COSAS at the University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is one of the leading centers for the study of Southern Asia.

Countries in which we have scholarly expertise in South Asia include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka; and in Southeast Asia, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Tibet (as an autonomous region), and Vietnam.

About COSAS

One of the largest concentrations of faculty working on Southern Asia at any major research university, COSAS members are University of Chicago faculty members engaged in significant research, publication and teaching related to the study of South and Southeast Asia.

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Upcoming Events

All COSAS events are open to the public.

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Faculty Highlights

Chicago’s Southern Asia strength is built around the Committee on Southern Asian Studies (COSAS), comprised of faculty across the University who share teaching and research interests in Southern Asia.

The focus of the Committee on Southern Asian Studies (COSAS), which is supported through a University endowment, is to support and implement faculty and student academic and research projects that broadly encompass the study of South and Southeast Asia.

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Faculty Highlight: Tyler Williams

Q: Congratulations on being awarded the AIIS Edward Cameron Dimock Jr. Prize in the Indian Humanities for your work If All the World Were Paper: A History of Writing in Hindi. Can you provide a brief summary of the book and its desired contribution to the field? If...

Faculty Highlight: Jason Grunebaum

Q: Congratulations on the launch of the SALT Project. Can you provide a brief summary of the project and its goals? Thank you! The project’s origin lies in many missing books. In particular, only 64 books translated from all South Asian languages have made it to US...

Faculty Highlight: Trevor Price

Q: Congratulations on all of your recent achievements, especially the launch of your new book Ecology of a Changed World. Can you provide a brief summary of the work? This is a textbook associated with my class “Ecology in the Anthropocene” which I am teaching this...

Faculty Highlight: Michele Friedner

Q: Congratulations on the launch of your new book Sensory Futures. Can you provide a brief summary of the work? The book looks at central and state government programs providing deaf children below the age of 6 with cochlear implants. It also looks at the emergence of...

Faculty Highlight: C.M. Naim

Shende: Congratulations on your new book A Most Noble Life: The Biography of Ashrafunnisa Begum (1840-1903). Could you briefly tell us what and who the book is about? Naim: The book consists of two major sections. One is a translation of the biography of Ashrafunnisa...

Faculty Highlight: Laura Ring

Doan: Congratulations on your newly published poetry/hybrid chapbook, Field Notes Recovered from the Expedition to Devil’s Peak, which was selected as the inaugural winner of the Foster-Stahl chapbook competition. Can you give us a summary of the book? Ring: This is a...

As of 2022-2023, the Committee has sixty-eight members. COSAS members represent approximately eighteen degree-granting departments and programs across the university.

Meet Our Faculty

COSAS members are University of Chicago faculty members engaged in significant research, publication and teaching related to the study of South and Southeast Asia. This is one of the largest concentrations of faculty working on Southern Asia at any major research university.

Members meet regularly to plan and implement programming and academic programs to enhance the study of Southern Asia at the University.