Time and its discontents

Time is fundamental to all ideas about the past and our projections to the future, yet our measures and conceptions of time change constantly. This class investigates how ideas, debates and everyday experiences of time, history, and their periodization have taken shape in the intellectual exchange between South Asia and the West.

Together, we will explore key concepts and themes pertaining to the temporal cultures of medieval and modern South Asia. We will examine how these ideas posed challenges to the hegemonic Western world-view of time and how our modern notion of time, history and their everyday experiences were forged in this encounter.

What can a bored monk writing in medieval India teach us about our hurried digital life? Was the relationship between past and present in premodern South Asia different from ours? What can we learn about colonialism and capitalism studying work schedules of clerks in colonial India? Was medieval South Asia a land without history?

From medieval to modern and from Mahābhārata to Marx, we will closely read a wide range of texts and other media hailing from both South Asia and the West from different ages. Students will discuss and analyze secondary and primary sources (in translation); religious texts, manuals for time keeping, and ethnographic descriptions of time practices, as well as texts describing temporal cultures and personal experiences of time, like novels, diaries, poetry and journals.

Students will develop critical tools for comparing, analyzing and interpreting the life-worlds of non-Western regions; our goal is to think of South Asia as an important site where our current concepts and propositions about time, history, and their reckoning were developed.

No prior knowledge of South Asian languages or history is necessary.

This online class will offer both synchronous and asynchronous components.

• Students will practice close analytical reading of both primary (in translation) and secondary sources; students will evaluate how discourses and arguments are built up on the intersection of primary and secondary sources.

• Students will develop comparative and analytical skills and will learn to craft arguments based on careful reading, analyzing and contrasting of different texts and experiences. Since the class will examine primary sources from different times and places (including outside South Asia), students will have the chance to analyze and contrast the life-worlds of present and historical South Asia against their own.

• Our goal is to open up horizons through the study of South Asia: students will investigate the various lives and ideas of the non-Western worlds and to asses and critique the hegemonic discourses constructed on them. Thus, in addition to theoretical approaches, students will analyze historical individual experiences of time: how Buddhist monks in medieval India and clerks in the colonial administration experienced time, for example.

• Students will practice expressing ideas clearly through oral presentations and seminar discussions.

• Students will gain key concepts to critically analyze contemporary debates on theories of history and history writing. The course will also serve as an introduction to important aspects of the history and politics of South Asia and its connections with other areas of the world

• This class will have synchronous and asynchronous components, and several activities will be integrated to synchronous classes to help alleviate Zoom fatigue. See the COVID-19 Statement in this syllabus for more information on remote learning.

• In the synchronous components, we will begin each class with a presentation led by a student. The goal of the presentation is not to summarize the text. I would encourage you to prepare a presentation that identifies some key passages in the assigned texts and/ or addresses some crucial themes and questions in the texts. The presentations should be no longer than 10 minutes.

• In the asynchronous components, students will be asked to collaborate in various projects for the class. Students will post their questions and comments on the readings in the class' Canvas site.

• Students are expected to read/study the required materials in full before each class. Wider reading is encouraged and suggestions for alternative reading materials in class are welcomed.

Books and materials

There will be no required book for the class. However, if you wish to know more about South Asian history in general, you can get two books that would serve as a good and solid introduction to the major themes and events of South Asian history:

• Doniger, Wendy, The Hindus: An Alternative History. New York: Penguin Press, 2009. Regenstein Library
• Asher, Catherine and Cynthia, Talbot, India before Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Regenstein Library

For some classes I will post excerpts of these books under “Suggested readings”, but they are not mandatory readings.

In-class participation (15% of final grade)

Active participation is an important requirement of this class. However, the current pandemic has taught us many valuable lessons on remote learning. We know, for example, that Zoom fatigue is a thing. While part of your grade will be based on your class engagement, your grade will not be affected if some days you don’t feel like participating much in class. The current pandemic and our remote class is not a normal situation and no penalization should come for feeling overwhelmed by the circumstances. See the COVID-19 statement in this syllabus for more information on remote learning.

