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Agent, Subject, Object
Early Modern South Asia
Manan Ahmed
Spring 2018

Syllabus subject to change

Agent, Subject, Object: Early Modern South Asia

Course Description

This graduate seminar focuses on agents, subjects and objects that catalyzed the material and political orders from 1500-1800 in South Asia. We pair primary, historical texts (in translation) with recent monographs which demonstrate the intersections between narrative and polity within material and epistemic realms. Our guiding interests will be in understanding the intimate relationship between power, agency and materiality within specific political spaces. Eschewing the center/periphery models, we will focus on specific sites of literary and political imagination-- Bengal, Deccan, Punjab—- and then turn to the global connections with America and Europe during this period. This seminar will assume broad familiarity with European early modern politics and thought.

Course Readings (monographs in bold)

  • Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, "Witnesses and Agents of Empire: Eighteenth-Century Historiography and the World of the Mughal Munshī" Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 53, No. 1/2, Empires and Emporia: The Orient in World Historical Space and Time (2010), pp. 393-423
  • Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, "The Deccan Frontier and Mughal Expansion, ca. 1600: Contemporary Perspectives" Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 47, No. 3, (2004), pp. 357-389
  • Roland Barthes, "The Discourse of History" in The Rustle of Language (1984)
  • Jean Baudrillard, “The System of Collecting” (1968) in John Elsner and Roger Cardinal, eds., The Cultures of Collecting (Harvard University Press, 1994), pp. 7- 24
  • Judith Butler. Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997, pp. 1-31.
  • Stephen F. Dale, "Indo-Persian Historiography" in Charles Melville (ed), Persian Historiography (London: I.B.Tauris, 2010)
  • Purnima Dhavan. When Sparrows Became Hawks: The Making of the Sikh Warrior Tradition, 1699-1799 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011)
  • Jonathan Eacott. Selling Empire: India in the Making of Britain and America, 1600-1830 (Charlotte, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2017)
  • Richard M. Eaton and Phillip B. Wagoner. Power, Memory, Architecture: Contested Sites on India's Deccan Plateau, 1500-1800. (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2015)
  • Munis Faruqui. The Princes of the Mughal Empire, 1504-1719. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015)
  • Abu'l Fazl. History of Akbar, vol 2. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016)
  • Michel Foucault. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (1966; Vintage, 1994), chap. 5, 8, 10
  • Michel Foucault. On Revolution (1981)
  • Hiroshi Fukazawa, "A Study of the Local Administration of AdilShahi Sultanate (A.D. 1489-1686) Hitotsubashi Journal of Econmics, 3, 2 (June 1963): 37-67
  • François Hartog, "The Invention of History: The Pre-History of a Concept from Homer to Herodotus" History and Theory, 39, 3 (Oct 2000): 384-395
  • Marshall G.S. Hodgson, "Two Pre-Modern Muslim Historians: Pitfall and Opportunities in Presenting them to Moderns" in J. Nef (ed.), Towards World Community (1968)
  • W. Nassau Lees and H. W. Hammond, "Materials for the History of India for the Six Hundred Years of Mohammadan Rule previous to the foundation of the British Indian Empire" The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, New Series, Vol. 3, No. 2 (1868), pp. 414-477
  • W. H. McLeod. The Chaupa Singh Rahit-nama (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 1987)
  • J.P Losty. Into the Indian Mind: An Insight through Portraits, Battles and Epics in Indian Painting, 2015.
  • Rosalind O'Hanlon, "Kingdom, Household and Body History, Gender and Imperial Service under Akbar" Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 41, No. 5 (Sep., 2007), pp. 889-923
  • Allasani Peddana. The Story of Manu. Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman (tr) (Cambridge, MA: Murty Classical Library of India, 2015)
  • Joan-Pau Rubiés. "Ludovico de Varthema: the curious traveller at the time of Vasco da Gama and Columbus" in Travel and Ethnology in the Renaissance: South India through European Eyes, 1250-1625 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 125-164
  • Sanjay Subrahmanyam. Europe’s India: Words, People, Empires, 1500–1800. (Harvard University Press, 2016)

Class Expectations

The class is designed as a graduate-level discussion seminar to explore latest historiography on early modern South Asia. Doing full and complete assigned readings, plus any further research to understand the historiography or theory, is necessary for full participation in the class. You are also expected to act respectfully and with an open disposition with your peers and colleagues. You should respect both the intellectual and social space of the seminar room.

  • Primary Source Essay & In-class Presentation (2000 words) : 25%
  • Monograph Essay & In-class Presentation (2000 words): 25%
  • Piazza discussions: 25%
  • Visual Culture Essay (example): 25%

Class Schedule

  • Wed Jan 17—Butler, Baudrillard
  • Wed, Jan 24-- Foucault, Losty
  • Wed Jan 31—Faruqui
  • Wed Feb 7— Abu'l Fazl (1-271)
  • Wed Feb 14-- Hodgson, Dale, O'Hanlon & Abu'l Fazl (271-519)
  • Thu Feb 15-- SPECIAL MASTER CLASS WITH RON INDEN
  • Wed Feb 21— Eaton & Waggoner
  • Wed Feb 28— Peddana
  • Wed Mar 7-- Alam (Deccan), Rubies, Fukazawa, & Peddana
  • Wed Mar 21— Dhavan
  • Thu Mar 22-- SPECIAL MASTER CLASS WITH GAIUTRA BAHADUR Wed Mar 28-- McLeod
  • Wed Apr 4-- XXX
  • Wed Apr 11-- Subhramanyam
  • Wed Apr 18-- Eacott
  • Wed Apr 25-- Hartog, Barthes & Lees
  • Thu Apr 26-- Conclusions (7pm dinner)