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  • Supporting South Asia Scholarship

    The Penn South Asia Center is a National Resource Center. We coordinate and support faculty and student research, conferences, curriculum development, outreach, and other activities and events related to all countries and languages of South Asia. We welcome you to connect with us to learn more.

  • K-12 Outreach

    The South Asia Center provides in-person and online resources, workshops, and professional development opportunties to K-12 teachers, affiliated faculty, and their classrooms. We partner directly with teachers, community organizations and the Penn Museum to provide programming and materials to K-12 schools.

  • Student Opportunities

    The Penn South Asia Center offers several academic and research based opportunities for undergraduate and graduate Penn students to apply for. Click the 'student opportunities' tab to learn more about the Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship, over ten Summer Research Internships across 5 countries, and the Pulitzer Center International Reporting Fellowship.

  • Engaging Globally

    The Penn South Asia Center maintains ongoing collaborations with educational institutions, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations across the globe, keeping the Center in the forefront of academic and cultural developments. We partner with international institutions for student research opportunities, workshops, resource development and more.

Welcome

Penn's South Asia Center, in conjunction with the Center for the Advanced Study of India and the Department of South Asia Studies, has kept the University of Pennsylvania at the leading edge of scholarship relating to South Asia.

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Upcoming Events



Rated A: Soft-Porn Cinema and Mediations of Desire in India

A SAST Colloquium, co-sponsored by SAC, CASI, Africana Studies, and Cinema and Media Studies
Darshana Sreedhar Mini, University of Wisonsin-Madison
Feb 19, 2025 at - | 330 Fisher Bennet Hall, 3340 Walnut Street

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Retreat or Remain? Understanding Notions of Risk, a “Full Life” and a “Slow Death” from the Sundarbans Coastlines

CASI seminar series in partnership with the South Asia Center, South Asia Studies Dept, EnviroLab & Environmental Innovations Initiative
Megnaa Mehtta, Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Social Anthropology, Institute of Risk and Disaster Reduction, University College London
Feb 20, 2025 at - | Center for the Advanced Study of India Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science & Economics 133 South 36th Street, Suite 230 Philadelphia PA 19104-6215

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Getting on the Grid: A Field Experiment on Bottom-Up Political Pressure and Access to Essential Public Services

CASI seminar series in partnership with the South Asia Center, PDRI-DevLab & Political Science Dept
Nikhar Gaikwad, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Columbia University
Feb 25, 2025 at - | Center for the Advanced Study of India Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science & Economics 133 South 36th Street, Blank Forum (2nd Floor) Philadelphia PA 19104-6215

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South Asia at Penn
Center for the Advanced Study of India

Founded in 1992, the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania is the first research institution in the United States dedicated to the study of contemporary India. A national resource, it fills an urgent need for objective knowledge of India's politics and society, rapidly changing economy, and transformation as both an ancient civilization and major contemporary power.
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 the South Asia Studies Department is a close-knit community of interdisciplinary scholars that combines expertise in the languages, literatures, histories, and cultures of South Asia.