Course Description

This course offers a text-based exploration of Indian history, society, politics, and economy from approximately 1000 CE to the present day, using Hindi literature as our primary lens. Students will critically engage with a diverse selection of literary forms, including poems, short stories, novel excerpts, dramatic scenes, and autobiographical memoirs.

Literature frequently records the human experiences and social undercurrents that official historical archives overlook. Where medieval martial poetry captures how warriors conceptualized life, death, and honor within a feudal framework, a Bhakti couplet reveals how marginalized individuals resisted caste hierarchies and religious hegemony. Similarly, the realism of Premchand exposes the devastating economic toll of colonial taxation on agrarian communities, while a modern Dalit autobiography demonstrates how the structural promises of post-independence India failed to reach everyone equally.

The course moves chronologically through five distinct historical eras, each defined by unique political, economic, and social transformations to which Hindi writers critically responded. Students will practice close textual reading, analyze why authors selected specific literary forms, linguistic registers, or metaphors, and connect these aesthetic choices to the socio-political realities of the writer’s world.

No prior knowledge of Hindi literature is required; an open curiosity about South Asian history, culture, and society is sufficient.