Course Requirements: 4 short assignments

This course is intended to explore some of the ways in which we might theorise the connections between democracy and culture in contemporary India. It will also serve as an introduction to the kind of inter-disciplinary research being done at CSCS.

Session 1: Studying Culture/Studying Democracy

Introduction: The Problem of Representation
Edward Said, Introduction and Chapter I of Orientalism Link found here
Gayatri Spivak, “Deconstructing Historiography”, Link found here

Session 2: Culture and Colonialism

M.K.Gandhi, Hind Swaraj
Jawaharlal Nehru, 'The Panorama of India's Past' Link found here
'The Idea Behind India', Link found here
B.R.Ambedkar, 'Annihilation of Caste' Link found here

Session 3: Nationalism and its Politics

Partha Chatterjee, “The Thematic and the Problematic” Link found here
Rajni Kothari, “Rise of the Dalits and the Renewed Debate on Caste” Link found here
Ashis Nandy, “The Twilight of Certitudes: Secularism, Hindu Nationalism and other Masks of Deculturation” Link found here

Session 4: Culture and the disciplines

Carl E.Pletsch, “The Three Worlds, or the Division of Social Scientific Labor, circa 1950-1975”
Satish Deshpande, “Squinting at Society”
Romila Thapar, “Decolonising the Past”
Ranajit Guha, “The Prose of Counter-Insurgency”
Susie Tharu, “Government, Alienation and Binding”

Session 5: Culture and democracy: new social movements; ‘political society’; language/identity

Partha Chatterjee, Politics of the Governed (Chapters 1 and 2) Link found here
Partha Chatterjee, “Beyond the Nation, or Within?”Link found here
Janaki Nair, “Memories of Underdevelopment”
M.Madhava Prasad, “Cine Politics” Link found here

Session 6: Cultural rights

Veena Das, “Communities as Political Actors: The Question of Cultural Rights” Link found here
Flavia Agnes, “Minority Identity and Gender Concerns” Link found here
Anveshi Law Committee, “Is Gender Justice only a Legal Issue? The Political Stakes in the UCC Debate” Link found here

Session 7: Culture and democracy in the global South

David Scott, “Colonial Governmentality” Link found here
Kuan-Hsing Chen, “Why is ‘great reconciliation’ impossible? De-Cold War/Decolonization, or Modernity and its Tears” Link found here
Kim Soyoung, “The Birth of the Local Feminist Sphere in the Global Era: ‘Trans-Cinema’ and yosongjang” Link found here

Research at CSCS

Session 8: Tejaswini Niranjana
“Left to the Imagination: Indian Nationalisms and Female Sexuality”; “Take a Little Chutney: The Body in the Voice” (from Mobilizing India) Link found here

Session 9: SV Srinivas
“Film Culture, Politics and Industry”
“Fans, Families and Censorship: The Alluda Majaka Controversy”

Session 10: Vivek Dhareshwar
“Valorizing the Present”
“Our Time”

Session 11: Ashish Rajadhyaksha
“The Post-colonial Nation and the Avant-garde Cinema in the 1970s”

Sessions 12, 13, 14 (Visiting Faculty): Valerian Rodrigues