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VIII Theory/Praxis Course
June 14-July 10, 2010
Venue: Department of English
University of Pune
The Forum on Contemporary Theory has been conducting an intensive course
in Theory/Praxis since 2003 for the benefit of scholars across disciplines
interested in new developments in Theory and their application. The Course
includes intensive textual readings in specific areas, supported by
seminars and talks on broader but related issues. The Course will be held
in the University of Pune from
June 14 to July 10,
2010.
COURSE
OUTLINES
The Course is organized around the following topics to be discussed
in-depth by the core faculty, supported by public lectures and
mini-seminars by the invited scholars.
1)
Matters of Life & Death (Faculty: Costica Bradatan)
The recent resurgence of the phenomenon of “suicide bombing” has starkly
reminded us of the important political functions that a dying body can
perform. From the Buddhist monks who immolated themselves in Vietnam in
early 1960s to Jan Palach, who did the same thing in Czechoslovakia in
1969, from the Japanese kamikazes during the WWII to today’s
suicide-bombers, the ways in which one’s violent death can be turned into
an expressive political gesture have been as different as have the
ultimate goals sought through such an act. However, despite its
persistence and shocking occurrences, this type of voluntary death hasn’t
yet received the theoretical treatment it deserves; social and political
theorists are still to come up with a comprehensive and interdisciplinary
understanding of the dying body as a carrier of political, ideological and
religious messages.
This course has been born precisely out of the felt need for such a
broader understanding of the body and the political functions it can
perform in radical situations. The primary theoretical premise on which
the course is based is Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s insight that the “use a man
is to make of his body is transcendent in relation to that body as a mere
biological entity.” Drawing on this insight, we will be looking at various
practices through which a body can be made to transcend itself.
The course is dedicated to exploring the body as the locus of a number of
fundamental experiences: the experience of a living (embodied) being,
“thrown into the world,” of living in limit-situations (torture,
starvation, physical degradation), the experience of finitude and
imperfection, of overcoming one’s natural fear of death, finally the
experience of self-transcending and re-signification through dying a
violent voluntary death. We will be discussing several types of such
voluntary death: martyrdom, self-immolation as a form of political
protest, suicide-bombing and the kamikaze pilots.
In
terms of textual resources, we will be analyzing texts on the
phenomenology of the body (Merleau-Ponty), on the phenomenology of death
and dying (Heidegger, Landsberg and Michelstaedter), as well as scholarly
literature on the posthumous significance that a “martyred body” can
acquire in radicalized contexts (Girard). We will also examine fiction
literature (Lev Tolstoy), literature by Nazi camp survivors such as Primo
Levi and Jean Améry, as well as personal diaries left behind by Japanese
kamikaze pilots. Finally, in order to make our approach more intuitive
and, at the same time, more interdisciplinary, we will be watching and
discussing a number of films on the subject by such major directors as
Bergman, Pontecorvo, Benigni, and Iñárritu.
Course
Structure
•
Session I: The
Body as a Philosophical Problem; the Body and the World;
Being-in-the-World.
o
Readings: Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, pp. 77-232;
Heidegger, Being and Time, pp. 149-224.
o
Film viewing: 21 Grams (Dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu)
•
Session II:
Death as a Philosophical Problem; Living with Death; Death and (the Quest
for) Authenticity; Death, Irony and Humor
o
Readings: Heidegger, Being and Time, pp. 279-311; Tolstoy, The
Death of Ivan Ilyich; Michelstaedter, Persuasion and Rhetoric,
pp. 7-57
o Film
viewing: The Barbarian Invasions (Dir. Denys Arcand)
•
Session III:
Overcoming the Fear of Death; Self-Transcending; Dying as a Rite of
Passage; Death and Meaning
o
Readings: Plato, Apology; Landsberg, “The Experience of Death”;
Michelstaedter, Persuasion and Rhetoric, pp. 61-100
o Film
viewing: The Seventh Seal (Dir. Ingmar Bergman)
•
Session IV:
Marked for Death; Torture and Resistance; Scapegoating;
o
Readings: Améry, “Torture,” pp. 21-40; Girard, The Scapegoat, pp.
