Welcome to the South Asia Department
The study of language gives unique access to the culture of a region, to its contemporary life and its historical civilization. Starting from this premise, the South Asia Department is devoted to research and teaching in the languages, literatures and cultures of the Indian subcontinent, with the aim of reaching better understanding of one of the most complex and significant areas of the world. The success of the Department in achieving its goals was reflected in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, in which 65% of the work of the Department was rated "world-leading" or "internationally excellent".
This department's work on the languages, literatures and cultures of South Asia complements that of other SOAS South Asianists whose disciplines include History, Religious Studies, Music, Art, Politics, Anthropology, and so forth, and who are based in other departments within the School. Together we constitute one of the largest centres of South Asian studies outside the subcontinent; and being located in a city which itself contains a virtual microcosm of South Asia brings incalculable benefits to us and our students.
The research interests of the Department's staff members include, but are not limited to: Indian cinema and popular culture; diaspora studies; postcolonial literature; literary and linguistic studies associated with Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Nepali, Gujarati, Tamil and Sanskrit; classical Hinduism; feminism; representations of Islam; the politics of Nepal and Bhutan; and literary translation.
Our degree programmes are detailed in the degree programmes and course descriptions pages, but an overview may be helpful here.
At Undergraduate level:
Our undergraduate programmes offer language and literature courses in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Nepali and Sanskrit, with a smaller range of options in Gujarati, Pali, Sinhala and Tamil. Most courses are taught by full-time members of the Department, while some others are taught in the School's Language Centre. The Department has a long tradition of writing its own teaching materials, many of which are in regular use in universities throughout Europe and North America.
We run one single-subject degree, BA South Asian Studies, which is a three-year degree of the 'area studies' type. A South Asian language is studied alongside other aspects of the region; options include such courses as Indian Cinema, and South Asian Literature in English (taught within the Department) and courses in other disciplines (taught by South Asianists in other departments).
BA South Asian Studies can be taken in a single-subject format, or as part of a two-subject ('joint honours') degree, combining with a second subject taught in SOAS (see BA South Asian Studies and...). 'South Asian Studies and Music' or 'South Asian Studies and Development Studies' are examples of such two-subject degrees.
We also offer modern languages as part of a two-subject degree, whose additional year abroad makes these four-year degrees with an extra emphasis on language. The degrees available are BA Bengali and ..., BA Hindi and..., and BA Nepali and.... A three-year degree BA Sanskrit and ... is also available.
From 2011, a new degree BA Cinema Cultures and... will be on offer. Further details on this will follow when available.
At Masters level:
We convene the MA South Asian Area Studies (whose options include subjects taught in many different departments), and MA Languages and Cultures of South Asia (mostly taught within our department). We also contribute a number of language, literature and culture courses that may be taken within such Masters programmes as MA Comparative Literature (Africa / Asia), MAs offered by the Centre for Media and Film Studies and MA in Gender Studies or as 'minor' options within a wide range of SOAS Masters degrees.
At Doctoral level:
The research topics covered by Department staff and PhD students are very diverse. The Department has a long history of research in the study of ancient, medieval and modern literatures, in philology and lexicography, in the study of religious and social movements, and in many aspects of the cultural life of the subcontinent. Present research projects extend from work on the Sanskrit Puranas, through vernacular poetry of the seventeenth-century courts of North India, to twentieth-century postcolonial literature and twenty-first century cinema. We welcome proposals for new research projects, whether from prospective PhD students or from colleagues in other universities who wish to collaborate on joint projects.
