Course 701: Culture and Democracy
Course Requirements: Student presentations and 4 short assignments
Over the past few years this course served as an exploration of how the connections between culture and democracy may be theorised. In addition, the course introduced the research being done at CSCS.
In the light of the ongoing discussions at the Centre on Cultural Studies approaches and methods, this year (2007) the course begins with a tentative formulation of what a Cultural Studies approach might bring to the study of culture and democracy. It then goes on to examining texts, concepts and arguments that are useful to substantiate the initial formulation. In the latter part of the course CSCS faculty and a visiting scholar will reflect on their own work, focussing on how they view the relationship between culture and democracy in the contemporary world.
Session
1: Representation Outline of the course, framing arguments.
Edward
Said, Introduction and Chapter I of Orientalism. Link found here: Introduction
Chapter
one
Session
2: Culture and Colonialism
M.K.Gandhi,
Hind Swaraj Link
found here
Frantz Fanon,
“National Culture” Link
found here
Session
3: Nationalism and its Politics
Partha
Chatterjee, “The Thematic and the Problematic” Link
found here
Ashis Nandy,
“The Making and Unmaking of Political Cultures in India” Link
found here
---, “The
Twilight of Certitudes: Secularism, Hindu Nationalism and other Masks
of Deculturation” Link
found here
Session
4: Citizen and Subject
Etienne
Balibar, “Citizen Subject” Link
found here
Partha Chatterjee,
Politics of the Governed (Chapters 1 and 2) Link
found here
---, “Beyond
the Nation, or Within?”
Link found here
Vivek Dhareshwar
and R. Srivatsan, “‘Rowdy-Sheeters’: An Essay on Subalternity
and Politics.” Link
found here
Session
5: Caste and Democracy
Rajni
Kothari, “Rise of the Dalits and the Renewed Debate on Caste”
Link
found here
Ghanshyam
Shah, “Caste and Class: Social Reality and Political Representations”
Link
found here
Vivek Dhareshwar,
“Caste and the Secular Self” Link
found here
Satish Deshpande,
“Exclusive Inequalities: Merit, Caste and Discrimination in Indian
Higher Education Today” Link
found here
Session
6: Cultural and 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
Susie Tharu
and Tejaswini Niranjana, “Problems for a Contemporary Theory of
Gender” 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: Political Culture 1:Rebellious Peasants and Saints
Ranajit
Guha, “Introduction” and “Negation” from Elementary
Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India. Link
found here
Shahid Amin,
“Gandhi as Mahatma: Gorakhpur District, Eastern UP, 1921”
Link
found here
Session
8: Political Culture 2: Politics of Excess
Madhava
Prasad, “Cine-Politics” Link
found here
--- “Elections
as Popular Culture” (Unpublished essay. Draft will not be a part
of the course pack)
Janaki Nair,
“Language and the Right to the City” Link
found here
Earl Jackson,
“Affective Affinities: The Politics of Excess in Korean Melodrama”
(Unpublished essay. Draft will not be a part of the course pack)
Session
9: 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
Guest Lectures: Reflections on Cultural Studies Research
Session
10: Vivek Dhareshwar (Readings will be provided later)
Session
11: Tejaswini Niranjana (Readings will be provided later)
Session
12: SV Srinivas (Readings will be provided later)
Session
13: Ashish Rajadhyaksha (Readings will be provided later)
Sessions
14 (Visiting Faculty): Madhava Prasad (Readings will be provided
later)
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