HIS 520:  Problems in Asian History
Subaltern Subjects and Postcolonial Histories

Syllabus Spring 2013 .PDF

Syllabus Spring 2013 .htm

Links to Course Readings on Electronic Reserves

Postcolonial Studies:  a beginning  (Sanjay Seth et. al. in Postcolonial Studies, Vol 1, No 1, pp 7± 11, 1998)

Some histories of the Subaltern Studies Project 

Review of the Subaltern Studies Conference 1986

A Review of the Subaltern Studies Conference 1999 (from EPW)

Subaltern Studies: 30 Years Later (an excellent overview, pay particular attention to the you tube videos)

30 Years of Subaltern Studies: Two Interviews

Partha Chatterjee, After Subaltern Studies, 2012

Other Relevant Links

Subaltern Studies Page (Bibliography)

Subaltern Studies Bibliography II

David Ludden's Bibliographies

The Subaltern Studies Group from The Postcolonial Web

Marxists.Org A great website with primary and secondary writing by and about Marxists as well as non-Marxists who have had a significant influence on the world around us.  (Includes a large section on Gramsci, btw, though nothing under Guha or Subaltern Studies!!)

Can Non-Europeans Think? (an article from Al-Jazeerah)

Discussions on or About the Subaltern Studies Project (not in the syllabus)

Debate between Vivek Chibber and Partha Chatterjee (you tube)

Review of this debate on kafila.org (do read the comments!)

An excerpt from a forthcoming book with some comments on the Subaltern Studies Project(by Sanjay Subrahmanyam)

An excellent overview of South Asian historiography  (From Seminar #522 [Feb. 2003] This essay by Neeladri Bhattacharya, titled "The Problem" sets the stage for a series of articles exploring the ongoing controversy around rewriting of History, particularly high school textbooks)

Dipesh

Chakrabarty, Minority Histories, Subaltern Pasts

Vinay Lal “Subaltern Studies and Its Critics: Debates over Indian History” History and Theory, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Feb., 2001), pp. 135-148.

Richard M. Eaton “(Re)imag(in)ing Other²ness: A Postmortem for the Postmodern in India” Journal of World History, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Spring, 2000), pp. 57-78

Prasannan Parthasarathi “The State of Indian Social History” Journal of Social History, Vol. 37, No. 1, Special Issue (Autumn, 2003), pp. 47-54

History After the Three Worlds: An Introduction by Arif Dirlik, Vinay Bahl and Peter Gran

Beyond Orientalism: Gauri Viswanathan

A Subaltern Editor Squeaks: Language that is unfathomable is also uneditable

More from Rukun Advani (Subaltern Studies Parodies)

Conversations

First, one started by "Minority Histories and Subaltern Pasts" by Dipesh Chakrabarty  (Perspectives, November, 1997). 

A very similar essay is available at http://www.unisa.ac.za/default.asp?Cmd=ViewContent&ContentID=11829  and a revised version forms an integral part of Professor Chakrabarty's Provincializing Europe (Princeton, 2000).

Some of the responses which appeared in Perspectives, below:

Eurocentricism and its Discontents  by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom

Minority Histories and Subaltern Pasts: A response by Alan Spitzer

Minority Histories and Subaltern Pasts a Rejoinder by Dipesh Chakrabarty

Second, an interesting conversation between Chakrabarty and Amitav Ghosh (best known for his work as a novelist, but also published in Subaltern Studies Vol VII) after the publication of Provincializing Europe

Spivak

A good introduction to Spivak from the Postcolonial Web at Emory

An Interview from 1992 or try this link

Other than the very useful discussion in Rosalind Morris' Introduction, you can find an interesting summary of the basics of Spivak's arguments in "Can the Subaltern Speak?" here

Research Tools

Economic and Political Weekly of India ( A unique, wonderful journal)

Bibliography of Asian Studies

Link to Bibliography of Asian Studies (Via Cline)

This page under construction.  Last updated February 24, 2013