this professor is incredible and i really enjoyed his lectures! he's super knowledgable and if you're interested in the subject the class is great and you learn a lot. he makes jokes and stuff in class too and throughout winter quarter (what with classes being online) this was the only thing i'd look forward to every week since i'm stuck at home. this is the grade division:
33.3% ta section participation + weekly papers (500 words, response to that week's reading, you only needed to submit 6 responses so for 4 weeks you can opt out of submission)
33.3% midterm response
33.3% final response
the midterm and final were the same format: we receive 4 prompts, pick 2 and write 800-1000 word essays and i think we had 2-3 days to submit them.
our TA was ethan mefford who i thought was really great, he made discussion sections interesting, would respond to any questions via email quite quickly and was very accomodating and understanding and i really liked discussion. take this class!

I really liked this class. I thought the professor was really educated in the topic and the lectures were very thorough. Would definitely recommend taking notes bc the slides are not very helpful -- they're just very brief bullet points so studying just from that is not v helpful.

The midterm was open book and open notes. The final was a take home essay I believe. Overall I found the class easy bc I went to all the lectures and took very detailed notes lol.

Would definitely recommend this class, especially if you're South Asian or have any experience learning about South Asian culture and history.

Sanjay is, without a doubt, a fantastic professor of Indology. During his lectures, you can tell he knows all of Indian history and knows the aspect of Indian history that is still muddled and unclear; effectively making his lectures straight to the point and digestible.
For one, homework is pretty simple! It depends on your TA of course my TA was amazing because during discussions he would go over the homework assignment and note the points he wanted us to hammer in our 500 words weekly essays. These homework assignments could be done relatively quickly, so at most, you probably won't be spending more than two hours working on the assignment each week.
Readings from the textbook are a lot, but honestly, you can do without reading from the book OCCASIONALLY. Sanjay covers enough material during his slides that you get a lot of good and important information for the topic each week. If you take good notes, this would be extremely helpful as well for your weekly assignments!
However, his class is rather difficult if you don't know much of Indian history or the language, to begin with. As someone who is not familiar with Indian culture, lifestyle, geography, and politics, it was rather hard for me to understand and grasp the speed he teaches (as an outsider to Indian culture), and it was also rather hard copying down what he verbally says (as these words are obviously not in English), as sometimes the concepts/names are not on the slides so you have to either ask him to write it down or spell it the best of your ability. Regardless, the things he taught in this class are a great overview of Indian history, and I definitely found enjoyment in learning a new culture, and it honestly feels like a great honor to be taught this class by him.

Prof. Subhramanyam is a very knowledgeable scholar in Indian History, and does a good job in covering a lot of material in a quarter. The course is structured around 2 80 min lectures every week + a 50 minute discussion. There are weekly assignments where you write a 500 word brief about a reading pertaining to the information from that week's lecture. Also, you only have to write 6/10 briefs to fulfill the brief requirement. Generally, the lectures are slides about a period in Indian history and the discussions are useful for analyzing the document you write your weekly brief on. There is a take home midterm and final which is the same format--you write 2 800-1000 word essays based on a set of prompts, and you get approximately 3-4 days to finish the essays.

Negatives: This was probably mostly down to the TA strike in the fall, which pretty much screwed my section over. The Prof. decided to change our grading scheme which was originally 33% Weekly assignments, 33% midterm, and 33% final to 20% weekly assignments, 40% midterm, and 40% final. Basically, it gave more emphasis on the harshly graded exams as opposed to the weekly assignments. Now, tbh my TA wasn't that great because by the time the strike went down which was around week 8, he had only graded 1 weekly assignment, and the Prof. decided to base our entire weekly assignment grade on the 1 weekly assignment that was graded. When it came to midterm grading, my TA did not give us ANY FEEDBACK on the midterm (I got a B+ on it), so we were just given our grade which were mostly in the B to A- range. So, we had no idea how to improve our grade for the final. In the end, I basically prepared to take the L and just wrote my final the same way I wrote my midterm. I ended up getting an A- in the course, so my guess is that the Prof. decided to curve the grades by half a letter.