1-75
o Film
viewing: The Battle of Algiers (Dir. Gillo Pontecorvo)
•
Session V: Dying
vs. Death; the Body in the Concentration Camp; Death and Annihilation
o
Readings: Améry, “At the Mind’s Limits,” pp. 1-20; Primo Levi, Survival
in Auschwitz
o Film
viewing: Life is Beautiful (Dir. Roberto Benigni)
•
Session VI:
Making the Most of the Dying Body. Various Political Uses of the Body;
Narratives of Martyrdom
o
Readings: Girard, The Scapegoat, pp. 100-148; Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney,
Kamikaze Diaries; Luke Allnutt, “A True Martyr”
o Film
viewing: Paradise now (Dir. Hany Abu-Assad)
2)
Can
Subaltern Studies Speak? A Critical Reading of Three Decades of Discourse
on and of Subalternists and Subalternity (Faculty:
Arjuna Parakrama)
While detractors would admit that the subalternist intervention in
colonial historiography and cultural studies was both important and
influential, ardent acolytes will concede that there’s been a decline in
both interest and interesting new work in the field. This course seeks to
examine the ways in which subaltern studies has perceived itself and has
been understood by others during the past three decades, in order to
better predict its future trajectory. Thus, subaltern theory will be
subjected to a discourse study, the assumption being that its reception
and reproduction, both complex discursive processes, are (mis)appropriations
of power/knowledge in globalised space.
Since the public inauguration of Subaltern Studies in the early 1980s, and
particularly with Ranajit Guha’s “manifesto” in
Subaltern Studies I:
Writings on South Asian History and Society
(1982) this loosely-knit group of Indian historians and cultural theorists
enjoyed a two-decade-long wave of popularity in Indian and Anglo-US
academe. Many imitations and applications were spawned during this period,
even the inner circle of the Subaltern Studies Collective grew to around
15 amidst much soul-searching [See Hardiman 1986], and included adherents
in the most prestigious US and Australian universities. Caricature
accounts had US graduate students looking for subalterns in every nook and
cranny, and the crudest misunderstandings degenerated into celebrations of
primitivism and the romanticizing of marginality.
To
risk a generalization that this course will unpack, at a more serious
level the British and US responses to Subaltern Studies have been markedly
divergent because each sees different aspects as its core content. While
the first response dealt almost exclusively with colonial historiography,
this was quickly followed by a literary critical appropriation of
Subaltern Studies which gradually became the one of the trendiest
methodologies in US English Departments. Throughout this period the
definition of the term “subaltern” came under constant scrutiny and
regular revision, a discursive arena that will be meticulously mapped in
our readings.
Subaltern Studies’ origins as a critical engagement with Marxism is
well-known. Hence, serious opposition to Subaltern Studies has most
consistently come from the traditional left which argues that
revolutionary struggle is being diverted to over-nuanced abstractions and
obscurantist theory. A related major strand of criticism exemplified by
members of the Cambridge School held that the Subalternists have nothing
new to offer which either (British) Marxists and/or Indian historians had
not discussed earlier. A rising antagonism from within India, including by
a few former members of the Collective such as Sumit Sarkar, has critiqued
what it perceives as the post-structuralist turn of later subaltern work.
However, the early excitement, both pro and con has diminished, and during
the last five or so years the output and interest in Subalternity has
reached a low ebb, prompting some critics to express the view that it was
merely a fad whose heyday was irrevocably past. We will track these
changes in terms of their over-arching conceptual ramifications in the
context of the global financial crisis and the rise of ethno-nationalist
conflict and reconstitution of new social movements.
This course seeks to map the trajectory of subaltern studies as well as
critical responses to it over the past three decades, in the attempt to
theorize future roles for this intellectual movement. Of particular
interest in this regard will be the detailed examination of subaltern
studies relationship to Marxism and postcolonial theories in the current
conjuncture. The unabashedly elite status of subaltern scholars and the
disciplinary privileging of India (even within South Asia) will also be
scrutinized to identify how this gets played out in their analysis and
presentation.
As
a capstone exercise, participants will be invited to present a preliminary
analysis of a contemporary intervention of struggle or resistance that
they feel strongly about from a subaltern perspective, which includes the
use of alternative sources and methodologies to mainstream research.
