South Asian History

South Asian history, a distinguished field of study at UW-Madison since the late 1950s, encompasses India and the Indian Ocean area. Our faculty specialize in the medieval, early modern, and modern eras with thematic emphasis on the Indo-Islamic world and on the legal history of South Asia.

UW-Madison’s Center for South Asia, a Title VI National Resource Center, draws together an interdisciplinary community of faculty and graduate students whose research interests center on South Asia. For more than four decades, the center has sponsored the Annual Conference on South Asia, which is held in Madison every fall. Since 2003, the Center has also hosted the annual South Asia Summer Language Institute (SASLI).

For undergraduate courses in South Asian History, see the Department of History’s Courses page. For graduate program requirements and courses, see the Department of History’s Graduate Program Handbook and Graduate Courses pages.