HIAB00781U South Asian Cultures: Contestations, Negotiations, Transformations

This course offers critical engagements with the diverse forms of South Asian cultural practices. It examines cultures as lived ‘everyday’ experiences intertwined with broader socio-economic and political changes, and negotiations of structures of caste, class, and gender. It does so by exploring a range of phenomena such as ethno-linguistic and religious identities, public/private distinctions, and engagements with forms of popular culture such as food, modes of dress, cinema, and sport. It draws on ethnographies of the region and its diasporas, as well as audio-visual materials such as films, documentary footage, music, and fiction. The course aims to illuminate critical debates about ‘modernity’ that characterise the contestations, negotiations, and transformations of cultures in South Asia and amongst its diasporas.