Site announcements

There are no discussion topics yet in this forum.

Available courses

Looking into Indian Heritage through Art and Architecture


Course Learning Outcomes

  1. Define Indian heritage and identify major categories of India's cultural and built heritage.
  2. Describe pre-colonial Indian art traditions, including manuscript illustration, mural and miniature painting.
  3. Identify and classify architectural forms such as stupas, cave and temple architecture and Indo-Persian monuments.
  4. Analyze the influence of Western art and architecture on Indian heritage during the colonial period.
  5. Evaluate changes and continuities in Indian art and architecture in the post-colonial period.

History of Early India from the Remote Past to the Late Vedic Period


Course Learning Outcomes

  1. Recall the major phases of prehistoric and protohistoric cultures in India, from the Paleolithic to the Late Vedic period.
  2. Explain the salient features of the Harappan Civilization and the debates surrounding the Indus script and its decline.
  3. Compare imperialist, nationalist, leftist, liberal, secular and religious schools of historiography on early India.
  4. Analyze the emergence of caste society, organized religion and state territoriality in Vedic and post-Vedic India.
  5. Evaluate the socio-political and religious factors behind the rise of Magadha as an imperial power and the spread of Ajivikism, Jainism and Buddhism.

Social Formation and Cultural Pattern of the Ancient and Early Medieval World Beyond India


Course Learning Outcomes

  1. Identify the major prehistoric and Bronze Age civilizations of Africa, the Americas, Egypt, Mesopotamia, China and the Mediterranean world.
  2. Describe the social and political organization of the Greek polis and the institutions of Republican and Imperial Rome.
  3. Analyze the factors behind the decline of the Roman Empire and the rise of the Church as an organized religious institution.
  4. Explain the rise of Islam, the institution of the Caliphate, Shariah law and Sufi culture in Central Islamic lands.
  5. Compare patterns of state formation and cultural development across ancient and early medieval civilizations beyond India.

Ancient India from the Post-Vedic to the Late Gupta Period


Course Learning Outcomes

  1. Recall the political history of the Mauryan, post-Mauryan and Gupta periods, including major dynasties and rulers.
  2. Explain Asoka's policy of Dhamma and its role in Mauryan administration and cultural conquest.
  3. Analyze changes in the caste system, spread of megalithic culture, and religious transformations (Jainism, Buddhism, Vaishnavism, Saivism, Tantricism) in post-Mauryan India.
  4. Evaluate the historiographical debate on the Gupta period as a 'Golden Age' and the debate on feudalism in Ancient India.
  5. Synthesize evidence on society, art, architecture, science, technology, trade and urbanization to characterize Early India in retrospect.

Europe in Transition


Course Learning Outcomes

  1. Describe the structural features of European feudalism and the impact of the Crusades and the fourteenth-century crisis.
  2. Explain the Renaissance, Reformation, Counter-Reformation and Enlightenment as movements of intellectual and cultural transition.
  3. Analyze the debates on the transition from feudalism to capitalism in the context of geographical explorations and the Commercial and Price Revolutions.
  4. Trace the rise of the nation states of Spain, France, England and Russia between the Thirty Years' War and the Seven Years' War.
  5. Evaluate the significance of the American War of Independence in the birth of liberal politics in Europe.

India from the Early Medieval Period to the Fall of the Sultanate and Rise of the Mughals


Course Learning Outcomes

  1. Recall the chronology of political developments from the early medieval period through the Delhi Sultanate to the rise of the Mughals.
  2. Explain the historiographical debate on the transition from centralized to decentralized polity in early medieval India.
  3. Analyze the administrative reforms of the Khalji and Tughluq rulers and the causes of the decline of the Delhi Sultanate.
  4. Describe the socio-economic changes, urbanization, and the Bhakti-Sufi movements of Sultanate India.
  5. Assess the political and military factors that enabled Babur's establishment of Mughal rule in India.

The Rise of Modern Europe : before and after the French Revolution


Course Learning Outcomes

  1. Recall the major events and personalities of eighteenth-century Enlightenment thought and the French Revolution.
  2. Explain the socio-economic background of the French Revolution and the impact of the American War of Independence on France.
  3. Analyze competing historiographical interpretations of the class character of the French Revolution.
  4. Evaluate the course of the Revolution from the Reign of Terror to the Thermidorian Reaction and the Directory.
  5. Analyze the rise and fall of Napoleon and the impact of the Continental System on the political map of Europe.

