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Course Geography of South Asia (Geog 375), Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:40-10:55am, Burchfiel Geography Building 301, Spring 2013 Dear Students (and Faculty), I will be offering Geography of South Asia during Spring 2013. Geography of South Asia is an upper division course being offered for the second time in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tennessee. This course will focus on major geographical issues within the South Asian region, which may be taught as a sub-region in Asian Studies in several other universities. In this course, we will pay attention to the its physiography, economic, geopolitical, cultural and social contexts within the region as well as on particular countries in South Asia. Asia is home to the earth’s 40% population, and India within South Asian region now has 1.3 billion population, ranking the second most populated country on the earth, next only to China. This enormous human resource and a growing economic power within the South Asian region has evolved through several stages of historical, colonial/post-colonial, economic and social evolutions that has made the country and the region a strong, emerging global economic partner. In this class, we will focus on such geographic and socio-economic transitions that the region as a whole is going through. This will help us understand and look at South Asia (and India) from a fresh perspective within a fast changing global economy. Besides a generic focus on the regional aspects, other topics of interest covered in this course will include economic (under)development and the global significance of India’s silicon valley, population explosion and future prospects, domestic and regional migration, society and culture such as the caste system, arranged marriages, dowry system, the Sati system and gender (in)equalities, plurality and diversity of religions, foods, dance, music, etc., the Bollywood industry, the nuclear proliferation and the political debates concerning India-Pakistan border and its impacts on local/global political-economy, Indo-Chinese joint economic/trade initiatives, the entry of big-box retailers, the Naxalite movements and other domestic political-economic debates with neighboring countries within South Asia. Hoping to see many of you who have interest in a fast developing region of the world. Thanks Madhuri Madhuri Sharma Assistant Professor of Geography #416 Burchfiel Geography Building 1000 Phillip Fulmer Way University of Tennessee Knoxville, TN, 37996 Phone: 865-974-6077 Fax: 865-974-6025 Email: [log in to unmask] Home Page: http://web.utk.edu/~utkgeog/faculty/sharma.htm -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- To review the archives of CLUBGGY or Join/Leave the list go to: http://listserv.utk.edu/archives/clubggy.html