Dr. James F. McGrath JH202
jfmcgrat@butler.edu http://blue.butler.edu/south_asia/
The course will provide an overview of South Asian civilizations in comparative perspective, and will focus on the subcontinent’s geography and history, its cultures and religions, its arts (i.e., music, dance, literature, and film), its notions of virtue and gender, its economic realities and role in the global marketplace, and its political development. Though covering the entire region, the course will pay particular attention to Pakistan and India, which, because of their religious demographics, provide an interesting contrast and a history of conflict. Nevertheless, the course will also draw attention to the ways in which religious, ethnic, communal, gender, and political lines have been blurred in South Asian history.
To trace the history of the Indian subcontinent from ancient to modern times, identifying continuities and discontinuities.
To identify and compare/contrast the various peoples that live on the continent, as well as their beliefs, social structures, and cultural particularities.
To recognize both the commonalities and differences between western civilizations and those present in South Asia
To encounter other cultures, and allow that encounter to modify, alter, challenge, and transform our understanding of our own
· Stanley Wolpert, A New History of India
· Sources Vol.1
· Barbara Stoller Miller, The Bhagavad Gita (Columbia University Press, 1986)
· R. K. Narayan, The Ramayana (Penguin, 1972)
· Kushwant Singh, Train to Pakistan
Buddhism readings: Buddha-karika, Going Forth, Sermon at Benares, Fire Sermon [online]
The following components will comprise the grade for this course:
· Midterm Examination (20%): Students will have a take-home examination the week of October 15th.
· Ramayana Paper (20%): By class time on September 17th, students will submit, by e-mail, a 5-page paper on the Ramayana. The paper should not summarize the plot of the story, but should rather address one or all of the following questions: Given that the Ramayana is a story which pervades Indian society, and which is retold frequently in fiction, drama, and recitations, and given, also, that Rama, Lakshmana, Hanuman, and Sita are seen in many was as ideal figures, what can we discern about the ideals and values of Indian society from the Ramayana? Why do you think this story is still popular in modern India? Though the purpose of the paper is not for you to exhaustively compare Indian and American values, you may briefly, if you wish, discuss central American stories and the ideals/values they exhibit for the purposes of shedding light on which of the values embodied in the Ramayana are in some sense unique to India.
· Train to Pakistan Paper (20%): This paper will be due on November 7th.
· News Presentation (5%): Students will make an in-class presentation based on their reading of a news article. This can be either an article in a non-Indian newspaper about India, or an article in an Indian newspaper that reflects an Indian perspective on current events, including (but not limited to) international events that are also being reported in U.S. media. This presentation should summarize the basic points of the article, its relevance to our class and to Americans in general, and should highlight points of interests such as differences of perspective, values reflected, etc. Presentations should generally last about 5 minutes.
· Final Examination (30%): Students will take a final exam (date, time, and place TBA)
· Event Writes (5%): We are fortunate to have, this semester, a number of evening events related to the topics we’ll be covering in class. You are required to attend at least four extracurricular events (including the two lectures). Scheduled events include:
To make up for the time you’ll spend outside of regular class hours, there will be a few class periods that we will not meet. You are required to hand in a brief (approx 500 word) write-up about them. These “event writes” will should be sent to me by e-mail within 48 hours of the end of the event. In addition to evening movies, lectures and music events at Clowes Hall, you may also arrange your own event: coordinating a showing of a Bollywood movie or visiting the Hindu temple here in Indianapolis.
The following points represent key things that will be looked for in all your work:
1) Intellectual honesty: All written work must be your own. If you use someone else's words, there must be quotation marks and a footnote indicating this (see the links I have provided on my home page at http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/plagiarism.htm). Simply changing a few words is not good enough. You must put ideas in your own words; and even then, if the idea is someone else's, you must still provide a footnote or other reference so as to give credit where credit is due. If you plagiarize you will fail the class, and the dean of student services as well as the dean of your college will be informed so that there will a record of the offense, in order that it may be clear whether you are a repeat offender. If you do not adequately reference your sources you will either fail, or be required to redo the paper, or at the very least get a lower grade than you might otherwise have received on that assignment, depending on the nature and severity of the case. Intellectual honesty is of more fundamental importance than anything you will learn by taking this class.
