Faculty Endorses Sanskrit Merger

The Faculty Council endorsed a plan Wednesday to merge the Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies and the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations by the end of this academic year.

According to Professor of Chinese History Peter K. Bol, chair of the East Asian department, the Faculty will probably vote on whether to create a new Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations at its May 21 Faculty meeting.

Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles wrote in an e-mail that the plan has been discussed for over a year, and comes out of the Asia Center’s establishment in 1997 to promote the study of Asia across national boundaries.

“We hope in the future to increase the opportunities for scholarly work and teaching on South Asia, both in the humanities and the social sciences, and this merger seems to be the most effective way to achieve that,” Knowles said.

Bol said that the merger aimed to address the “asymmetry” between East Asian Languages and Civilizations, which has 67 concentrators and 19 senior faculty, and Sanskrit and Indian Studies, with 8 concentrators and 6 tenured professors.

“If you’re chair of a department, there’s a lot you have to do no matter what size of the department is,” Bol said. “It’s easier if you have 20 people in a department to rotate that responsibility instead of three.”

According to Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies Diana L. Eck, the Sanskrit department’s size has also “made it difficult to be effective in making appointments.”

Eck said that the department was informed by Knowles that the only way University Hall would grant additional positions in South Asian studies was if Sanskrit merged with the East Asian department.

She expressed concern that the proposed Asian Languages and Civilizations department would be too broad and that despite new professors, South Asian studies might suffer from a lack of emphasis within the new department.

“The reason that we have agreed to it is because this is the only way, we are told, that there will be any more positions in South Asia,” she said. “In this day and age, to cast all of Asia under a single intellectual umbrella is a kind of modern Orientalism that is intellectually disturbing. But as an intermediate administrative measure, this may strengthen South Asia.”

But Bol said he believed that the new department would offer the best opportunity for improved South Asian studies.

“We thought that the addition of Faculty in these areas whose work is on South Asia would benefit us all, making for a more intellectually stimulating and broad environment,” he said. “The real challenge for the new department is to build up a South Asia concentration that deals with cultural studies, literature and history as well as language.”

The South Asian language program, however, is likely to take a hit next year with the departure of Cowles Associate Professor of Sanskrit and Indian Studies Stephanie W. Jamison for the University of California, Los Angeles, resulting from Harvard’s decision last week to not grant her tenure.

Jamison was the department’s head tutor and taught all of its offerings in the Sanskrit language.

“There is no one currently who is likely to teach the Sanskrit courses next year,” Eck said. “[Jamison’s] departure will literally decimate the Sanskrit department.”

Jamison declined to comment.

Concentrators and graduate students expressed great concern over the loss of Jamison.

“We’re all quite shocked that Professor Jamison was denied tenure,” Sanskrit concentrator Meghan C. Howard ’04 wrote in an e-mail. “She’s an exceptional scholar and most likely the best Sanskrit teacher you could find. Indeed, the Sanskrit department is a wonderful place to be a student, in a large part thanks to Professor Jamison.”

Bol said that the new concentration in Asian Studies is likely to have tracks in both the study of East Asia and South Asia but offer overlapping joint tutorials. Other details, including whether current concentrators will have the name of the new concentration or their old one on their diplomas, have yet to be worked out.

Leonard van der Kuijp, chair of the Sanskrit and Indian studies department, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

—Staff writer Dan Rosenheck can be reached at rosenhec@fas.harvard.edu.