Course
Structure
•
Session I:
Subaltern Studies and the Critique of Colonial Historiography: New Wine in
Old Bottles?
o
Readings: Selections from Guha, Ranajit Elementary Aspects of
Peasant Insurgency, Dominance without Hegemony, and
Guha and Spivak (eds.) Selected Subaltern Studies. Essays by
Chandravarkar, Brass and Bayley in Mapping Subaltern Studies
o
Creative Expression: La Nouba des femmes du Mont Chenoua
[Film by Assia Djebar]
• Session II:
Subaltern Studies and Marxism: Fellow Travellers or Incommensurable
Alternatives?
o
Readings: Essays by O’Hanlon, Washbrook, Prakash (Response), Lazarus &
Varma
o
Creative Expression: Genesis [Film by Mrinal Sen]
• Session III:
Subaltern Studies and Postcolonial Theory: Orientalism Revisited,
Eurocentrism Reinscribed
o
Readings: Lazarus & Varma, Prakash, Spivak “Can the Subaltern Speak?”
o
Creative Expression: Kanafani “Men in the Sun” [See Bibliography]
• Session IV:
The
Literary Appropriation of Subaltern Studies: Spivak and Subaltern Sources
o
Readings: Selections from Spivak, Gayatri In Other Worlds,
Other Asias, and the interviews
o
Creative Expression: Devi, Mahasweta “Draupadi” and “Stanadayini” [English
translation by Gayatri Spivak contained in In Other Worlds]
• Session V:
Synthesizing the Contribution of Subaltern Studies to Present Struggles:
Public Debates and Private Wars
o
Readings: A collection of critical essays and responses from the
Economic & Political Weekly in the 1980s and 90s, James C Scott.
o
Creative Expression: Selected Film Documentaries
•
Session VI: Whither Subaltern Studies Tomorrow? Subjects, Approaches,
Saturation of an Area
o
Readings: Chatterjee (Selections), Gunawardena, Pandian, Arnold
(Selection)
o
Creative Expression: Abaa (Sri Lankan Film by Jackson
Anthony)
•
Session VII: Participant Presentations and Discussion: How is Subaltern
Theory Useful Today?
COLLABORATION AND ORGANIZATIONAL DETAILS
The
eighth Theory/Praxis course is jointly organized by the Forum on
Contemporary Theory, Baroda and the Department of English, University of
Pune. The program will be conducted by a core faculty and invited speakers
for a period of four weeks. Study material will be made available to the
participants after their registration; the participants are expected to
have gone through the material before the commencement of the Course. Each
participant is required to make at least one formal presentation during
the course, which will be evaluated by a member of the core faculty. Both
faculty and participants are expected to stay together in the same venue
for greater interaction and exchange between them.
PARTICIPATION CRITERIA
Participation in the Course is mainly open to scholars in the humanities
and social sciences, preferably those working toward research degrees, but
post-graduate students and post-doctoral scholars in these disciplines and
scholars from the disciplines outside the humanities and social sciences
interested in inter-disciplinary studies can also apply. Maximum number of
participants to be selected is 35.
REGISTRATION FEE
Each
participant is required to pay a registration fee of Rs.7000/
(Rupees seven thousand only) to the Forum on Contemporary Theory through a
bank draft drawn on a bank in Baroda. The registration fee is
non-refundable. The fee will take care of his/her board and lodging, cost
of course material and other related expenses. The participants will not
be paid by the organizers for their travel.
DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION
The
last date for receiving application for participation is April 5, 2010.
The application may be sent to Director, Centre for Contemporary Theory,
Baroda. Selection for participation will be made by April 20, 2010.
Selected candidates are required to send the bank draft favoring Forum on
Contemporary Theory before May 5, 2010. Course material will be
mailed only after receiving the registration fee.
CORE FACULTY
Costica Bradatan a)
is
Assistant Professor of Honors at Texas Tech University. He has also taught
at Cornell University, Miami University, as well as at several
universities in Europe (England, Germany, Hungary and Romania). Currently
(2009-2010) he is a Solmsen Fellow at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison’s Institute for Research in the Humanities. Bradatan has
held research fellowships at, among others, University of
Wisconsin-Madison, University of California Los Angeles, and the Newberry
Library in Chicago. His research interests include Continental philosophy,
history of philosophy, East-European philosophy, and philosophy of
literature. His work has appeared in English, Romanian, Portuguese,
Spanish, Dutch and Polish. Bradatan’s most recent book The Other Bishop
Berkeley: An Exercise in Reenchantment was published with Fordham
University Press in 2006. He is also the author of two other books (in
Romanian): An Introduction to the History of Romanian Philosophy in the
20th Century (Bucharest, 2000) and Isaac Bernstein’s Diary
(Bucharest, 2001), as well as of several dozens of scholarly papers,
essays, encyclopedia entries, book translations and book reviews. He has
co-edited (with Serguei Alex. Oushakine) In Marx’s Shadow. Knowledge,
Power and Intellectuals in Eastern Europe and Russia (Lexington Books,
2010) and guest-edited two special journal issues: one on “Philosophy as
Literature” for The European Legacy (Summer 2009) and another on
“Philosophy in Eastern Europe” for Angelaki (forthcoming).
