Course Catalog

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This course explores gender in a historical perspective. It shall demonstrate the evolution of gender as a methodological approach and examines its dynamics in relation to class, caste and race in the 19th and 20th centuries. It will deal with a range of issues that concerns both the formation of gender and sexuality as objects of inquiry in various historical contexts. It seeks to go beyond narratives of gender history in the West and incorporate theoretical approaches and case studies from South Asia, Latin America and Africa. Central themes will include theoretical debates on the construction of gender relations, culture and identity, and feminist interventions.

This course is a basic introduction to archaeological and anthropological understandings of landscapes. We will address the following themes: 1) origins and historiography of the sub discipline of Landscape archaeology 2) the various themes investigated by anthropological archaeologists employing a landscape approach (through case studies) a. Cultural ecology b. Phenomenology c. Ideational perspectives 3) Use of Landscape archaeology in the South Asian context 4) Intersections of Landscape archaeology with other approaches to studying the past, particularly intensive, object-based studies. 5) Engagement with the current conceptions of the Anthropocene.

Course Summary This course is a basic introduction to archaeological and anthropological understandings of landscapes. We will address the following themes: 1) origins and historiography of the sub discipline of Landscape archaeology 2) the various themes investigated by anthropological archaeologists employing a landscape approach (through case studies) a. Cultural ecology b. Phenomenology c. Ideational perspectives 3) Use of Landscape archaeology in the South Asian context 4) Intersections of Landscape archaeology with other approaches to studying the past, particularly intensive, object-based studies. 5) Engagement with the current conceptions of the Anthropocene. Course Aims (Specific details of what the course intends to achieve in terms of student knowledge and ability. Items should begin with phrases such as “To provide students with …”, “To enable students to …”, “To develop students’ skills in …” and so on.) The course is designed to give theoretical and conceptual tools to students to undertake basic analyses of a broad-scale archaeology. They will engage in independent, critical thinking and writing regarding such approaches to doing archaeology. Learning Outcomes a. Students will appreciate how archaeologists know what we know about the past. b. The methods employed by archaeologists, especially while studying ‘landscapes’, will introduce students to a novel analytical and interpretive framework, that is different from what historians do. c. In addition, students will hone writing, analyzing, and presentation skills. d. The course will be geared towards engaging with archaeological materials from different areas of the world and as such students will learn to appreciate diversities inherent in these archaeological data. Curriculum Content (Syllabus, Lab work, Project, Term paper, Group work, etc.) Detailed lecture and tutorial schedule will be given on the first of class. Dates for Assessments such as Quizzes and Exams will be notified as well. Class Policies will also be spelt out clearly. Teaching and Learning Strategy (Teaching methods and tools, use of LMS, software used or taught, external visits, workshops) Teaching and Learning Strategy Description of Work Class Hours Out-of-Class Hours Lectures and discussions Lectures 40 80 TUTORIAL DISCUSSIONS 15 ASSSESSMENT. Assessment Strategy (Formative assessment and feedback to student, Summary assessment at the end of the course) QUIZZES, MID TERM AND FINAL EXAM, TUTORIAL DISCUSSIONS. Mapping of Learning Outcomes to Assessment Strategy (For each learning outcome listed in Item 12, describe the formative and summative assessment strategy) Assessment Scheme Type of Assessment Description Percentage QUIZZES Evaluating what archaeologists do, as contrasted with historians. 20% MID TERM EXAM Students will learn to analyze using a landscape archaeological approach. 30% FINAL EXAM Students learn to formulate strategies and methods to investigate archaeological landscapes. 40% TUTORIAL Students learn to critically evaluate texts and documents. 10% TOTAL 100% Bibliography Alcock, S. E. and J. F. Cherry (2004). Side-by-side survey: comparative regional studies in the Mediterranean World. Oxford, Oxbow. Ashmore, Wendy and Bernard Knapp (1999). Archaeologies of Landscape contemporary perspectives. Malden, Mass. Blackwell Publishers. Basso, K. H. (1996). Wisdom sits in places: landscape and language among the Western Apache. Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press Bender, B. (1993). Landscape: politics and perspectives. New York, Berg. Bradley, R. (1998). The significance of monuments: on the shaping of human experience in Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe. London, Routledge. Bradley, R. (2000). An archaeology of natural places. London, Routledge. Chapman, H. (2006) Landscape Archaeology and GIS. Tempus Publishing. Cherry, J. F., J. L. Davis, et al. (1991). Landscape archaeology as long-term history: northern Keos in the Cycladic Islands from earliest settlement until modern times. Los Angeles, UCLA Institute of Archaeology. Cosgrove, D. E. and S. Daniels (1988). The Iconography of landscape: essays on the symbolic representation, design, and use of past environments. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. David, B. and J. Thomas (2008). Handbook of landscape archaeology. Walnut Creek, CA, Left Coast Press. Fish, S. K. and S. A. Kowalewski (1990). The Archaeology of regions: a case for full-coverage survey. Washington; Smithsonian Institution Press. Ingold, T. (1993). ‘The Temporality of the Landscape’ World Archaeology 25(2): 152. Mitchell, W.J.T. (2002). Landscape and Power. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Yoffee, N. (2007). Negotiating the past in the past: identity, memory, and landscape in archaeological research. Tucson, Un

