Introduction

The hallmark of the contemporary period of globalization is the spread of new ideas and large amounts of money:  it is, in more general terms, about the diffusion of culture and capital. In this world, the United States is regarded as the paradigmatic case of a nation defining both culture and capital.  Easily forgotten is that India, the world's largest democracy and fourth largest economy in PPP, has joined the US as a nation with global reach in both culture and economics.

India's cultural capital is on display virtually everywhere.  From Nobel Prizes in economics to Pulitzers in fiction, from a film industry that has captured the hearts of millions to a vast knowledge industry that produces the technology and content of transnational firms, India's cultural capital is produced globally, speaks multilingually, and is consumed visibly in just about every corner of the post-industrial world.

India's economic capital is also increasingly evident. In 2003, economists at Goldman Sachs presented a much quoted paper, "Dreaming with BRICs," which argued that by 2050, the economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRICs) would eclipse the US and Japan in wealth generation and produce 40% of the world's GDP. By 2025, according to the report, BRICs could account for over half the size of the G6.  If the economic predictions reach target, the world's largest democracy will also soon become one of its largest economies, an accomplishment enabled by longstanding institutions of open society, public higher education, and a multilingual labor force equally adept in English and in HTML.     

How has a country that was an abject colonial economy less than 60 years ago achieved its current global muscle?  How might we renew an understanding of India's development from its five-thousand year history to its recent interventions in the world stage?  And, perhaps most importantly, what role do India's "products"—such as film, literature, music, architecture, philosophy, religion, but also business, science, and politics—play in fabricating the country's new global presence?  Has India really changed from a nation of bullock carts, or have its purveyors masterfully refashioned its perception on the global stage? 

This seminar explores the relationship between culture and capital in fashioning the new India.