Course 806: Culture and Democracy
CSCS PhD and Diploma 2008-09
Winter Semester 2009
Course Number:806
Culture and DemocracyCredits: 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.
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”
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.
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”
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 RightsAshish 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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