Temples, Tombs and warriors: Comparative Archaeology of India and China

Crime and Punishment in the Modern World

Introduction to Archaeology

Colonialism and Foundations of Colonial Knowledge in South Asia, 1860-1920

Islam in SA, C. 700 - Present

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We live today in a world where we are increasingly understanding ourselves through what we do. That is, by the kind of knowledge we produce and expertise we possess. Indeed, it would not be too much of a stretch to suggest that the most important question we ask today of people immediately after introducing ourselves is “what do you do?” While this question can be seen as an innocuous form of conversation making, it also is a form of self-identification and valuation through which we make sense of ourselves, others as well as the world around us. This class attempts to unpack how the disciplines of History and Anthropology have studied who is an expert? What is expertise? What kinds of value/signification is placed on expertise and experts within larger questions of nationhood, economy, colonial and postcolonial statecraft?? We shall also look at what kinds of images of social reality do experts and expertise provide. And how does this, in turn, fashion /forge both expertise and expert communitarian formations.

This course aims to be a foundational one for UG students, who are interested in rethinking/reviewing the commonsensical understanding of history as a discipline that school text books offer. It aims to expose the students to the sources, methodologies and questions of History, as it is practiced in South Asia and globally in order to help them engage critically with history’s claims to truth about the past.   * This is a compulsory course towards the completion of a minor in History/Archaeology

What is the meaning of the Bronze Age? What role did the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt play in enabling some of the most significant developments in human societies? This course begins with the discovery of these civilizations, plots their development over time, and discusses how they may be understood both through written as well as archaeological material. 

The earliest occupations in the subcontinent, in the absence of writing, can only be reconstructed on the basis of material remains, which is the purview of archaeology. Yet, archaeology also helps us to understand later periods when there are written sources. This course, through a study of the material remains of the past, will take the student from roughly the 8th millennium BCE to the 16th century CE. This will enable us to understand how the histories of ordinary people can be constructed through their everyday objects.

How, when and why did the diversity of languages—spoken and written—emerge in South Asia? What is the significance of the emergence of stone-temple architecture from c. 6th century? Why do we see separate States emerge in various regions of South Asia in the middle of the first millennium?  Multiple sources suggest an emerging diversity in religion, politics, trade, architecture and social relations. At the same time the subcontinent is a vast inter-connected network seeing the exchange of goods and ideas: trade and political activity is tied as much to the local region as to a larger network; sacred landscapes are re-created in different geographies; artisan networks, religious functionaries, writers, poets, travelers and common people have left behind a legacy that informs us on the richness and diversity in early medieval South Asia.

