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Course 806: Culture and Democracy




CSCS PhD and Diploma 2008-09

Winter Semester 2009

Course Number:806

Culture and Democracy

 Credits: 2

Instructors: S.V. Srinivas & Sitharamam Kakarala

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 (2009) the course begins with a set of discussions on the core theoretical questions on democracy and some tentative formulations of what a Cultural Studies approach might bring to the conversation on such themes. It then goes on to examining texts, concepts and arguments that are useful to substantiate the initial formulation. The course will include reflections by other CSCS faculty and visiting scholars on their own work, focussing on how they view the relationship between culture and democracy in the contemporary world.

Session1: Democracy’s Utopia: a Universal Project?

Problemetising Democracy: Introduction to the Course

 Laclau, “Democracy and the question of Power” Link found here

Sen, “Democracy as a Universal Value” Link found here

Connolly, “Reworking the Democratic Imagination” Link found here

Prabhat Patnaik, “Democracy as a site of class struggle” Link found here

Nandy, “New Cosmopolitanisms” Link found here

Session 2: Critiquing Constitutionalisms--1: Interrogating Democracy’s Soul

Baxi, “Constitutionalism as a site of State formative practices” Link found here

Agamben,  State of Exception Link found here

Chatterjee, Politics of the Governed Link found here

Session 3: Critiquing Constitutionalisms--2: Democracy and Cultural Disagreement

Culture, democracy and the idea of legal pluralism

Janaki Nair, Women and Law in Colonial India. Kali for Women, 1995. Ch. 2. Link found here

The UCC debate and the aftermath Link found here

Nancy Fraser, "Rethinking Recognition" Link found here

Session 4: Culture and Theorisation of Law and Rights--1

Peter Fitzpatrick, “‘The Damned Word:’ Culture and its (in) compatibility with Law”.Link found here

Austin Sarat and Thomas Kearns, eds. Law in the Domains of Culture, 1998. Ch. 1.Link found here

Baxi, “Enculturing Law: Some Unphilosophic Remarks” Link found here

Clifford Geertz, “Local Knowledge: Fact and Law in Comparative Perspective” in Local Knowledge.

Link found here

Session 5: Culture and Theorisation of Law and Rights--2

Relativism debates in human rights

Spivak, Righting Wrongs. Link found here

Baxi, Human Rights in a Posthuman World Link found here

Sumit Guha, “Wrongs and Rights in the Maratha Country”, in Michael Anderson and Sumit Guha eds., Changing Concepts of Rights and Justice in South Asia, OUP 2000  Link found here

Sudhir Chandra, Enslaved Daughters Link found here

Satyamurthy, Rights of Citizens Link found here

Session 6:Caste and Democracy

Special lecture, to be finalized.

Session 7: Culture and Colonialism

M.K.Gandhi, Hind Swaraj Link found here

Frantz Fanon, “National Culture”Link found here

Session 8: 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 9: Citizen and Subject

Etienne Balibar, “Citizen Subject” Link found here

Partha Chatterjee, Politics of the Governed (Chapters 1 and 2) Link founder 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

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 10: 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 11: Political Culture 2: Language, City, Cinema

Madhava Prasad, “Cine-Politics” Link found here

Janaki Nair, “Language and the Right to the City”Link found here

Session 12: Technologies of Culture and Cultural Rights

Ashish Rajadhyaksha: Beaming Messages to the Nation Link found here

 Session 13:

Anup Dhar: S.V.Srinivas, He who knows his Ganji and Benji   ch 3. Link found here

T.Adorno, Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propoganda Link found here

Time Warps:the insistent politics of silent and evasive pasts/Ashish Nandy;New Delhi:Permanent Black,2001(1-12p) Link found here

Session 14: Closing Session




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