History of Mughal India


Course Learning Outcomes

  1. Identify major chroniclers and historians of Mughal India and the Delhi and Aligarh schools of historiography.
  2. Explain the evolution of the Mughal administrative system, including the mansabdari and jagirdari institutions.
  3. Analyze the class structure of Mughal society comprising nobles, zamindars and peasants, and the agrarian and commercial economy.
  4. Describe the cultural patterns of Mughal India, including religion, language, art and architecture.
  5. Evaluate the causes of the decline of the Mughal state, including the jagirdari crisis, agrarian crisis, and challenges from the Marathas and Sikhs.

Modern Europe : From Nationalism to Socialism


Course Learning Outcomes

  1. Recall the major liberal revolutions of 1830-1850 and the process of German and Italian unification.
  2. Explain the economic transformations that consolidated capitalism and led to the formation of new national states in Europe.
  3. Analyze the diplomatic strategies of Bismarck and the resulting shifts in the European balance of power.
  4. Describe the rise of democratic politics, the welfare state, and changing gender roles ('the new woman') in industrial society.
  5. Evaluate the development of socialist thought from utopian socialism to Marxism across Germany, France and Russia.

Colonial India till the Great revolt : Exploitation and Resistance


Course Learning Outcomes

  1. Explain key concepts, terminologies and historiographical approaches to understanding colonialism in India.
  2. Describe the expansion and consolidation of British rule and the colonial ideologies of the Rule of Law, Orientalism and Utilitarianism.
  3. Analyze changes in the agrarian structure resulting from land revenue settlements, commercialization of agriculture, and de-industrialization.
  4. Evaluate the drain-of-wealth thesis and the causes and consequences of famines under colonial rule.
  5. Analyze the causes, course and consequences of the Revolt of 1857 as a form of resistance to colonial exploitation.

Pre-Colonial India : the European Challenge

test summary via GET

Course Learning Outcomes

  1. Recall the rise of the eighteenth-century successor states of Maharashtra, Punjab, Awadh, Mysore, Hyderabad and Bengal.
  2. Explain the structural changes in eighteenth-century Indian polity and economy following the decline of Mughal authority.
  3. Analyze the decline of Indian shipping and trade in the Indian Ocean and the growth of the English East India Company's influence.
  4. Compare the shift from trade to power politics among European trading companies in eighteenth-century India.
  5. Evaluate Bengal's response under Alivardi Khan to the European challenge, leading to the Battle of Plassey and British occupation of Bengal.

Europe in war : World Wars to Cold War


Course Learning Outcomes

  1. Recall the sequence of events from the roots of European imperialism through the First and Second World Wars to the Cold War.
  2. Explain the impact of the war economy and the Great Depression on the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazism and Fascism.
  3. Analyze the diplomatic failures, from the Spanish Civil War to the Nazi-Soviet Pact, that precipitated the Second World War.
  4. Evaluate competing theories of the origins and course of the Cold War in a bipolar world.
  5. Analyze regional Cold War conflicts (Vietnam, Korea, Cuba, the Middle East, Afghanistan) and the movement towards détente and globalization.

Non-European World beyond India ; Move to Modernity


Course Learning Outcomes

  1. Recall the major phases of modernization and nationalist movements in China, Japan, Africa and Southeast Asia.
  2. Explain the Meiji Restoration as a state policy of modernization and its consequences for Japanese militarism.
  3. Analyze the process of European imperialism and partition of Africa and the emergence of post-war nationalist movements.
  4. Evaluate the roles of Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Tse-tung in China's transition from feudal state to socialist revolution.
  5. Compare the paths to modernity and independence taken by Vietnam, Indonesia and other Southeast Asian nations.

Renascent India : the Struggle for Independence


Course Learning Outcomes

  1. Recall the major events and leaders of the Indian national movement from nineteenth-century reform to Independence in 1947.
  2. Explain the cultural revolution of the nineteenth century, including the Bengal Renaissance, social-religious reforms and the women's question.
  3. Analyze the rise of the Indian capitalist and working classes in relation to colonial fiscal policy and railway expansion.
  4. Evaluate the differing ideologies and strategies of Gandhi, Tagore, Subhas Bose, Nehru and Jinnah within the freedom struggle.
  5. Analyze the colonial policy of divide and rule, the two-nation theory, and the events leading to the Partition of 1947.