American Council for Southern Asian Studies

American Council for Southern Asian Studies is a scholarly association focused on Southern Asian studies and interdisciplinary research linking scholars across institutions in the United States and the Southern Asian region. The council historically convened historians, political scientists, anthropologists, and linguists to address topics relevant to South Asia, connecting work on India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, and the Maldives. Its activities intersected with university departments, research institutes, libraries, and funding bodies that shaped area studies during the Cold War and post-Cold War eras.

History

The organization emerged amid debates over area studies alongside institutions like American Council of Learned Societies, Association for Asian Studies, and Social Science Research Council during the 1960s and 1970s. Early leaders included scholars associated with Harvard University, University of Chicago, Columbia University, and University of Pennsylvania, and it intersected with research centers such as the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan and the School of Oriental and African Studies. The council interacted with archival initiatives at the Library of Congress, grant programs at the National Endowment for the Humanities, and policy discussions involving the United States Information Agency and the Ford Foundation. Conferences drew participants who also presented at venues connected to University of California, Berkeley, Yale University, Princeton University, Cornell University, and University of Washington. During the 1980s and 1990s, panels frequently featured scholars with ties to the British Museum, the Royal Asiatic Society, and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. The council’s trajectory intersected with geopolitical events such as the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, the Soviet–Afghan War, and the End of the Cold War, which influenced funding and research agendas.

Mission and Activities

The council sought to promote comparative study of Southern Asian histories, literatures, religions, and languages through collaboration among specialists linked to institutions like Jawaharlal Nehru University, Aligarh Muslim University, Banaras Hindu University, University of Colombo, and Dhaka University. Activities included supporting fieldwork in regions associated with Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Aung San Suu Kyi-related scholarship, and research on texts such as the Mahabharata, Ramayana, Tirukkural, and Gita Govinda. The council organized language workshops for scripts including Devanagari, Urdu script, Bengali script, Sinhala script, and Tibetan script with collaborations involving librarians from the British Library, curators from the Victoria and Albert Museum, and manuscript specialists linked to the Sanskrit Library. It aimed to facilitate exchanges among faculty with appointments at Oxford University, Cambridge University, McGill University, Australian National University, and National University of Singapore. The council also engaged with cultural heritage organizations such as UNESCO and legal archives related to treaties like the Indus Waters Treaty.

Membership and Organization

Membership drew faculty, independent scholars, graduate students, and librarians affiliated with departments at University of California, Los Angeles, University of Texas at Austin, University of Michigan, Brown University, Duke University, Indiana University Bloomington, Rutgers University, Temple University, Ohio State University, and University of Wisconsin–Madison. Governance structures mirrored counterparts at the Modern Language Association and the American Historical Association, with elected officers, regional representatives, and committees coordinating outreach with entities such as Asia Society, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Brookings Institution. The council maintained liaison relationships with publishing houses including Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Routledge, HarperCollins, and Penguin Books India and collaborated with archival repositories like the National Archives of India and the Pakistan National Archives.

Conferences and Publications

Annual meetings often coincided with sessions at the Association for Asian Studies and convened panels on topics ranging from colonialism to agrarian change, migration, and diasporas involving cities such as Mumbai, Karachi, Dhaka, Colombo, and Kathmandu. Distinguished presenters included scholars who also published with presses such as Princeton University Press, University of California Press, Routledge South Asian Studies, Bloomsbury Academic, and Zed Books. The council produced newsletters, conference proceedings, and occasional monographs distributed through university presses and learned societies like the American Philosophical Society and the Royal Asiatic Society. Special issues and edited volumes featured comparative work on figures and movements connected to Rabindranath Tagore, Subhas Chandra Bose, B. R. Ambedkar, Indira Gandhi, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Buddha, Adiyogi, Guru Nanak, and literary studies of works by R. K. Narayan, Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Kiran Desai, and Arundhati Roy.

Impact and Criticism

The council influenced curriculum development in programs at Columbia University, University of Chicago, Harvard University, and University of Pennsylvania and contributed to archival preservation initiatives with partners such as the British Library and the National Library of India. Critics argued that area studies organizations, including this council, sometimes reflected funding priorities set by agencies like the National Endowment for the Humanities, United States Agency for International Development, and defense-related research with ties to the Office of Naval Research, shaping research agendas toward policy-relevant topics. Debates mirrored controversies in journals such as the Journal of Asian Studies, Modern Asian Studies, and Comparative Studies in Society and History over representation of subaltern voices and methodological orientation. Postcolonial scholars connected to Postcolonial Studies Association and feminist critics referencing work by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Chandra Talpade Mohanty raised concerns about whose perspectives dominated conferences and publications. Supporters countered by pointing to collaborative projects with universities in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka that expanded access to research and archival materials.

Category:Area studies organizations in the United States