Welcome to the Department of South Asia Studies!
The study of South Asia at Penn has a tradition stretching back over a hundred years. The department has trained generations of leaders in the field and remains one of the most distinguished places to study South Asia in the United States. Today, Penn's Department of South Asia Studies represents a close-knit community of interdisciplinary scholars who foster cutting-edge expertise in the languages, literatures, histories, and cultures of South Asia.
A New Hub for the South Asian Humanities
The new Penn Forum on Global South Asia is an interdisciplinary unit that promotes scholarly and artistic work on South Asia through a global and comparative lens. The forum focuses on large themes of global relevance such as migration networks, political movements, and cultural exchange, but also on social and material inequalities, religion and culture, climate change, diasporic identities, and forms of transnational social change that emerge from within South Asia.
We offer one of the widest selections of languages nationwide
Penn offers one of the country's strongest South Asian language programs, with introductory through advanced courses in the major languages of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. The department also remains a leading center for the study of Sanskrit.
