Curriculum

The semester curriculum consists of two required courses: Contemporary India and Internship/Directed Research.

In addition, students choose two electives for a total of 15 semester credits.  Students may opt to take a third elective for a total of 18 credits. 

• All courses involve a minimum of 44 contact hours.
• At least one elective must be directly related to the student's internship or directed research project.
• In addition to regular courses, the program offers students the option of taking co-curricular, non-credit classes in yoga, Kathak dance or Bharatnatyam, classical vocals, a musical instrument, Marathi language, or other cultural activity.

SOCI 360: Contemporary India [pdf]  (required - 3 credits) 

The program’s core course is a political, historical, and social survey of post-Independence India as a complex yet unified multi-cultural, multi-linguistic, religiously pluralistic democracy, a rising major global power and soon to be the world's most populous country.

This course gives students the ability to understand what they are seeing around them, on the news, and in the newspapers, contextualized within a historical framework. Topics include: colonialism, nationalism, and independence; Gandhi, social activism and the 1960s; gender and caste; formative literary, religious and philosophical movements, and recent history from 1990 to the present. 

INTS/DIRR 380: Internship/Directed Research [pdf] and METH 380: Field Study Seminar [pdf]
(required - 3 credits each, 6 credits total)

Students are matched with internship and research placements during orientation, based upon academic interests articulated in their Internship/Directed Research form.  After an initial period of training in field research techniques, issues, and complexities specific to India, students begin their research and internships, with the Field Study Seminar running concurrently throughout the semester.  This enables students to continue refining their research process and to address questions or issues as they arise in the course of their work. 

Both internships and directed research projects are conducted under close academic supervision and require a faculty-approved reading list, regular meetings with a faculty guide, weekly journals, and a final research paper or project with accompanying presentation.

ESEI 380: Environmental Issues [pdf] (elective - 3 credits)

India’s ongoing population explosion, along with its steady march toward urbanization and industrialization, has placed significant pressure on its land and natural resources.  Deforestation, soil erosion, water and air pollution, and land degradation—as well their effects on urban and rural population— are among the many critical environmental issues that India grapples with each day. These issues are also inherently international, affecting not only India but the rest of the world, too, and environmental issues in both developing and industrialized nations are assuming an increasingly urgent status on the global agenda.

This course will expose students to environmental issues both from an Indian and global perspective, exploring the natural, social, economic and political facets of these complex yet pressing concerns.   By the end  of the course, students should have a more nuanced, interdisciplinary understanding of the environmental challenges facing India and the developing world as a whole, as well as both culturally-specific and global strategies for addressing them.   This course will prepare students for internships with local or international environmental NGOs, urban or rural development agencies, or educational organizations. 

HSPH 300: Public Health [pdf] (elective - 3 credits)

Public health is a crucial component of a nation’s development and infrastructure, comprising everything from delivery of basic medical services to the protection and support of human rights.   Yet, poised to become the world’s most populous nation by 2040 and undergoing a rapid, profound social and economic transformation, India faces unique and daunting challenges.  There remains a lack of basic medical care in many parts of India, with widespread malnutrition and high infant mortality rates, HIV/AIDS on the rise, looming threats of infectious disease and epidemics, and a dearth of public health professionals.   At the same time, India is in many cases on the cutting edge of finding creative, innovative solutions to these large-scale public health issues that are of increasing global concern and significance. 

This course will take a multidisciplinary approach to public health in India, incorporating policy development, gender issues, social justice, health economics, epidemiology, behavioral sciences, and health services management.  Students will be asked to carefully interrogate how social, political, and economic factors facilitate or mitigate the production and transmission of disease, and to evaluate ethical and practical consequences of policy and scientific initiatives.   Special attention will be given to preparing students for internships or directed research in this area.

SOCJ 365: Social Justice [pdf] (elective - 3 credits)

Social justice movements in India may be most widely known through the iconic figures of Mahatma Gandhi and B. R. Ambedkar, but there is a rich and diverse tradition of Indian social justice theory and action dating from the British Raj era to modern Dalit, tribal, and women’s movements. 

This course will offer students an overview of theories, thinkers, and leaders in social justice in India, especially as they have evolved through the anti-colonial movement, nationalism and the freedom struggle, 20th-century political and social movements, and contemporary economic, caste, and gender disparities that students will see and hear actively discussed and contested around them.  Through the contemporary writings of Amartya Sen, Madhu Kishwar, and other leading Indian scholars in social justice, students will acquire the analytical and critical tools to carefully think through issues of marginalization, equity, development, and human rights in their contemporary Indian and global context.  

PSED 390: Issues in Political Economy and Development [pdf] (elective - 3 credits)

This course focuses on the key themes relating to economic and political development in India. In particular, it examines the way actors shape the distribution of power and wealth in the Indian polity and economy, seeking to understand the obstacles and opportunities currently facing India. The main questions addressed by the course are: How do we define development and who is development for? What are the political and economic factors shaping development? How does the struggle for power and wealth affect issues of poverty, equality, and justice? The course will emphasize political economy of development in the Indian context, but the debates and discussions will also deal with issues affecting developing countries overall.   

CSNF 350: Nation, Caste, and Gender through Film [pdf] (elective - 3 credits)

Indian cinema is over 100 years old and is the largest film industry in the world.  Though known best through the Hindi-language production powerhouses of Bollywood, Indian films are produced in over 17 languages with a wide and diverse range of subjects and genres.

This course provides a critical overview of post-Independence Indian cinema, with a particular focus on deconstructing social and political ideologies embedded in representations of nation, caste, and gender.  Students examine how this popular cultural form has served as an important vehicle for disseminating an idealized Indian national identity, and by identifying how gender, caste, class and religion are portrayed and constructed in Indian cinema, students will develop important analytical tools for understanding contemporary Indian culture through film and visual media.   

HIND 100: Beginning Hindi [pdf] (elective - 3 credits)

Fundamentals of conversation and written Hindi for beginning students.

HIND 200: Intermediate Hindi [pdf] (elective - 3 credits)

Fundamentals of conversation and written Hindi for intermediate students.