History

Electives

  • The Global History of Science (Spring 2020)

Professor: Kapil Raj

This course covered the broad history of the development of the history of Science in the long 20th century. We looked at the history of science both through the developments of individual disciplines, but more importantly through a history of 'science' and the different discourses that relate to the political and cultural discourses of science of the 20th century. We looked at the idea of creation of science, and the concepts of western and eastern science. Here are some of the texts we read for the course:

  1. Alan F. Chalmers, What is This Thing Called Science? An Assessment of the Nature and Status of Science and its Methods

  2. Karl R. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery

  3. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

  4. Kapil Raj, “Circulation and the Emergence of Modern Mapping: Great Britain and Early Colonial India, 1764–1820

  5. George Sarton, The Incubation of Western Culture in the Middle East

  6. Boris Hessen, “The Socio-Economic Roots of Newton’s ‘Principia’”

  7. Alexandre Koyré, Introduction in Galileo Studies

  8. George Basalla. "The Spread of Western Science."

  9. Ophir, Adi, and Steven Shapin. “The Place of Knowledge A Methodological Survey.”

  10. Jan Golinski, Introduction in Making Natural Knowledge: Constructivism and the History of Science

  • Tarzan and Mowgli: The History of Colonial Culture (Monsoon 2018)

Professor: Aparna Vaidik

This is a deals with the different ways in which Africa and India was portrayed by the colonizers. We are delaying with all kinds of representation of Africa through both primary and secondary sources. The major themes in the course were colonial depiction, misrepresentation and hegemony in cultural and literary sources.

My paper for the course mapped the colonial gaze in the Adventures of Tintin. A section of the same has been published in Scroll, you can read it here.

  • Religion, Literature and Politics in North India (Summer 2019)

Professor : Purushottam Agarwal

This course looked at the historical and literary discourse between 1922-1947 in North India, through the lens of Hindi and Urdu language. Some of the texts we read for this course were:

  1. Hindutva, V.D. Savarkar

  2. Rangbhoomi, Munsi Premchand

  • War, Culture, Society (Summer 2019)

Professor: Pratyay Nath

This course looked at the history of the war and its relationship with culture, society and how logistics of war. It also looked at graphic novels, movies, photographs, letters, and computer games, to explore the politics of representing war in popular culture.

  • Environment and Empire in the Early Modern World (Spring 2020)

Professor: Pratyay Nath

This course covered interaction between the environment and human societies in the early modern world as well as the role of environment in shaping early modern imperialism. We read a book each week and the texts covered in this course were:

  1. Brian Fagan, The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850

  2. Dagomar Degroot, The Frigid Golden Age: Climate Change, the Little Ice Age

  3. John T Wing, Roots of Empire: Forests and State Power in Early Modern Spain

  4. Christine L Corton, London Fog: The Biography

  5. Anya Zilberstein, A Temperate Empire: Making Climate Change in Early America.

  6. Alan Mikhail, Under Osman’s Tree: The Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Environmental History.

  7. Nukhet Varlik, Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: The Ottoman Experience, 1347-1600.

  8. Jakobina K Arch, Bringing Whales Ashore: Oceans and the Environment of Early Modern Japan.

  9. Sugata Ray, Climate Change and the Art of Devotion: Geo-aesthetics in the Land of Krishna

  10. David A Bello, Across Forest, Steppe, and Mountain: Environment, Identity, and Empire in Qing China’s Borderlands

Methods and Reading Courses

  • Reading Archeology (Monsoon 2018)

Professor: Sanjukta Dutta

This course dealt with archeological methodology in the first half of the semester and archeological case studies in the second half of the semester. We read two books for the case studies:

  • The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found, Mary Beard

  • Gender and Material Culture: The Archaeology of Religious Women, Roberta Gilchrist

  • Reading History (Spring 2019)

Professor: Aparna Vaidik

This course dealt with the different historical methodologies to work through historical sources in research. The methodologies covered in this course are:

  1. Archival/ institutional Evidence

  2. Oral Evidence & Memory

  3. Materiality as Evidence

  4. Experience as Evidence

  5. Absence of evidence

  6. Time and Evidence

  7. Language and Evidence

  • Sources and Histories (Monsoon 2020 and Spring 2021)

This thesis-preparatory seminar worked on several different kinds methods that could facilitate research in historical themes. It was taken by the entire history faculty of Ashoka University.

Survey Courses:

  • Modern Europe (Spring 2018)

Professor: Rudrangshu Mukherjee

This course covered European History from the Renaissance up to the Russian Revolution.

  • History of India 1 (Spring 2018)

Professor: Nayanjot Lahiri

This course was the first course in the 4 part Indian History. This course dealt with the period from pre-history up till the rule of Emperor Ashoka. This course was an amazing insight into the religion, politics, food habits and other crucial social aspects of ancient India. This course also entailed a field trip at the archeological sight in Barnawa.

  • History of India 2 (Monsoon 2019)

Professor: Upinder Singh

The paper from the course has been published as an article for Scroll. It can be seen here.

  • History of India 3 (Spring 2019)

Professor: Pratyay Nath

This course was the second course in the 4 part Indian History. This course dealt with the period from 1000 AD- 1800 AD.

  • History of India 4 (Spring 2019)

Professor: Rudrangshu Mukherjee and Mahesh Rangarjan

This course was the last course in the 4 part Indian History. This course dealt with the period from 1757 AD to 1967 AD.

Co-curricular

  • Art Plantae: Understanding PIants In Indian Art (Monsoon 2018) .

Instructor: Malini Saigal

This course covered both the theoretical and practical aspects of plants and how they have been represented in Indian Art throughout history. I worked on a China Painting and wrote a research paper on the Mughal Buta.