Initiative

The Himalayan Studies Initiative

The Institute for South Asia Studies is proud to announce the establishment of a new endowment, the Himalayan Studies Berreman-Yamanaka Fund. Established in memory of famed UC Berkeley Anthropologist, Prof. Gerald Berreman, by his wife, Prof. Keiko Yamanaka and family, the goal of this endowment is to support Himalayan Studies across Bhutan, India,...

The South Asia Art Initiative

South Asia Art Initiative logoThe South Asia Art Initiative (SAAI) at the University of California, Berkeley promotes research-based conversations and collaborations around the arts of South Asia + its diasporas from the ancient period to the present. SAAI’s mission as an incubator of creative thought and practice is animated by the research interests of the Cal...

Tagore Program on Literature, Culture, & Philosophy

line drawing of person's profileRabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941), Bengal's iconic literary and spiritual polymath whose teachings and philosophy are just as relevant today as they were in the 19th century, received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore was a poet, novelist, a short story writer, playwright, musician, composer and painter. A humanist to the core, Tagore was also a...

Climate Change in South Asia

Earth in the palm of a hand

The Institute for South Asia Studies (ISAS) is launching a groundbreaking four-year program (2022–26) on the critical and urgent issue of...

The Sikh and Punjabi Studies Initiative

Dr. Sabharwal as a student at UC Berkeley. 1958.

The Institute for South Asia Studies is thrilled to announce the establishment of the Dr. Ranjit Singh Sabharwal Endowed Fund for Sikh Studies. Generously funded by the friends and family of Dr. Ranjit Singh Sabharwal, as well as those committed to the...

The Berkeley Pakistan Initiative

Pakistan Initiative logo

The University of California at Berkeley is a global leader for the study of South Asia, and one of very few institutions in the United States to offer both undergraduate and graduate degree programs focusing on numerous aspects of this vital region. As an integral part of the South Asia curriculum at Berkeley, interest in the study of Pakistan's history,...

Reading South Asia

Reading South Asia logoReading South Asia is a new initiative that was launched by the ISAS in Spring 2010. This program invites eminent scholars in South Asia related studies living in the Bay Area to lead a reading group in their particular field of expertise. The purpose of this program is, very simply put, to provide a means by which people with shared South Asia related intersts can gather...

K-14 Outreach

The mission of the Institute for South Asia Studies at the University of California is to support the teaching, research, cultural, outreach, development and community activities relating to South Asia and South Asians at Berkeley. An important component of this mission is to extend this support to Berkeley's sister institutions in the University of California system, and in the primary, secondary and post-secondary educational system of the State of California.

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