Arjuna Parakrama b)
is
currently Visiting Professor at the School of Language & Linguistics of
the National University of Malaysia. He was Professor of English (Cadre
Chair) at Sri Lanka’s oldest and most prestigious university, the
University of Peradeniya, from 2004 - 2009. He has also served in the
United Nations in Nepal and elsewhere as an expert on (post)conflict
development and human rights, and has a parallel existence working with
multiply marginalized communities in Sri Lanka’s war-ravaged “border
villages”. Professor Parakrama was a Fulbright New Century Scholar in
2007/8, a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Council on Ethics & International
Affairs (2000/1), a Senior Fellow at the US Institute of Peace (1999/2000)
and a Guggenheim Research Grantee (2002). Among his publications are three
books, De-Hegemonizing Language Standards (Macmillan, 1995),
Language and Rebellion (Katha, 1990) and Collected Poems (2002) and a
monograph Social Cleaving: Resistance and Loss within a Bereaved
Culture (2004). His current research interests include anti-languages,
extra-linguistic value systems embedded within everyday language,
collective trauma and social cleaving in (post)conflict societies, and
subaltern discourse.
RESIDENCE
Accommodation for outstation participants is made in the Guest House of
the University of Pune
ATTENDANCE
The participants are required to attend all the sessions and to stay until
the end of the program in order to get the certificate of participation.
APPLICATION FORMAT
The following format may be used for the application:
Name
Address (including telephone no. and email ID)
Institutional Affiliation
Date of Birth
Department
Teaching Experience (indicate number of years also)
Academic Qualifications
Areas of Research and Teaching
Publications, if any
Specific Research Topics, if any
Whether Registered for Research Degree?
Whether participated in any Course organized by the Forum? If
participated, when?
A Brief Statement (200 words) about what you expect to gain from the
Course
Names and Addresses of Two Referees
Signature
Date
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE
Prafulla C. Kar
Director, Centre for Contemporary Theory
C-304 Siddhi Vinayak Complex,
Behind Vadodara Railway Station (Alkapuri Side)
Faramji Road,
Vadodara- 390007
Tel: 0265- 2320870
Email: prafullakar@gmail.com
Website: www.fctworld.org
Bajrang S. Korde
Local Coordinator
Professor & Head
Department of English
University of Pune
Tel: 020-25690648/25601332
Mobile: 09422518108
E-mail: korde@unipune.ernet.in
Matters
of Life & Death
Instructor:
Costica
Bradatan, PhD
(
University
of
Wisconsin-Madison
/
Texas
Tech
University
)
Costica.Bradatan@ttu.edu
SCHEDULE
OF EVENTS
Session I: Body and Death as
Philosophical Problems. Being-unto-Death.
Finitude and Creatureliness
Monday,
June 14
10.00-11.00:
Opening Ceremony
11.00-12.00:
Lecture: The Presence of Death
(Costica Bradatan)
12.00-12.15:
Tea/Coffee
12.15-13.00: Discussion
13.00-14.00:
Lunch
16.00-18.00:
Film showing: The
Seventh Seal (Presenter: Soumya Mishra)
18.00-18.15: Tea/Coffee
18.15-19:15: Film discussion (Moderator: Soumya Mishra)
20.00-21.00: Dinner
Tuesday,
June 15
10.00-11.00:
Presentation: Heidegger, Being and Time, pp. 149-224 (Presenters: Saumaya
Biswas &
Rattanamol
Johal)
11.00-12.00: Presentation:
Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich
(Presenter: Chakravarti Patil)
12.00-12.15: Tea/Coffee
12.15-13.00: Discussion
13.00-14.00: Lunch
16.00-18.00: Public lecture or other events
18.00-18.15: Tea/Coffee
20.00-21.00: Dinner
Session
II: Overcoming the Fear of Death. Self-Transcending. Death as a Rite of
Passage
Wednesday,
June 16
10.00-11.30:
Lecture: Philosophy as an Art of
Dying (Costica Bradatan)
11.30-11.45:
Tea/Coffee
11.45-12.45:
Discussion
13.00-14.00:
Lunch
16.00-18.00:
Film showing: The
