Conceptualising a Region

Semester and Year Offered: Winter 2019

Course Coordinator and Team: Tanuja Kothiyal

Email of course coordinator: tanuja[at]aud[dot]ac[dot]in

Pre-requisites: Student should have been promoted to second year and passed at least three core courses.

Aim: The purpose of this seminar paper would be to understand how regions can be conceptualised and explore the processes of their emergence. The early medieval Sthala Puranas to the nineteenth century settlement reports provide insights into how polity, religious symbols, language, food, culture, geographical imagination and mapping led to regions being conceptualised differently. The students would be expected to pick a region and attempt to trace a long history of its emergence through a wide range of sources, ranging from vernacular sources to nineteenth century travel accounts and reports. Through engagement with different kinds of sources the students are expected to explore the continuities and contradictions in the varying constructions of regions in history writing

Course Outcomes: On successful completion of the course, student will be able:

1. To understand how regions have been conceptualised in history, with particular focus on a region, either physical, cultural, linguistic, religious or ideological.
2. To find primary sources and learn to analyse them methodically
3. To write a coherently argued research paper

Brief description of modules/ Main modules:

Regions in history have often been understood in political dimensions. Yet, regions have held different meanings at different times in history. Regions emerge around geographical, cultural, social, religious dimensions, all co-existing and possibly overlapping. For instance, national and state boundaries in India evolved around complex political, religious, cultural and linguistic ideas. Regions therefore do not appear as fixed entities, but rather emerge through complex socio-historical processes. This can also be understood in terms of the difference between the idea of a region as located within the society and the ‘instituted’ region as it emerges through political processes.

The purpose of this seminar paper would be to understand how regions can be conceptualised and explore the processes of their emergence. The early medieval Sthala Puranas to the nineteenth century settlement reports provide insights into how polity, religious symbols, language, food, culture, geographical imagination and mapping led to regions being conceptualised differently. The students would be expected to pick a region and attempt to trace a long history of its emergence through a wide range of sources, ranging from vernacular sources to nineteenth century travel accounts and reports. Through engagement with different kinds of sources the students are expected to explore the continuities and contradictions in the varying constructions of regions in history writing.

The specific topics for the seminar papers could be selected within the following broader themes:

1. Empire, Nation and Region: Expressions and assertions of regional identity within larger political structures, like the Sultanate, the Mughal Empire, British India or the Indian Nation.
2. Language and Region: The emergence of regional identity around the idea of a language.
3. Cultural and Religious Regions: the contribution of religious and cultural symbols like sacred sites, religious practices, food etc in the emergence of regions.
4. Geographical imagination and the idea of region: the idea of region as evolving around geographical features like forests, deserts, river basins, coasts.

Assessment and Weightage

• Evaluation by Supervisor: 75%
• Evaluation by Faculty: 25%