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| Center for South Asian Studies (UCLA) | |
|---|---|
| Name | Center for South Asian Studies (UCLA) |
| Established | 1960s |
| Location | Los Angeles, California |
| Parent institution | University of California, Los Angeles |
| Director | (varies) |
| Website | (official site) |
Center for South Asian Studies (UCLA)
The Center for South Asian Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles serves as an interdisciplinary hub for study and research on the South Asian region encompassing India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, and Maldives. It coordinates language instruction, area studies training, and scholarly events that connect faculty from departments such as South Asian Studies (academic discipline), History, Anthropology, Political Science, Religious Studies and professional schools including School of Law (UCLA), Anderson School of Management, and David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
The center traces origins to Cold War-era Title VI initiatives tied to the National Defense Education Act and collaborations with the U.S. Department of Education, modeled after area centers at institutions like Harvard University, Columbia University, University of Chicago, University of California, Berkeley, and University of Pennsylvania. Early faculty affiliates included scholars with research linkages to Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Rabindranath Tagore, and archival projects on figures such as Satyajit Ray and Raja Ravi Varma. Over decades the center expanded amid regional events including the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, the Sino-Indian War, the Liberation War of Bangladesh, and the globalization waves of the 1990s that involved institutions such as World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and multinational corporations in Bangalore and Mumbai.
The center’s mission aligns with Title VI and Fulbright-Hays frameworks to support instruction and research on regional languages and histories, partnering with programs like the UCLA Department of History, UCLA Department of Anthropology, UCLA Department of Geography, UCLA International Institute, and professional training from UCLA Extension. Academic offerings include language instruction in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali language, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Punjabi language, Gujarati language, Sanskrit, and Sindhi language; coordinated degree pathways include graduate certificates, minors, and joint appointments with entities such as The Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at other campuses, exchanges with Jawaharlal Nehru University, University of Delhi, University of Calcutta, and study abroad ties with University of Colombo and Tribhuvan University.
Faculty and affiliates publish monographs and edited volumes with presses including Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, University of California Press, Columbia University Press, and Routledge. Research centers tied to the center investigate topics ranging from caste and agrarian change—engaging scholarship on B. R. Ambedkar, E. P. Thompson, Eric Hobsbawm comparisons—to urbanization in Mumbai, Karachi, Dhaka, and Chennai. Projects address constitutional histories like the Constitution of India and the Constitution of Pakistan, social movements involving Chipko movement, Narmada Bachao Andolan, and labor histories linked with All-India Trade Union Congress and Pakistan Peoples Party. The center supports journals and working-paper series comparable to Economic and Political Weekly, Modern Asian Studies, Journal of Asian Studies, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, and participates in conferences such as those organized by the Association for Asian Studies, Modern Language Association, and American Historical Association.
Public programming includes lecture series, film screenings, and cultural festivals that engage institutions like the Consulate General of India, Los Angeles, Embassy of Pakistan, Washington, D.C., High Commission of Bangladesh, Washington, D.C., and community organizations such as the Indian American Cultural Association and Pakistani American Association. The center has partnered on exhibitions with museums including the Hammer Museum, Getty Center, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and archives like the South Asia Collection (British Library), while outreach initiatives have addressed diasporic constituencies from Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lahore, Karachi, Colombo, and Thimphu.
Affiliates span historians, anthropologists, economists, political scientists, literary scholars, and area specialists such as renowned researchers with expertise on figures and topics like Amartya Sen, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, V. S. Naipaul, Amitav Ghosh, Arundhati Roy, S. R. Ranganathan, Subhas Chandra Bose, Indira Gandhi, and comparative scholars of Bengali literature, Tamil Sangam literature, and Persianate culture. Collaborations extend to scholars from University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, SOAS University of London, Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient, National University of Singapore, and regional institutes like Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta.
Graduate and undergraduate students receive funding through fellowships and traineeships such as Fulbright Program, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, Ford Foundation, Social Science Research Council, and university-funded awards; summer language institutes and intensive programs draw applicants competitive with those at Columbia University, Yale University, and University of Michigan. Alumni enter careers in academia, diplomacy at U.S. Department of State, nonprofits like International Crisis Group, media outlets including The Hindu, Dawn (newspaper), BBC World Service, and technology firms in Silicon Valley.
The center houses language labs, seminar rooms, and collaborates with library holdings such as the UCLA Library, including the South Asian Studies Collection (UCLA), rare-maps and manuscript holdings, and microfilm archives comparable to those held by the Bodleian Library and Library of Congress. It facilitates access to digital repositories, oral-history archives on subjects like the Partition of India, and partnerships with regional archival projects in New Delhi, Lahore, Dhaka, and Colombo.
Category:University of California, Los Angeles Category:South Asian studies institutions