Barbarian Invasions (Presenter:
Prakruti Ramesh)
18.00-18.15: Tea/Coffee
18.15-19:15: Film discussion (Moderator: Prakruti Ramesh)
20.00-21.00: Dinner
Thursday,
June 17
10.00-11.00:
Presentation: Plato, Apology (Presenter: volunteer
needed)
11.00-12.00:
Presentation:
Landsberg, The Experience of
Death (Presenters: Vishwanath
Rana & Deepak
Kumar)
12.00-12.15:
Tea/Coffee
12.15-13.00:
Discussion
13.00-14.00: Lunch
16.00-18.00: Public lecture: A
playful, all-too playful god. A philosophical reading of Lars von
Trier
’s Dogville
(Costica Bradatan)
18.00-18.15: Tea/Coffee
20.00-21.00: Dinner
Session
III: Marked for Death. Mobs, Executioners and Scapegoats
Friday,
June 18
10.00-11.30:
Lecture: The Making of a
Philosopher-Martyr I (Costica Bradatan)
11.30-11.45:
Tea/Coffe
11.45-13.00:
Discussion
13.00-14.00: Lunch
16.00-18.00: Film showing: Agora (Presenter:
Alankar Kaushik)
18.00-18.15: Tea/Coffee
18.15-19:15: Film discussion (Moderator: Alankar
Kaushik)
20.00-21.00: Dinner
Saturday,
June 19
10.00-11.00:
Presentation: Améry, “At the Mind’s Limits,” pp. 1-20 (Presenter: Mahashweta
Datta)
11.00-12.00:
Presentation: Girard,
The
Scapegoat, pp.
1-75 (Presenter: Arnab
Chakraborty)
12.00-12.15:
Tea/Coffee
12.15-13.00:
Discussion
13.00-14.00: Lunch
16.00-18.00: Public lecture or other events
18.00-18.15: Tea/Coffee
20.00-21.00: Dinner
Session IV: Death, Irony and Humor. Laughing at Death. Death and Meaning
Monday,
June 21
10.00-11.30:
Lecture: To die laughing (Costica
Bradatan)
11.30-11.45:
Tea/Coffee
11.45-13.00:
Discussion
13.00-14.00: Lunch
16.00-18.00: Film showing: Life
is Beautiful (Presenter:
Alan Lalthanzara)
18.00-18.15: Tea/Coffee
18.15-19:15: Film discussion (Moderator: Alan Lalthanzara)
20.00-21.00: Dinner
Tuesday,
June 22
10.00-11.00:
Presentation: Heidegger, Being and Time, pp. 279-311
(Presenter: Vineesha V)
11.00-12.00: Presentation: Primo Levi, Survival
in Auschwitz (Presenters:
Zenon Stavrinides & Sananda
Sen)
12.00-12.15: Tea/Coffee
12.15-13.00:
Discussion
13.00-14.00: Lunch
16.00-18.00: Public lecture or other events
18.00-18.15: Tea/Coffee
20.00-21.00: Dinner
Session
V: Dying vs. Death. Torture and Resistance. The Body in the Concentration
Camp
Wednesday,
June 23
10.00-11.30:
Lecture: The Meaning of Life in the Age of
the most Meaningless Death (Bradatan)
11.30-11.45:
Tea/Coffee
11.45-13.00:
Discussion
13.00-14.00: Lunch
16.00-18.00: Film showing: Roma
Città Aperta (Presenter:
Gayathri Gee)
18.00-18.15: Tea/Coffee
18.15-19:15: Film discussion (Moderator: Gayathri Gee)
20.00-21.00: Dinner
Thursday,
June 24
10.00-11.00:
Presentation: Améry, “Torture,” pp. 21-40 (Presenter: Aparna Jain)
11.00-12.00:
Presentation: Girard,
The
Scapegoat, pp. 100-148
(Presenters: Javed Iqbal Wani)
12.00-12.15: Tea/Coffee
12.15-13.00:
Discussion
13.00-14.00: Lunch
16.00-18.00: Public lecture or other events
18.00-18.15: Tea/Coffee
20.00-21.00: Dinner
Session
VI: Making the Most of the Dying Body. Narratives of Martyrdom
Friday,
June 25
10.00-11.30:
Lecture: The Making of a
Philosopher-Martyr II (Costica Bradatan)
11.30-11.45:
Tea/Coffee
11.45-13.00:
Discussion
13.00-14.00: Lunch
16.00-18.00: Film showing:
Paradise
now (Presenter:
Smitha Madanan)
18.00-18.15: Tea/Coffee
18.15-19: 15: Film discussion (Moderator: Smitha
Madanan)
20.00-21.00: Dinner
Saturday,
June 26
10.00-11.00:
Presentation: Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, “Betrayal
by Idealism and Aesthetics” (Presenter: Pallavi
Mishra)
11.00-12.00:
Presentation: Charles Sabatos, “The
‘Burning Body’”
(Presenter: Hari Priya Pathak)
12.00-12.15: Tea/Coffee
12.15-13.00:
Discussion
13.00-14.00: Lunch
16.00-18.00: Public lecture or other events
18.00-18.15: Tea/Coffee
20.00-21.00:
Dinner
SCHEDULE
OF EVENTS
(June 28- July 10)
CRITICAL
ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY DEMOCRACY
Instructor:
Zenon
Stavrinides, Ph. D.