2) Critical thinking: How you think (and that you think) is infinitely more important to me than what you think. You will gain no points by agreeing with me, and lose none by disagreeing. What matters is how you argue your case, and that you examine critically not only the views of others, but also your own views. Coupled with the need for critical thinking is a need for:
3) Fairness: You must understand the views of others, even if you disagree with them. Treat their views the way you would like your own viewpoints to be treated. Again, whether you agree or disagree with an author's viewpoint is completely up to you. But you must understand what he or she says, and not merely in a superficial manner. Recent (postmodern) thought may emphasize that none of us can claim to be objective: we all have a viewpoint, and we all have assumptions and biases. But this need not mean that we are incapable of interacting with the views of others in a manner that is fair.
4) Breadth of reading, reflection, and interaction with scholarly writings: Your ability to evaluate different viewpoints and then draw your own conclusions will make the difference between B+ work and A work. A university essay is not simply your reflections. Rather than offer your own opinions (which you may well have had prior to taking this course), you must find out what relevant scholars and experts have to say, and draw your own conclusions based on the evidence. To simply reference one or two web pages will not be adequate, unless you have made use of books and have learned to distinguish scholarly material on the web from opinions offered without sufficient scholarly argument or citation of evidence. The best papers will combine research with creativity and originality. Please also note that, although I have sought to make available to you the highest quality of online resources via the course web page, online reading is rarely if ever sufficient for writing a college-level paper, even a short one. Unless you are certain you have access to complete online articles and books by authors who deal with topics in a scholarly manner, you should use web-based resources with caution.
5) The Liberal Arts: This course fulfills a core requirement as part of students’ liberal arts education. It is this component of professional education that gives it the value of a university degree rather than a mere technical or vocational diploma. Employers seek to hire graduates who have not only memorized facts but have developed a broad capacity to think critically and creatively, and to interact and communicate effectively with others. The content and the methods learned in this course serve these wider educational aims.
6) Although it should not be necessary to specify this, all work submitted must be typed and must be in appropriate English (i.e. correct spelling and punctuation, no IM abbreviations). What you are trying to say may be correct and even important, but it will not count for much if your ideas are not communicated clearly and intelligibly, since a professor can only evaluate how much you have understood based on what you write. A good idea might be to have a study partner or other individual who can proofread your work, in some form of reciprocal arrangement. Getting critical feedback prior to handing work in will also very likely contribute to you receiving a higher grade.
Listen,
however, to what CEOs from
You probably know the famous saying, “Give a person a fish and you have fed him or her for a day; teach a person how to fish and you have fed them for life.” A liberal arts education aims at teaching students not just important general knowledge, but teaching them how to learn. Global and Historical Studies provides a wonderful area in which to do precisely that. On the one hand, the South Asian Civilizations course includes a survey of religion and religious texts from that part of the world, and if students can learn to think critically about such big topics as religion, then thinking critically about more mundane topics less central to their worldview will seem relatively easy and painless by comparison. Global and Historical Studies is also a great place to learn to use a range of tools from various academic disciplines, since the subject will be approached via historical, archaeological, literary, social-scientific, economic, political and other perspectives.
In
any given classroom at
[T]he only “objective” knowledge we possess is the knowledge that comes from a community of people looking at a subject and debating their observations within a consensual framework of procedural rules. I know of no field, from science to religion, where what we regard as objective knowledge did not emerge from long and complex communal discourse that continues to this day…
The firmest foundation of all our knowledge is the community of truth itself. This community can never offer us ultimate certainty – not because its process is flawed but because certainty is beyond the grasp of finite hearts and minds. Yet this community can do much to rescue us from ignorance, bias, and self-deception if we are willing to submit our assumptions, our observations, our theories – indeed, ourselves – to its scrutiny.[2]
Global and Historical Studies not only provides an opportunity to learn the varied approaches to knowledge that are crucial to a liberal arts education, and to becoming a lifelong learner on a trajectory towards a successful future. It is also an opportunity to begin to develop the habit of respectful dialogue with others with whom we disagree. It is only such encounter with different viewpoints that can keep us honest. It has been said that one never truly believes something until one has listened to the arguments of the other side. The academic study of other cultures provides students with an opportunity to become better global citizens, but also to reflect on, and work out for themselves, what they truly believe.
[1] Jean C. Wyer, “Accounting Education: Change Where You Might Least Expect It,” Change Jan.-Feb. 1993, pp.15-17 [quoted in Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach (San Francisco: Josey-Bass, 1998) p.177.
[2] Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach (San Francisco: Josey-Bass, 1998) p.104.
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