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South Asia Program

Cornell University

About

SAP logo

The South Asia Program (SAP) serves as an interdisciplinary hub for Cornell students, faculty, staff, community members, and academic visitors. The U.S. Department of Education has designated SAP as a National Resource Center for South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Bhutan and Maldives), in a consortium with the South Asia Center at Syracuse University, one of just eight in the United States.

Our mission is to:

  • Offer a comprehensive curriculum of undergraduate and graduate education on historical and contemporary South Asia.
  • Enable the circulation of ideas among an international community of South Asia scholars.
  • Encourage connections among faculty and students from South Asian institutions and Cornell University.
  • Provide a wider public exposure to South Asia through lectures, conferences, exhibitions, publications, and performances.
  • Mobilize resources at Cornell and externally, to support these efforts.

SAP has more than 50 affiliated faculty from across Cornell’s colleges and schools, working in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. We offer 11 South Asian languages: Bengali, Hindi, Nepali, Pali, Persian, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sinhala, Tamil, Tibetan, and Urdu.

SAP does not offer any degrees or certificates, although we support undergraduate South Asian Studies majors and minors in the Department of Asian Studies, and graduate students throughout the campus. SAP supports the Global Cornell initiative to expand multicultural knowledge and international understanding across the Cornell community. SAP facilitates campus activities about South Asia and promotes overseas learning opportunities.

SAP sponsors a weekly seminar series with presentations by world-class scholars. We also host conferences and workshops organized by Cornell faculty and students. We partner with Cornell student organizations to bring South Asian musicians, dancers and other artists for campus performances. Our outreach program provides training on South Asia to educators at K-12 schools and community colleges in central New York.

Please contact us at sap@cornell.edu or visit our office, 130 Uris Hall, in the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, for more information.

Cornell University is located on the traditional homelands of the Gayogo̱hó:nǫ' (the Cayuga Nation). The Gayogo̱hó:nǫ' are members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an alliance of six sovereign nations with a historic and contemporary presence on this land. The confederacy precedes the establishment of Cornell University, New York state and the United States of America. We acknowledge the painful history of Gayogo̱hó:nǫ' dispossession, and honor the ongoing connection of Gayogo̱hó:nǫ' people, past and present, to these lands and waters.