UNC hasn't had a religious studies course focused primarily on Hinduism in years, but this week, students can register for Religious Studies 386: Dance and Embodied Knowledge in the Indian Context.
Randall Styers, chairperson of the religious studies department, said the department wants to expand and develop new courses in addition to their current offerings.
“Well, it’s been a very long time in our department since we had a faculty member at UNC who specializes in a religion of South Asia and Hinduism and so this year we have a new faculty member in her first year at UNC, Harshita Kamath, and so she is going to be offering a whole range of new classes on Hinduism and other South Asian religious traditions,” Styers said.
Kamath, the professor for RELI 386, said the Tuesday section will be a lecture focusing mainly on Hindu traditions, while the Thursday portion of the class will be dancing, primarily focusing on Kuchipudi — a dance originating from a South Indian village of the same name. Kamath said Kuchipudi was originally only performed by men.
Kamath said the course is meant to be an intro course and there are no pre-requisites.
“The lecture, for the most part, will focus on the Hindu traditions and — I’m trying to think if it will draw on any others — maybe some discussions around Islam, but my other religion courses particularly, for example … the other large lecture course that I’ll be teaching in the fall, 183, that one looks at like four or five different religions from Asia,” Kamath said.
Kamath said the course will allow students to encounter the practices they read about in religious texts with their bodies.
"So students learn kind of basic movements in this South Indian dance form — Kuchipudi — or I teach them and then it culminates with a final performance at the end of the semester in, like, costume,” Kamath said.
Junior health policy management major Taruni Santanam, co-president and spokesperson for the student organization Hindu Yuva, said she is excited about the course. She said Hinduism is practiced differently by different people.