(
University of Leeds
,
UK
)
z.stavrinides@lineone.net
SUBALTERN
STUDIES
Instructor:
Milind Wakankar Ph.D. (
Columbia
University
)
Fellow, Centre for the Study of Culture and Society,
Bangalore
milindwakankar@gmail.com
Session
I
“Democracy As It Is Supposed To Be and As It
Really Is” By:
Zenon Stavrinides
10.00-11.00:
Lecture and Discussion
11.00-11.15:
Tea/ Coffee
11.15
-13.00: Lecture and Discussion (Continued)
13.00-14.00:
Lunch
15.00-16.45: “Subject
and History: K.S. Singh’s Birsa Munda and Early
Subaltern Studies.”
By: Milind Wakankar
16.45-17.00:
Tea/Coffee
17.00-18.00:
Discussion
20.00-21.00: Dinner
Session II & III
Tuesday, June 29
“Equal
Rights, Non-Discrimination and the Arguments for Affirmative Action” By:
Zenon Stavrinides
10.00-11.00:
Lecture and Discussion
11.00-11.15: Tea/Coffee
11.15-13.00: Achieving Political Participation In The Face Of
Apathy (Zenon
Stavrinides) and Discussion
13.00-14.00:
Lunch
15.00-16.45:
“World-History:
Subalternity at the Cusp (Partha Chatterjee’s Politics
of the
Governed)” By: Milind Wakankar
16.45-17.00: Tea/Coffee
17.00-18.00: Discussion
20.00-21.00: Dinner
Session
IV
Wednesday, June 30
Feminist
Critiques of Liberal Democracy (Western and South-East Asian Contributions
to the Debate) By:
Zenon Stavrinides
10.00-11.00:
Lecture and Discussion
11.00-11.15:
Tea/Coffee
11.15-13.00:
Lecture and Discussion (Continued)
13.00-14.00: Lunch
15.00-16.45: “The
Prehistory of Protest: Birsa Munda Revisted”
By:
Milind Wakankar
16.45-17.00:
Tea/Coffee
17.00-18.00:
Discussion
20.00-21.00: Dinner
Subaltern
Studies: Theory, History and the Futures of Theory
Instructor:
Pramod
K. Nayar, Ph.D.
(
University
of
Hyderabad
)
pramodknayar@gmail.com
Session
I & II
Thursday, July 1
Mapping
Subaltern Studies
10.00-11.00:
Lecture and Discussion
11.00-11.15:
Tea/Coffee
11.15-13.00:
Lecture and Discussion
13.00-14.00:
Lunch
15.00-16.30:
Ranajit Guha, History and
Subalternity
Essays: Ranajit Guha, ‘On Some Aspects of Historiography of
Colonial
India
’; Subaltern Studies: Projects for Our Time and Their Convergence’
16.30-16.45: Tea/Coffee
16.45-18.00:
Presentations and Discussion (Discussants: Arnab
Chakraborty, “Subaltern Studies: Projects for Our Time and Their
Convergence”; Sananda Sen,
“On Some Aspects of Historiography of Colonial
India
”)
20.00-21.00:
Dinner
Session
III
Friday, July 2
Dipesh
Chakrabarty and Minority Histories
Essay: Dipesh Chakrabarty,
‘Minority Histories: Subaltern Pasts’
10.00-11.00:
Lecture and Discussion
11.00-11.15:
Tea/Coffee
11.15-13.00:
Presentations and Discussion (Discussant: Gayathri
G)
13.00-14.00: Lunch
Partha
Chatterjee and ‘National History’
Essay: Partha Chatterjee,
‘The Nation and Its Women’
15.00-16.30:
Lecture and Discussion
16.30-16.45: Tea/Coffee
16.45-18:00: Presentations and Discussion (Discussant: Javed Iqbal Wani)
20.00-21.00: Dinner
Session
IV
Saturday, July 3
David
Arnold and Environmental Subalternity
Essay: David Arnold,
‘Colonizing Nature’
10.00-11.00:
Lecture and Discussion
11.00-11.15:
Tea/Coffee
11.15-13.00:
Presentations and Discussion
(Discussant: Mahashweta Datta)
13.00-14.00:
Lunch
Aihwa
Ong and the Refugee-as-Subaltern
Essay: Aihwa Ong, ‘The
Refugee as an Ethical Figure’
15.00-16.30:
Lecture and Discussion
16.30-16.45: Tea/Coffee
16.45-18.00: Presentations and Discussion (Discussant: Prakruti Ramesh)
20.00-21.00: Dinner
Session
V
Monday, July 5
Ann
Travers and the New Spaces of Subalternity
Essay: Ann Travers,
‘Parallel Feminist Subaltern Counterpublics in Cyberspace'
10.00-11030:
Lecture and Discussion
11.00-11.15:
Tea/Coffee
11.15-13.00:
Presentations and Discussion (Discussant: Smitha
M.)
