🐯 Princeton International & Regional Studies unofficial reading list 2026
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African Studies
The Art & Archaeology of the Ancient Near East & Egypt AFS 202 (fa26)
- Art of Mesopotamia by Zainab Bahrani
Forms of Literature: Postcolonialism AFS 402 (fa26)
- Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
- A Passage to India by E.M. Foster
- A Tempest by Aime Cesaire
- Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
- Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee
- No Telephone to Heaven by Michelle Cliff
Art, Apartheid & South Africa AFS 411 (fa26)
- ✔️ Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee
Visible Evidence: Wildlife Films & Multispecies Documentary AFS 455 (fa26)
- Cross-Cultural Filmmaking: A Handbook for Making Documentary & Ethnographic Films & Videos by Barbash & Taylor
Contemporary European Politics & Society
Landmarks of European Identity EPS 302 (fa26)
- ✔️ Neuromancer by William Gibson (my highlights)
- Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- The Master & Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
- Mephisto by Klaus Mann
- Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
- Dr. Faustus: The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkuhn As Told by a Friend by Thomas Mann
Latin American Studies
Identity in the Spanish-Speaking World LAS 250 (fa26)
- I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala by Rigoberta Menchú
- Love After Death by Pedro Calderón de la Barca
Art & Archaeology of Ancient Mesoamerica LAS 267 (fa26)
- The Art of Mesoamerica: From Olmec to Aztec by Mary Ellen Miller
Colonial Latin America to 1810 LAS 305 (fa26)
- Colonial Latin America by Burkholder & Johnson
- Colonial Latin America: A Documentary History by Mills et al.
The Modern Period LAS 308 (fa26)
- ✔️ A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf (my highlights)
- The Fourth World by Diamela Eltit
- The Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
- The Burrow by Franz Kafka
- Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig
Art, Memory & Human Rights in Latin America LAS 316 (fa26)
- Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice by Cristina Rivera Garza
- Operation Massacre by Rodolfo Walsh
- Massacre in Mexico by Elena Poniatowska
- Knitting the Fog by Claudia D. Hernández
Contemporary Critical Theories: Marx’s Capital LAS 535 (fa26)
- Capital, v.1 by Karl Marx
Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies
Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky RES 219 (fa26)
- Alexander Pushkin: Boris Godunov & Other Dramatic Works
- Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse by Alexander Pushkin
- Novels, Tales, Journeys: The Complete Prose of Alexander Pushkin
- A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov
- Nikolai Gogol: Plays & Petersburg Tales
- ✔️ Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky (my highlights)
- Crime & Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
East European Literature RES 345 (fa26)
- The Death of a Soldier Told by His Sister by Olesya Khromeychuk
- Chernobyl Prayer: A Chronicle of the Future by Svetlana Alexievich
- The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth
- The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric
- Ferdydurke by Witold Gombrowicz
- The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz
- Kaddish for an Unborn Child by Imre Kertész
- The Appointment by Herta Müller
- The Door by Magda Szabo
- The Trial by Franz Kafka
- Satantango by László Krasznahorkai
Dostoevsky RES 416 (fa26)
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Crime & Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Memoirs from the House of the Dead by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Netochka Nezvanova by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- ✔️ Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky (my highlights)
- The Double by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Nikolai Gogol: Plays & Petersburg Tales
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Poor Folk & Other Stories
International Relations: Russia’s Relations with Europe RES 440 (fa26)
- The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History by Serhii Plokhy
- Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia by Peter Pomerantsev
South Asian Studies
Elementary Sanskrit I SAN 101 (fa26)
- A Concise Elementary Grammar of the Sanskrit Language by Jan Gonda
- The Sanskrit Language: An Intro. Grammar & Reader by Walter Harding Maurer
- A Sanskrit Grammar for Students by A.A. Macdonell
Intermediate Hindi I HIN 105 (fa26)
- Adv. Hindi Grammar by Usha R. Jain
Intermediate Sanskrit I SAN 105 (fa26)
- A Concise Elementary Grammar of the Sanskrit Language by Jan Gonda
- A Sanskrit English Dictionary by M Monier-Williams
- The Practical Sanskrit-English Dictionary by Vaman Shivram Apte
- A Sanskrit Grammar for Students by A.A. Macdonell
Gods, Poets & Thinkers of Ancient India: Readings in Advanced Sanskrit SAN 306 (fa26)
- Vedic Grammar by A.A. Macdonell
- Sanskrit Grammar by William Dwight Whitney
- A Sanskrit English Dictionary by M Monier-Williams
- Scholastic Sanskrit: A Manual for Students by Tubb & Boose
- A Concise Elementary Grammar of the Sanskrit Language by Jan Gonda
The Difficulty of Being Good: Ethics, War & Dharma in Hindu Epic SAS 310 (fa26)
- Mahābhārata
- Disorienting Dharma: Ethics & the Aesthetics of Suffering in the Mahabharata by Emily T. Hudson
- The Dharma of Justice in the Sanskrit Epics: Debates on Gender, Varna, and Species by Ruth Vanita
Gender & Performing Arts in South Asia SAS 335 (fa26)
- The Life of Music in North India: The Organization of an Artistic Tradition by Daniel M. Neuman
- Unfinished Gestures: Devadasis, Memory & Modernity in South India by Davesh Soneji
- Heart to Heart: Remembering Nainaji by Vidya Rao
- Illicit Worlds of Indian Dance: Cultures of Exclusion by Anna Morcom
- Umrao Jan Ada by Mirza Muhammad Hadi Rusva
Translation & Intercultural Communication
The Trojan War: A Linguistic Intro. TRA 306 (fa26)
- How Dead Languages Work by Coulter H. George
- ✔️ The Trojan War: A Very Short Intro. by Eric H. Cline
The Bible as Literature TRA 399 (fa26)
- The Literary Guide to the Bible by Alter & Kermode
- The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version
Translation, Migration, Culture TRA 400 (fa26)
- Migrant Brothers: A Poet’s Declaration of Human Dignity by Patrick Chamoiseau
- Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions by Valeria Luiselli
- In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri
- Translations by Brian Friel