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 is recorded in a '5' rating for research, and a Teaching Quality Assessment score of 23 out of 24.
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: Vedic texts and Sanskrit epics; Islam in South Asia; Sikhism; nationalism and linguistic identity; medieval Hindu devotional literature; modern fiction, poetry and biography; postcolonial studies; Indian cinema and popular cultures; the South Asian diaspora; and literary translation.
Our degree programmes are detailed in the degree programmes and course descriptions pages, but an overview may be helpful here.
Our undergraduate programme offers 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 BA Honours degree:
BA South Asian Studies 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. '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 Hindi and...', 'BA Bengali and ...' and 'BA Nepali and...'. A three-year degree 'BA Sanskrit and ...' is also available.
At Masters level:
We convene the MA South Asian Area Studies (whose options include subjects taught in many different departments), and MA South Asian Languages and Cultures (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 (Asia and Africa), 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.
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.