Final thoughts: I think this course is fine if there is no TA strike and if your TA actually grades assignments and midterms promptly and WITH FEEDBACK. The Prof. is a nice guy, but his lectures often get boring. If you want an easy A, this course isn't for you (which is the case for most people)

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As for the course itself, I really liked Professor Subrahmanyam. His lectures grew increasingly interesting as the course progressed towards more modern events in Indian history. My TA, Vipin, was fantastic. Our grades consisted of attendance in discussion, heavily weighted midterm and final, and weekly reading responses to the material (appx. 2 pgs per week). My recommendation would be to actually read from the white book every week and then use the other books as supplemental information for your reading responses. You should then be able to construct a pretty good study guide for the midterm (two in-class essays), which you can build upon throughout the remainder of the course and then use for the final (two take-home essays).

I'm a big history nerd, so I found this class to be really rewarding. The professor is an excellent lecturer, and though it's a bit annoying that he doesn't post his slides, lectures were intellectually very rewarding, and the professor is obviously very knowledgeable about the subject. The readings were a bit heavy, and some of the textbooks were better than the others, but for the most part, it was reasonable. You do have to do the readings, because 30% of your grade is made up of weekly two-page summaries of the prior week's readings. The exams are also on the tougher side, especially the midterm, since they require more specificity than you'd expect from a survey course. The final is similar to the midterm, but it's take home, which makes it significantly easier. Discussion sections were fairly boring, but attendance is taken, so there's not much to do about that.

I took the class as a GE, and while my GPA is still intact, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone looking for an easy GE. If you're into history, it's a worthwhile experience. If you're not, this class could probably become quite painful.

The professor doesn't use slides or post anything online - it's just old school lecturing. Luckily, he's a very engaging lecturer and has a depth of knowledge. If you're not interested in history, the lectures may be dull, but if you are, you're in for a treat. The textbooks aren't really necessary since just listening to the professor and taking notes will guide you through everything, but they can be helpful to fill in some blanks. The real problem with this class though, is that it covers about 5,000 years of history in 10 weeks. It moves very fast and you often feel as though certain topics weren't fleshed out enough, but overall this class is very enjoyable for history lovers. If you're just looking for a basic GE to fill a history requirement though, I'd suggest looking elsewhere.

Subrahmanyam is a great lecturer, and knows a lot about the subject. He has all these tales, which I understand every historian does, but he gets excited about them. He's a brilliant scholar, and he has written a ton of stuff on economic history, so the classes can get a little economics-based. As for the class, there's a weekly reading response, which shouldn't be hard if you went to lecture OR did the readings. There's a take-home midterm, which has two 4-page essays, and an in-class essay for the final. You're basically graded on your ability to take any argument and support it with facts, which, again, should be easy if you've read the books or heard his lectures. I suggest you go to lecture, simply because he's a great resource. The reading can get a little dense (and is always a lot), but you only need to skim it. Marjan is a fantastic TA.

The course will be boring at first but gets more interesting in the second half. India is just too gigantic and diverse an area to cover in the first half, but Prof does a good attempt.

The discussions are one hour and lectures are an hour and a half. He's a great lecturer, especially towards later on in the course. However you might fall asleep. I drew during lecture so I wouldn't fall asleep and every time he said something interesting I'd pay attention and write it down.

The hardness of the class will depend on your TA. The essays are not that bad two pages double spaced. However, if your TA is a hard grader then this course might suck. (I suggest going to office hours, usually they will grade easier after you ask for help) There is a lot of reading, don't do all the reading.

I recommend reading all of the white book, called India. It's the least boring book and the smallest. For each week, look at the white book's readings and highlight stuff, find a few major topics to write about, and then pick another book to use for additional information on the topic. So you literally just scan the other books for more details, but otherwise don't read them. This worked for me and I got an A.

I recommend a good note-taking program like Evernote. Professor allowed us to use the notes on our laptop for the final, and Evernote allows you to efficiently organize and search through your notes.

This course should be Writing II or something. But it isn't :C However, you get really really good at writing so that's cool.

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