South Asia
Head: McComas Taylor
Dr McComas Taylor, Head of the South Asia Unit
The global significance of South Asia in political, economic, security and cultural terms is growing rapidly. South Asia studies in the School of Culture, History and Language, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, focuses on this growth and aims to stimulate and capitalise on renewed interest in South Asia (primarily India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Maldives) within ANU and in the broader Australian community.
The School offers the strongest concentration of South Asian languages (Hindi, Urdu and Sanskrit) in Australia. It has long experience in innovative teaching and learning technologies. South Asia staff pioneered video-conferencing teaching with University of Sydney a decade ago; flexible delivery programs for Sanskrit are now attracting unprecedented numbers of students from all over Australia. Students can elect to undertake part or all of their Hindi and Urdu programs in country. Intensive 4-6 week courses taught by ANU staff in India and the Year-in-India course, currently run in cooperation with Deshbandhu College in Delhi, provide the best environment for students to acquire a good command of spoken Hindi and Urdu.
A wide range of courses complement the language offerings. They cover pre-modern history, modern history and politics, security and international relations, and a course on the partition of India which adopts problem-based learning methodologies and student-centred role-play. On the classical side, the course on Indian Epics is an innovative flexibly delivered course which explores creative aspects of epic traditions in contemporary contexts. Current school staff and associates have initiated new courses, held workshops and conferences and contributed to broader public debate on South Asian issues through contributions to the media. Scholarly interests span anthropology, diaspora studies, devotional poetics, masculinity and Buddhism, Hindu traditions and literature, gender, labour, security and international relations.
Two third year Sanskrit students, Annie McCarthy and Patrick McCartney have produced this stop-animation of this famous 4th-century play, Abhijnāñaśakuntalam.
