Spring
2003
Dr. David
Faust
6:20pm-8:50
pm Thursdays
435 Blegen
Hall, West Bank
South Asia (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) is home to more than 1 of every 5 people alive today. The region encompasses amazing linguistic, religious, economic and cultural diversity. Countries of the region have experienced tremendous scientific, technological and economic development, with high-tech industry, nuclear weapons, and a large and prosperous urban middle class. On the other hand, domestic and international conflicts threaten; and half of the region's people live lives of struggle against poverty, disease, "natural" hazards, displacement and marginalization.This course uses lectures, readings, videos, discussions, and a research project to develop the conceptual foundations and social facts that enable a critical understanding of modern South Asia. We focus on selected themes rather than describing individual nations. After a sketch of the history and geography of the region, we address the social, cultural and economic ramifications of colonial rule; the struggle for independence; and the problems of independent South Asia as the people of the region grapple with development and globalization. We explore anti-colonial and post-colonial nationalisms; the state and post-colonial politics; modernization and urban/agrarian change; population, resources and sustainability; diversity and the geographies and politics of difference; social movements and conflicts, domestic and international; and democracy, citizenship, and governance in a globalized South Asia. We pay particular attention to the distribution of costs and benefits of change and the ways that rulers and ruled, farmers and traders, men and women are bound up in webs of relationships that variously enable and constrain their ability to adapt to and reshape their worlds. (3 credits, meets CLE requirement of International Perspectives Theme)