Travel-Study Program to: India
Indian Lives/Indian Spaces

Term To Be Offered: January 2-22, 2010 (approximate)

Contacts:

Brian Pennington | brian.pennington@maryvillecollege.edu
Amy Allocco | amy.allocco@maryvillecollege.edu

Course goals:

By investigating the diversity of contemporary India through encountering and examining the lives of Indians of different regions, classes, genders, etc., participants will gain:

  • An informed appreciation of life in a developing nation.
  • An appreciation for the tremendous diversity of Indian society.
  • A rudimentary understanding of the roles that gender, caste, and religion play in Indian society.
  • An awakening love for India.

Potential Highlights:

  • Chennai, Madurai, and the state of Kerala
  • Meetings & discussions with Indian people of many classes, castes, religions, and backgrounds
  • Classical music concerts and lectures
  • Museums/traditional craft shops
  • Indian cinema
  • Kathakali (traditional dance) performance
  • Visits to places of worship: Hindu, Muslim, and Christian
  • Wildlife sanctuary
  • Night on a traditional houseboat, in a rice field and on overnight train ride

Course Description:

This course emphasizes the everyday social worlds that Indians occupy. It underscores the diversity of India by focusing on the ways that gender, caste, social class, education, region, and religion open up or limit access to a variety of social goods and color one’s experience. While there will be occasional stops at tourist attractions, much of the course will take place in the homes, work-places, agricultural fields, and places of worship among which Indians circulate.

The itinerary will include visits to a variety of places of worship and spirituality. We will begin with a walking tour of its oldest neighborhood and home to its most vibrant temples, Mylapore. There we will and study the rituals that local residents undertake on a daily and seasonal basis. We will also visit the famous and ancient Minakshi temple compound in Madurai, which is the quintessential Hindu temple city. It is also home to many south Indian Muslims. MG Raffic, local Muslim activist and well-known contemporary artist will be our guide to this world, taking students to Muslim shrines, a major mosque, and lecturing about his artwork, which stresses the inter-religious nature of Indian society. On the other hand, Kerala hosts a vastly different temple culture from Chennai and Tamil Nadu, as well as some of the world’s oldest Christian communities. On our return to Chennai, we will tour the 16th century Portuguese-built San Thome Cathedral which was built on the alleged remains of the apostle Thomas and learn about the origins of Christianity in India.

There will also be opportunities to hear from guest speakers from the Chennai High Court (women’s legal issues), and the Kuppaswami Shastri Research Institute (languages and literature that have shaped the identities of south India), State Government Official of Kerala (communist elected government).

Students will have the opportunity to be exposed to a variety of arts. Chennai is the center of one important school of classical music and we will be there during the concert season and take advantage of the many free concerts and lectures. Dakshina Chitra, a museum of the traditional residential architecture of the south Indian states featuring many centuries-old homes that have been transported and reconstructed there, lies along the road to Mahabalipuram, our next stop. Site of some of the oldest religious carving in India, Mahabalipuram is also home to several groups of stone carvers whose workshops we will visit to learn about sculptural traditions and the craft of their castes. We will arrange for a performance of Kathakali, the dance tradition of Kerala that features Hindu mythology performed late at night in rural temples, attracting Keralites from all neighboring villages and castes who come to stay in the temple and watch the performance. Finally, we will view Indian cinema, perhaps the country’s most famous export to the rest of the world.

This program will provide extensive opportunities for interaction with local Indians, from traditional residents of family compounds, fishermen devastated by the 2004 tsunami, indigenous tribal peoples, agricultural farmers, waterway residents, to posh shop owners and slum dwellers. Students will have the opportunity to learn south Indian cooking from a woman who works as a domestic servant for several upper class families. Students will visit the IT/call center corridor and talk to young Indians who work there.

There will be regular group meetings to reflect on experiences and discuss accompanying readings.  Students will be required to attend orientation meetings during the semester prior to departure and to identify a topic of interest on which they will conduct some preliminary research. They will also maintain a daily journal, and attend reentry sessions after the program.

Tentative Costs: $3,400 + $150 additional expenses per student*

The price includes:

Roundtrip airfare, local transportation, housing, approx. 2 meals/day, field trips, international travel insurance, application fee, and deposit

Not included:

Passport, immunizations, some meals & personal expenses

*Please note that prices are tentative and may fluctuate based on variation in exchange rates, number of participants, price fluctuations in actual airfares and fuel surcharges, or administrative overhead

Application for J-Term Programs