Canvas reflection post (20% of final grade)

By Monday and Wednesday morning (that is, no later than noon) every student will post a reflection on Canvas in relation to the day’s readings. This could literally be one question or questions, a critical reflection on the pieces for the week, or it could be a reaction to one of the prompts I will supply each week for each session. The post in Canvas should not be longer than 200 words. You can engage with only one or all of the readings for the day, it is up to you.

Participation as discussant (25% of final grade)

Before a given class, I will assign one item of the reading selection to a single person who will be “point person” or discussant for this text. This is not a big deal – you don’t need to prepare a handout or presentation – but you do need to read your text extra-thoroughly and come to class ready to talk about your experience reading this text (5-10 minutes tops). For example, you could talk about the text’s main ideas to help the class figure out what they are or direct us to a particularly rich and important passage for analysis and discussion. You don’t have to present the whole text, just the points you found most salient/confusing/interesting.

There will be only one discussant per class who will be in charge of only one text. If you interested in discussing a particular text, let me know in advance.

If you haven’t been assigned a text for the week, we will engage with your reflection post (see above) for the day. You should be ready to explain why you chose that particular text or texts to engage with, identify one passage from the readings that you find particularly worthy of discussion and facilitate discussion about it.

Final assignment (40% of final grade)

Students will have several options to choose from:

• Students can turn in a 2,500-3,000 word research paper. You can decide the topic but the subject and approach should be discussed with me by the end of the eighth week. Additionally, you can respond to one or several of the prompts I will post on the Canvas site by the end of the 6th week.

• Students can contribute to the UChicago Library Project How do we document life in a pandemic? Since the theme of the class is time and its various experiences, students who choose this option will have to craft some item around one of the subjects of the course. You will also turn in a 1,500 words write-up on the item to me.

• Surprise me! pitch your own project. It could take the form of a multimedia project, but it has to address at least 3 items from our reading list.

Academic honesty

Please ensure that all the writing you submit for this course is your own original work, created specifically for the course, and that you have cited all your sources. If you have any doubts regarding citation best practices, please feel free to consult me. The official University of Chicago policy on plagiarism can be found in the Student manual.

It is undeniable that our own sense of time has been thrown off in this pandemic; we are trying to learn, work and socialize in unprecedented circumstances and time indeed feels out of joint. I am fully aware that even if you have not been impacted directly,likely these times are likely to take a toil on your emotional and physical well-being. Therefore, I outline below some guiding principles to take into account in these troubled times of distance learning.

• Communicate your needs. I am happy to discuss and find solutions to any circumstances hindering your online learning experience. Whether you are on a different time-zone or you have spotty access to internet, etc, we can talk about it and work out a way for you to successfully participate in the class experience.

• Maintain and respect social distancing. This class is completely remote. This was not an easy decision for any instructor to make, as I am sure it was not an easy decision for you to take. This decision was taken following concerns on personal health, yours and mine. We will try to make the best of remote learning. If you are planning to be on campus this Fall, familiarize yourself with the UChicago Health Pact and follow its guidelines.

• Think of people first. While we won’t meet face to face, this principle should rule your online and physical interactions. This is a class around the human experiences and responses to time, which means we will learn about different ways of being in the world. This humanistic endeavor should trickle down to our own interactions. Be mindful on how your actions can be imposed upon others whose lives may differ drastically from ours. (Wear a mask!)

• Take care of yourself. As mentioned above, these are unprecedented times, so it is more than OK to feel overwhelmed. Put your mental health above work. If you don’t feel well, do not force yourself through the course work. Let me know so we can work out alternatives together.

• It is OK to ask for help. Always reach out if you need anything necessary to support your learning and own well-being. Feel free to contact me at any moment, and remember that the UChicago Student Counseling Center has many resources in place for you.

• Stay in touch constantly. Though we need to be physically apart to protect our health, we can remain connected through various communication platforms. An integral part of a college class is the community building aspect. We will try to devise ways for it to happen in our own class.

