Specialized Persian and Indo-Persian Texts

PERSIAN 111 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

This course will focus on Persian literary writings from South Asia, often referred to as Indo-Persian. In this iteration of the course, we will pay special attention to Indo-Persian writing from early modern period onwards. South Asian literary production of Persian writing straddled many different intellectual, religious, and political contexts between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, and articulated layered responses to the changing landscapes of colonial modernity. We will attend to these complexities in the original Persian, reading texts from different genres of Indo-Persian writing, including formal letters, national histories, imperial biographies, personal memoirs, scriptural commentaries, Sufi hagiographies, poetry, and literary criticism. We will explore Indo-Persian’s relationship to other South Asian languages such as Urdu, as well as consistently engage Persian writings from the broader Persianate world. This course pairs discussions of the original Persian with lessons on grammar, prosody, and reading techniques, while complementing the primary sources with secondary scholarship as well as audio-visual resources, including music, recitation, and documentaries. Students can expect to become deeply familiar with major styles of Indo-Persian writing, while gaining knowledge about the historical, cultural, and political contexts in which Persian thrived in South Asia. 

No auditors are permitted. Enrolled students must take the course for a letter grade.