13.00-14.00: Lunch
15.00-16.30: Lecture, “New
Historicism and Cultural Poetics” by Prafulla C. Kar
16.30-16.45: Tea/Coffee
16.45-18:00: Discussion
20.00-21.00: Dinner
Subalternity
and the Biopolitics of Difference
Instructor:
Dilip
K. Das, Ph.D.
(The
English and Foreign
Languages
University
,
Hyderabad
)
deekaydas@gmail.com
Tuesday, July 6
10.00-11.00:
Introductory Lecture and Discussion
11.00-11.15: Tea/Coffee
11.15-13.00:
David Arnold, “Touching
the Body: Perspectives on the Indian Plague, 1896-1900” and Michael
Worboys, “Germs, Malaria and the Invention of Mansonian Tropical
Medicine: From ‘Diseases of the Tropics’ to ‘Tropical Diseases’”
and Discussion (Discussants: Alan
Lalthanzara, “Touching the Body: Perspectives on the Indian
Plague, 1896-1900”; Alankar
Kaushik, “Germs, Malaria and the Invention of Mansonian Tropical
Medicine: From ‘Diseases of the Tropics’ to ‘Tropical
Diseases’”)
13.00-14.00:
Lunch
15.00-17.00:
Film Screening: Phir
Milenge, Dir. Revathi
17.00-17.15: Tea/Coffee
17.15-18.00:
Discussion (Discussants:
Javed Iqbal Wani and Rattanamol Singh Johal)
20.00-21.00:
Dinner
Wednesday, July 7
10.00-11.00:
Lecture and Discussion: Gyanendra Pandey, “Disciplining Difference”
and “Subaltern Citizens and their Histories”
11.00-11.15:
Tea/Coffee
11.15-13.00:
Presentations and Discussion (Discussants: Aparna
J, “Disciplining Difference” ;
17.00-17.15: Tea/Coffee
20.00-21.00: Dinner
Saturday, July 10
10.00-11.00:
Lecture and Discussion: “Disease
and the Film Melodrama”
11.00-11.15:
Tea/Coffee
11.15-13.00:
Valedictory Session
13.00-14.00: Lunch
Zenon Stavrinides teaches in the
Department of Philosophy,
University of Leeds
,
UK
. He studied at King’s College,
London
,
University
of
Cambridge
and
University
of
Leeds
from where he received his Ph. D. degree. His dissertation topic is “The Question ‘What is Knowledge?” His research and
teaching interests are: epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind,
theoretical and applied ethics, social and political philosophy and
logical theory. He taught at Universities of Manchester, Bradford, Open
University and at Bretton Hall College of Higher Education,
Wakefield
. His publications include The
Cyprus
Conflict: National Identity and Statehood (
Nicosia
, 1976; 2nd ed. 1999) and several essays in critical
anthologies and research journals such as Hermes International, The
Cyprus Review, The International Journal of Human Rights, Harvard
International Review, The Philosopher.
Course Outline
The mini-course is concerned with a range of
ethical issues underlying the ‘natural’ (and socially endorsed) desire
to have a child, but a child which ideally will be born at the
‘appropriate’ time and free of any abnormalities or defects. Is this
desire always reasonable and isn’t it possible that a couple may pursue
it beyond the bounds of ethical propriety? Some of these issues are cited
below, together with indicative reading material which can be downloaded
from the internet.
