ANTH 248 - Body Politics, Gender and Religion in South Asia

Institution:

Williams College

Subject:

Anthropology

Description:

This course examines the relationship between body, gender, and religion or community in South Asia, using three countries--India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh--and three major religions--Induism, Buddhism, and Islam--as its focus. It begins by unpacking the critical theories in which the human body serves as map for society and vice versa. It then examines the South Asian discourses linking body with nation, population, or purity. It explores a South Asian sociology of the body that occasions solidarity as well as social suffering and structural violence. Along the way, it looks at a diverse set of practices that count or control bodies to produce social cohesion including yoga, sex selection, family planning, monasticism, and fundamentalism. The body emerges as a lens through which to view the production of a politics of identity as much as fragmentation or social hierarchy.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Seminar

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.williams.edu

Phone Number:

(413) 597-3131

Regional Accreditation:

New England Association of Schools and Colleges

Calendar System:

Four-one-four plan

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