao, Velcheru.  (1991).  "A Ramayana of Their Own:  Women's Oral Tradition in Telugu."  In Paula Richman, ed.  Many Ramayanas:  The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia.  Berkeley:  University of California Press.  Pp. 114-136.

Weeks 8 and 9:

• Hancock, Mary (1995)  "Hindu Culture for an Indian Nation:  Gender, Politics and Elite Identity in Urban South India."  American Ethnologist 22 (4) 907-926.
• Kakar, Sudhir  (1996)  The Colors of Violence:  Cultural Identities, Religion, and Conflict.  Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1996.
• Pandey, Gyan  (1990)  The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Pandey, Gyandendra ed.  (1993).  Hindus and Others:  The Question of Identity in India Today.  Delhi:  Viking Penguin.  (selections).
• Film:  In the Name of God (Anil Patwardhan).

Week 10:

• Roy, Beth.  1994.  Some trouble with cows : making sense of social conflict.  Berkeley : University of California Press.

Weeks 11 and 12:

• Coomaraswamy, R. (1987)  "Myths Without Conscience:  Tamil and Sinhalese Nationalist Writings of the 1980's" in Abeyesekera and Gunasinghe (eds), Facets of Ethnicity in Sri Lanka.  Social Scientists Association.
• Daniel, E. Valentine  (1996)  Charred Lullabies:  Chapters in an Anthropology of Violence.  Princeton:  Princeton University Press.
• Gunawardana, R.A.L.H.  (1990)  "The People of the Lion:  the Sinhala Identity and Ideology in History and Historiography" in J. Spencer, ed. Sri Lanka:  History and the Roots of Conflict.  New York:  Routledge.
• Roberts, Michael (1990)  "Noise as Cultural Struggle:  Tom-Tom Beating, the British, and Communal Disturbances in Sri Lanka, 1880's to 1930's" in Das, Veena, ed.  Mirrors of Violence:  Communities, Riots and Survivors in South Asia.  Delhi:  Oxford University Press.  pp. 240-285.
• FILM:  National Geographic Explorer:  Ritual practices in Sri Lanka

Recommended:

• Das, Veena, ed.  Mirrors of Violence:  Communities, Riots and Survivors in South Asia.  Delhi:  Oxford University Press.  1992 (1990).
• Fox, Richard.  Nationalist Ideologies and the Production of National Culture.  American Ethnological Society Monograph Series, No. 2.  Washington, DC:  American Ethnological Monograph Series.  1990.  (Article by Fox himself on India)
• Kapferer, Bruce.  Legends of People, Myths of State:  Violence, Intolerance, and Political Culture in Sri Lanka and Australia.  Washington, DC:  Smithsonian Inst. Press.  1988.
• Lawrence, Patricia.  1995.  "Work of Oracles:  Overcoming Political Silencing in Mattakkalappu."  (ms).
• Nissan, E. and R.L. Stirrat (1990)  "The Generation of Communal Identities" in J. Spencer, ed. Sri Lanka:  History and the Roots of Conflict.  New York:  Routledge.
• Pollack, Sheldon.  1993.  "Ramayana and Political Imagination in India."  Journal of Asian Studies 52(2):261-297.
• Sabaratnam, L.  "Sri Lanka:  The Lion and the Tiger in the Ethnic Archipelago."  in Van den Berghe, P. ed.  State Violence and Ethnicity.  Boulder, Colorado:  University of Colorado Press.  pp. 187-220.  1990.
• Spencer, J., ed.  Sri Lanka:  History and the Roots of Conflict.  London:  Routledge.  1990.
• Tambiah, S.J.  Sri Lanka:  Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy.  Chicago:  University of Chicago Press.  1986.

Week 13:
    Student presentations, review for final.
 

Return to home page.