GSAS 396 – Caste, Race, and Democracy

Drawing on the resources of social and intellectual history, political theory, literature, and social science, this seminar will explore the intimacies and differences between two forms of social differentiation: caste in South Asia and race in the United States. We will focus, in particular, on the relationships between caste formation, racial formation, and imperial power; the diagnoses of and forms of democratic resistance to caste and race subjugation that were articulated in the 19th and 20th centuries; and the place of contemporary social science in documenting both the persistence of oppression along caste and racial lines and the success of efforts to combat such oppression.