Week 1 (9/29 - 10/2) — The discovery of Time: introduction to the class

Class 1 (Wednesday 9/30)

• Andrew Shryock, Thomas R Trautmann, and Clive Gamble. “Imagining the Human in Deep Time.” In Deep History: The Architecture of Past and Present, 21–54, 2011.
• Primary source: William Jones, The Chronology of the Hindus" pp. 1-30.

Suggested Readings

Week 2 (10/5 - 10/9) — The Beginning of Time: cyclical time and historical time

Class 1 (Monday 10/5)

• Luis González-Reimann. The Mahābhārata and the Yugas: India’s Great Epic Poem and the Hindu System of World Ages. New York: Peter Lang, 2002. pp. 1-19
• Romila Thapar. Time as a Metaphor of History: Early India, 2000. pp. 3-37
• Primary Source: The Mahābhārata, excerpts.

Class 2 (Wednesday 10/7)

• Mircea Eliade, Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return. Harper Torchbooks, TB50. New York: Harper, 1959. pp. 95-137
• Different latitudes, other times: Paul J. Kosmin, Time and Its Adversaries in the Seleucid Empire, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2018, excerpts.

Suggested Readings

Week 3 (10/12 - 10/16) — Whose Time? Anthropology, Heterogeneous Time and the non-western world

Class 1 (Monday 10/12)

• Johannes Fabian, Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object (1983), Chapter 1 (“Time and the Emerging Other”), pp.1-35.
• Primary Source: Bīrūnī, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad, Alberuni’s India London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1910. The chapters on time of the Hindus. Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections' website

Class 2 (Wednesday 10/14)

• Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton Studies in Culture/Power/History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009, pp. 27-46.
• Different latitudes, other times: Saint Augustine, Confessions, excerpts.

Suggested readings

Week 4 (10/19 - 10/23) — Time in the lands without History: history writing and historical consciousness

Class 1 (Monday 10/19)

• Romila Thapar, “The Vaṁśāvalīs Chronicles of Place and Person - The Rājataraṅginī,” in The Past before Us: Historical Traditions of Early North India. Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2013, pp. 597-625.
• Velcheru Narayana Rao, David Dean Shulman, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, “Introduction: a palette of histories,” in Textures of Time: Writing History in South India, 1600-1800. Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001, pp. 1-23
• Primary Source: Rājataraṅginī, excerpts.

Class 2 (Wednesday 10/21)

• Rama Mantena. “The Question of History in Precolonial India.” History and Theory, no. 3 (2007): 396–408.
• Sheldon Pollock. “Pretextures of Time.” History and Theory 46, no. 3 (2007): 366-383.
• Different latitudes, other times: G.W.F. Hegel, “Extract from Philosophy of History,” in: Rathore, Aakash Singh, and Rimina Mohapatra. Hegel’s India: A Reinterpretation, with Texts. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017, pp.

Suggested Readings

• Romila Thapar. “Time Concepts, Social Identities & Historical Consciousness in Early India.” In Time in India: Concepts and Practices, edited by Angelika. Malinar, 24–38. New Delhi: Manohar, 2007.
• Kumkum Chatterjee, “Communities, Kings and Chronicles The Kulagranthas of Bengal.” Studies in History 21, no. 2 (September 1, 2005): 173–213. https://doi.org/10.1177/025764300502100203.

Week 5 (10/26 - 10/30) — Bored Monks and anxious millennials: experiencing time in the second millennium

Class 1 (Monday 10/26)

• Gregory Schopen, “Marking Time in Buddhist Monasteries: On Calendars, Clocks, and Some Liturgical Practices,” in: Buddhist Monks and Business Matters: Still More Papers on Monastic Buddhism in India, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2004, pp. 260-284.
• Snigdha Poonam, “The click-baiter,” in Dreamers: How Young Indians Are Changing the World (London: C. Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd., 2018).

Class 2 (Wednesday 10/28)

Judy Wajcman, “Time to Talk. Intimacy through Technology” in Pressed for Time: The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2016), pp. 137-160.

