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Academic Year 2001/2002

Material Culture and the Discourse of Hindu-Muslim Communalism
ARHA 286 SP
Crosslistings:
ARCP 286
Clusters:

Southern Asia and Indian Ocean

One of the central figures of contemporary India is the ideology of communalism, which emphasize the religious community as a social, political, and economic unit in antagonistic distinction from other such groups. Not only has Hindu-Muslim communalism been a fundamental engine of change in modern India, but it is also popularly understood to have been a constant force in Indian history ever since the 11th-century, when Islam first arrived as a political presence in the subcontinent. Recent historiographic trends, however, have questioned the presumed antiquity of this ideology and have suggested that communalism is, in fact, a more recent phenomenon that derives directly from British colonial policies and intellectual projects. This cours e offers a critical examination of the ideology of communalism, focusing in particular on the varied connections between communal identity and material culture. We will be concerned with three distinct questions: How have objects of material culture--in cluding, especially, architecture, religious images, dress, and pictorial representations--been used to construct and maintain communal identities in colonial and contemporary India? How have the object-based disciplines of ethnography, art history, and archaeology been used to advance communal agendas in this century by essentializing communal identities and projecting them back upon the Indian past? Can a more critical analysis of the material culture record yield alternative, noncommunalist visions o f how ethnic identities were constructed in premodern India?

MAJOR READINGS

R. Thapar et al, COMMUNALISM AND THE WRITING OF INDIAN ANCESTRY P. van der Veer, RELIGIOUS NATIONALISM: HINDUS AND MUSLIMS IN INDIA S. Gopal, ANATOMY OF A CONFRONTATION: THE BABRI MASJID-RAMJANMABHUMI ISSUE D. Mandal, AYODHYA: ARCHAEOLOGY AFTER DEMOLITION S. Pollock, "Ramayana and Political Imagination in India" R. Davis, LIVES OF INDIAN IMAGES R. Eaton, "Indo-Muslim State Formation, Temple Desecration, and the Historiography of the Holy Warrior" T. S. Metcalf, AN IMPERIAL VISION: INDIAN ARCHITECTURE AND BRITAIN'S RAJ S.C. Welch, ROOM FOR WONDER: INDIAN PAINTING DURING THE BRITISH PERIOD J. Eicher, ed., DRESS AND ETHNICITY P. Wagoner, "'Sultan among Hindu Kings': Dress, Titles, and the Islamicization of Hindu Culture at Vijayanagar a"

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Regular attendance and reading of all assigned materials. Quizzes, midterm and final. Three short essays.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS

Unless preregistered students attend the first class meeting or communicate directly with the instructor prior to the first class, they will be dropped from the class list. NOTE: Students must still submit a completed Drop/Add form to the Registrar's Office.

COURSE FORMAT: Lecture

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: HA ART    Grading Mode: Graded   

Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-19-2002

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