Milind
Wakankar Ph.D. (
Columbia
University
) Fellow, Centre for the Study of Culture and Society,
Bangalore
at present. His completed manuscript, entitled ‘Miracle and Violence,’
is a philosophical and literary critical attempt to understand the
relation between mainstream and marginal or subaltern religious practice
in the Indian subcontinent. Wakankar’s current project focuses on
imaginings of interiority (in Indian and Jewish mysticism, and in Sufism,
with scholarship on Milton and Blake, and on Spinoza and Marx, as a
perennial counterpoint) as a ‘state’ counterposed to the idea of
historicity implicit in the modern nation-state. Here the line of inquiry
will depart from current debates informed by the work of Heidegger,
Benjamin, Levinas and Rosenzweig, toward an engagement with the problem of
myth, the daemonic aspect of tragic character in relation to the
political, and the ‘mistaken’ trajectory of postcolonial
psychology/psychoanalysis in its adumbration, in the era of modernism, of
indigenous concepts of mood and affect taken from ancient Indic cosmology.
Few of his selected publications are: "The Anomaly of Kabir:
Culture and Canonicity in Indian Modernity." Subaltern
Studies XIII (Summer, 2002); "The Moment of Criticism in
Nationalist Thought: Ramchandra Shukla and the Poetics of
Responsibility."
South Atlantic
Quarterly 2.2 (Summer, 2002); "Body, Crowd, Identity: Genealogy of a
Hindu Nationalist Ascetics." Social Text 14:4 (Winter, 1995) 45-74. His book, Subalternity
and Religion: The Prehistory of Dalit Empowerment in
South Asia
(2010, Routledge) has just come out.
Course Outline
1.
“Subject and History: K.S. Singh’s Birsa Munda
and Early Subaltern Studies.”
2.
“World-History: Subalternity at the Cusp (Partha
Chatterjee’s Politics of the
Governed)”
3.
“The Prehistory of Protest: Birsa Munda Revisted”
Pramod
K. Nayar
teaches at the Department of English,
University
of
Hyderabad
. He was Smuts Visiting Fellow in Commonwealth Studies (Cambridge
University, UK) 2000-2001, Charles Wallace India Trust-British Council
Fellow (University of Kent at Canterbury), 2001, and Fulbright Senior
Fellow (Cornell), 2005-06. His publications include An
Introduction to New Media and Cybercultures (Wiley-Blackwell 2010),
The New Media and Cybercultures
Anthology (edited, Wiley-Blackwell 2010), Days
of the Raj: Life and Leisure in British India (edited, Penguin, 2010),
Packaging Life: Cultures of the
Everyday (Sage 2009), Seeing
Stars: Spectacle, Society and Celebrity Culture (Sage 2009), A Short History of English Literature (Cambridge UP India, 2009), Contemporary
Literary and Cultural Theory: From Structuralism to Ecocriticism
(Pearson-Longman, 2009), Postcolonial
Literature: An Introduction (Pearson-Longman, 2008); An
Introduction to Cultural Studies (Viva 2008); The
Great Uprising: India 1857 (Penguin, 2007); The Trial of Bahadur Shah Zafar (edited, Orient BlackSwan, 2007), The
Penguin 1857 Reader (edited, Penguin, 2007), English
Writing and India, 1600-1920: Colonizing Aesthetics (Routledge,
2008), Reading Culture: Theory,
Praxis, Politics (Sage 2006), Virtual
Worlds: Culture and Politics in the Age of Cybertechnology (Sage
2004), Literary Theory Today (Prestige 2002), dozens of book reviews, and
essays in Journal of British Studies, Postcolonial Text, Commonwealth:
Essays and Studies, Studies in Travel Writing, Prose Studies, South Asian
Review, Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, Journal of Commonwealth
Literature and elsewhere. Among his forthcoming books are Digital
Cool: Life in the Age of New Media (Penguin) and Postcolonialism:
A Guide for the Perplexed (Continuum 2010), States
of Sentiment: The Cultural Politics of Emotions (OrientBlackSwan),
besides essays in Kunapipi and College Literature. He is
currently working at a book on Frantz Fanon for the Routledge Critical
Thinkers series, a book on Human Rights and Narratives and a book on
Colonial Discourse for Wiley-Blackwell. He is Series Editor for
Contemporary Indian Writers in English (Cambridge Univ. Press
India
).
Course Outline