Suggested readings

Week 6 (11/2 - 11/6) — Politics of Time: periodization and its woes

Class 1 (Monday 11/2)

• Daud Ali. “The Idea of the Medieval in the Writing of South Asian History: Contexts, Methods and Politics.” Social History 39, no. 3 (July 3, 2014): 382–407.
• Kathleen Davis. “Periodization and the Matter of Precedent.” Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies 1, no. 3 (December 1, 2010): 354–60.

Class 2 (Wednesday 11/4)

• Kathleen Davis. Periodization and Sovereignty: How Ideas of Feudalism and Secularization Govern the Politics of Time. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. pp. 1-20.
• Dipesh Chakrabarty. “The Muddle of Modernity.” American Historical Review 116, no. 3 (June 2011): 663–75.
• Primary source**: Sarma, Sreeramula Rajeswar, “Setting up the water clock for telling the time of marriage,” in: David Edwin Pingree and Charles Burnett. _Studies in the History of the Exact Sciences in Honour of David Pingree._ Leiden: Brill, 2004, pp. 302-330.

Week 7 (11/9 - 11/13) — The discovery of the past: Nostalgia and Romanticization (Film)

Class 1 (11/9)

Film: Satyajit Ray, Jalsaghar, Drama, Music (Arora, Angel Digital Private Limited, 1958).

Jalsaghar (1958) - IMDb

Streaming link to be posted.

Class 2 (11/11)

• Daud Ali, “Introduction,” Courtly Culture and Political Life in Early Medieval India (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 1-25.
• Dipesh Chakrabarty. “Romantic Archives: Literature and the Politics of Identity in Bengal”. In: Critical Inquiry 30.3 (2004), pp. 654–682.

Suggested Readings

Week 8 (11/16 - 11/20) — Punching the clock: capitalism and the colonization of (everyday) time

Class 1

• Mukharji, Projit B. “Olden Times: Watches, Watchmaking, and Temporal Culture in Calcutta, c. 1757-1857.” In On Modern Indian Sensibilities: Culture, Politics, History, edited by Ishita Banerjee-Dube and Sarvani Gooptu. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2018.

Primary Source:

Class 2

• Jim Masselos. “Bombay Time.” In Intersections: Socio-Cultural Trends in Maharashtra, edited by Meera Kosambi, 161–83. New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2000.
• Sumit Sarkar, “Renaissance and Kali Yuga: Time, Myth and History in Colonial Bengal,” in Writing Social History, Delhi: New York, 1997, pp. 186-215.

Suggested Readings

Week 9 (11/23 - 11/27) — Time of politics: on the use and abuse of time and history (Thanksgiving Week)

Class 1

• Romila Thapar. “Reflections on Nationalism and History” in Thapar, Romila, Abdul Gafoor Abdul Majeed Noorani, and Sadanand Menon. On Nationalism. New Delhi: Aleph, 2016.
• Kathleen D. Morrison “On Putting Time in Its Place: Archaeological Practice and the Politics of Time in Southern India.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 26, no. 04 (n.d.): 619–41.
• Romila Thapar. Somanatha: The Many Voices of a History. London: Verso, 2005. pp. ix-xvii, 163-194.

Primary sources: Collection of documents and notes on the excavation in Ayodhya.

Class 2

• Film: Subramaniam, Vani. Ayodhya Gatha, 2007.

Youtube Link

IMDB Details

Week 10 (11/30 - 12/4) — The End of Time: Future history and the challenge of the Anthropocene

Class 1

• Dipesh Chakrabarty. “Anthropocene Time.” History and Theory 57, no. 1 (March 9, 2018): 5–32. https://doi.org/10.1111/hith.12044.
• Kathleen Morrison. “Human-Forest Relationships and the Erasure of History”. In: The Social Lives of Forests: Past, Present, and Future of Woodland Resurgence, pp. 143–160

Class 2

• Amitav Ghosh. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. The Randy L. and Melvin R. Berlin Family Lectures. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2016.