Indian Culture I

The course aims to:
- equip students with a robust knowledge and understanding of the peculiarities of Indian society, as well as of the range of traditions, customs and religions on Indian soil;
- raise awareness on the heterogeneity of Indian culture and society and how they were shaped throughout history, providing students with an understanding of their pillars;
- train the students' ability to successfully and exhaustively expand their knowledge of familiar topics on their own, as well as to explore subjects unknown to them, by instructing them on how to compile a list of reliable bibliographic sources;
- provide knowledge and tools to navigate the huge variety of texts focusing on India, operating a distinction between academic literature and the widespread stereotypical and stereotyped descriptions of Indian culture.

In addition to the theoretical contents covered by the course and by the texts included in the course syllabus, by the end of the course students should be able to communicate proficiently both orally and in writing, with clarity and using the appropriate terminology. This means that they should have a full command of the subject-specific vocabularies, in Italian and Indian, pertaining to the different topics covered by the course (society, politics, history, religion and spirituality, art etc.). Moreover, students should be able to further their knowledge of theoretical concepts and topics on their own, by relying on academic literature and opting for credible sources of information, while disregarding unreliable contents.