This course offers students an opportunity to understand the early origins of the British empire in South Asia. We will study how the English East India Company, a joint stock mercantile concern established in 1600 in London, became invested incommerce as well as governance in the Indian subcontinent. Thus, the course examines the Company’s fiscal involvements, political and military expansion, as well as its ideological underpinnings in theeighteenth century. Detailed Syllabus  Unit 1Merchants, Commerce, Governance Unit 2 Regions, Conquest, Expansion Unit 3 Ideology and Empire Unit 4 Rebellion and Resistance

This course looks at the major developments in contemporary India in terms of new forces and issues that are unleashed as a logical corollary of India gaining independence. It will thus examine in the historical context the major developments that have shaped the Indian sub-continent post the independence, namely the framing of the constitution, the major strands of political   and economic processes that have shaped the contexts, the events in 1962 (China), the ‘green revolution’, 1975 (emergency) and the decade of 80s that terminated in the momentous year of 1991 where a new set of forces strove to shape the contours of the subcontinent. The course will be discussion oriented with audio visual material as an aid along with specific readings.

Are we what we eat? The act of eating was rooted in a finite moment; yet, food welds together time, linking the visceral processes of the body to all else in life, and the present to traditions, memory and the past. This course surveys the history of food in its wide-ranging environmental, economic, cultural and global contexts through an examination of the core themes of the production, circulation and consumption of food across time. Topics include: the domestication of plants and animals; the medieval spice trade; the Columbian exchange and entry of New World foods on Old World diets; slavery and sugar plantations; the structure of meals and the cultivation of taste and manners; industrialization; famine and food riots; cookbooks, recipes and formation of resilient identities.

Archaeological field work is known to be intrusive. It makes it imperative that we keep this in mind while planning, designing, executing and publishing data gathered from archaeological sites. This course is designed for students who are interested in learning the methods used in archaeology, in other words, an initiation to field archaeology methods. The course is hands-on and uses activities both within and outside the classroom in order to give students a basic understanding of archaeological fieldwork. The course does not include archaeological theory and is not designed to be an introduction to archaeology, rather as suggested by the title explores how and what different techniques are used by archaeologists. Aims of the course The aim of this course is to give a broad understanding of archaeological field techniques and methods, their aims and limitations, and to provide some practical experience. Objectives of the course 1. An overview of the methodological issues surrounding archaeological fieldwork. 2. An understanding of survey techniques including desk-top, aerial, geophysical walk-over and collection. 4. An understanding of the process of designing a project from initial survey to final publication.  

This course focuses on understanding urbanism and urban settlements in the third millennium in Mesopotamia, Egypt and South Asia. The intention is to introduce the students to early urban developments and enable students to analyze urbanization, the physical and social forms of urban centres, as well as the functions of varying urban spaces.

Our seminar explores the cultural production, consumption and circulation of the western scholarship relating to the Orient that characterise European overseas expansion in the modern era. The course takes at its basis Edward Said’s foundational text, Orientalism: Western Perceptions of the Orient (1978) and his seminal assertion that European political domination of the Orient and the knowledge relating to its land, peoples, and cultures were interdependent. The present seminar will examine various forms of knowledge production and their varied uses within the colonised world, stressing the core themes of the use of technology; the construction of imperial identities and their modes of representations; and, the appropriation of and resistance to these formulations. The topics covered include: anthropology, criminology and law; mapping, cartography and census enumeration; science and medicine; philology; museums displays and exhibitions; and nationalist discourse. The reading material relates to British imperial expansion in South Asia. Students are encouraged to read outside of the suggested texts, and if appropriate, place the discussion in a wider geo-political framework. 

Archaeology today has become a key discipline that helps understand past human activity. This course will introduce students to what archaeologists do and how this discipline evolved as central to the quest of understanding humanity’s and our planet’s past. The course will engage with a broad sweep of theories, methods, technologies and practices employed by archaeologists. Student learning will be interactive, through regular tutorial discussions and occasional field trips, besides peer interactions. Various forms of assessment will be used to evaluate student learning *This course is compulsory towards the completion of a Minor in History/Archaeology

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Research Methodology for Archaeology