Lineages of the Medieval: Texts and Histories in the South Asian World 2
- Course Code:
- 15PSAH010
- Status:
- Course Not Running 2013/2014
- Unit value:
- 0.5
- Taught in:
- Term 1
Prerequisites
None
Objectives and learning outcomes of the course
By the end of the term, the students will be able to demonstrate a working knowledge of specific historiographic and conceptual problems for the study of this period, and will have the opportunity to apply their understanding of the general theoretical and historical problems that they were introduced to in Term 1.
In addition to expressing themselves in writing, the students will be required to lead the class discussion, either individually or in small groups, presenting synthetic overviews of the scholarship on the individual regions of study. This will provide valuable direct experience in using the research resources of the School and of other London resources, such as the British Museum and the British Library, experience that will benefit the students in the preparation and writing of their dissertations (whether on this course or otherwise) as well as in future research they may undertake.
Workload
A one hour lecture and a one and a half hour seminar per weekScope and syllabus
This course, the second part of a two-term sequence, is meant to provide a series of case studies of the politics and culture of different regions of southern Asia during the medieval period, roughly 7th-13th C CE. We will study the continuities as well as differences between the areas, focusing on the different types of sources available for each region, their extent, and the historiographies that these have produced. This will provide an opportunity to reflect critically and self-consciously on the historical enterprise of parceling things out into putatively discrete regions. While the histories of society and economy, as well as religion and art will be of repeated concern, a fundamental question will the relationship between the creation of culture, especially literary culture, and the institutions and forms of elite politics.
Alongside introductory and concluding sessions, the ten weeks of the term will be divided into four units of two weeks, each concentrating on a single study area. The topics surveyed will differ from one area to the other, but each biweekly session will begin with a student presentation (if necessary, in groups) providing a survey of the relevant source material and existing scholarly opinion and debate. The second week of each study area will focus especially on the close reading and discussion of one or more primary sources.
For those studying for the two MA degrees offered by the South Asian Languages and Cultures department, the course provides a broad but sufficiently detailed survey of a variety of the historical societies of the region and, taken in concert with the seminar in the first term, will enable the students to confidently approach the methodological and epistemological questions raised by the study of the South Asian past. For the strongly linguistically orientated departmental MA, this course will provide a potential venue for the application of the language of study to a body of premodern textual materials; while students on the area studies degree will have a currently-unavailable opportunity to thematically survey a crucial period in the formation of Southern Asian culture.
The same holds true for students in the MA History and MA Indian Religions. For the first of these, the historical (and historiographic) focus of the course will provide more advanced training to a student with an existing interest in South Asian historical studies; students in the Study of Religion may benefit both from the added knowledge of particular regions and periods, but also from the perspective that different disciplinary approaches bring to their field of study.
The study areas that the instructors have tentatively settled upon are:
Weeks 2 and 3: SE Asia (Kambujadesa and Srivijaya)
First session: The problems of “Greater India” and “Sanskritisation”: how to write a history of early Southeast Asia; autochthony versus the cosmopolitan
Second session: epigraphy and local history (Sdok Kak Thom inscription of Suryavarman I)
Weeks 4 and 5: Gujarat and Sindh
First session: multiple mobilities (the Arab diaspora, the Indian ocean trading world, ‘global’ Jainism); old kingdoms and new kingdoms
Second session: Jaina narrative and anthological writing (Meruttunga, Hemacandra), Arabic historiography
Week 6: Reading Week
Weeks 7 and 8: Colamandalam
First session: questions of institutional history and prosopography; ‘Imperial’ temple building; centrifugal and centripedal tendencies; the ‘long twelfth century’
Second session: the disconnect between imperium and courtly literature (Cayankontar’s Kalinkattupparani, Cekkilar’s Periyapuranam); the making of a standardized public culture; epigraphy and local history redux
Weeks 9 and 10: Kashmir
First session: The Kashmirian ‘Renaissance’ and intellectual history; Kashmir in Central Asia; tantris, kayasthas, damaras and other intermediate authorities; Islam and accomodation
Second session: Kalhana’s Rajatarangini as history and as literature
Method of assessment
One 3,500 word essay to be submitted on day 1 of week 7 (40%) ; one 3,500 word essay to be submitted on day 1 of term 3 (40%) and one oral presentation (20%).Suggested reading
A downloadable word version of the Reading List is available here.
