The College offers short-term add-on courses to supplement learning in art, culture, science and awareness building programmes.
Indian
Literatures: Many
Voices Within
Coordinator:
Ms DM Ahuja
Background,
Themes and
Contexts:
Multi-lingual
and polyglot in
their rich, diverse,
and often-overlapping
formations and
practices, Indian
Literatures voice
differences of
many kinds. These
experiences can
be classified
into categories
as varied as the
regional or territorial,
chronological
and historical,
linguistic, religious,
cultural, sociological,
materialist, political,
and generic.
Heterogeneous
and independent as Indian literatures
are, their literary formations
are determined by a whole variety
of factors and positioning such
as regimes of power within which
literary expressions are born;debates
between Classical and folk; politics
between the high
Brahminical and
'Dalit', or divisions
between Metropolitan
and 'adi'/subaltern;
power struggles
between the ruler
and the ruled
represented in
conflicts between
the institutionalized
and the marginalized;
historical and
ideological locations
such as the Reformist,
Orientalist, Imperialist
and NationaList
movements; and
the tensions of
pre- and post
- colonial conditions.
If in Medieval
India, there are
literary conventions
centring on the
dialogue between
Self and the Transcendental
as the 'Bhakti'
movement shows,
then more recently,
in the 20th Century,
literary examples
record social
and psychological
realism while
portraying themes
such as the turmoil
and trauma of
partition, exile,
and migration;
the many voices
of the Diasporas;
and again, patriarchies
and the ideological
debates around
gender and women's
experiences.
Thus,
rather than being
mapped as sequential
or linear, the
study of Indian
Literatures is
open to interconnections
amongst separate
modes of writings.
Genres & Areas:
Using
the properties
and applications
of narrative
forms such
as the Epic,
the romance , domestic
and historical
novels, 'qissa',
the short
story, drama,
theatre and
the performing
arts, the
objective
of the course
is to familiarize
the student
- mainly
through works
in translation
- to the
following
broad categories
of Indian
Literatures:
- Epic
and
Classical
- Medieval,
Devotional,
and Hagiographical
- Reformist
and Nationalist
- Contemporary
and Post-colonial
Debates:
The
course shall
address themes
and questions
such as how,
for instance,
does one
form of narrative
become more
important
or visible
than another
is? What
is the story
and politics
of prioritization,
evolution,
and subsequent
naturalization
of certain
ideologies,
themes and
genres over
others? At
what cultural
points do
certain modes
of writing
rethink and
rewrite literary
conventions?
In what way
are the laws
of Classical
Indian Literature
different
from folk
traditions
and popular
forms of
performing
arts? What
are the tensions
between the
dominant
discourses
and voices
of resistance
(patriarchal
repression
of women's
voices, to
name one
example)?
What features
define the
postcolonial
writing in
India? What
are the reasons
for the rising
popularity
of Indian
writing in
English?
What are
the technologies
of production
and the dynamics
of relationships
between the
author, the
reader as
consumer,
and the specific
economics
of the marketplace
that determine
writing and
assure its
permanence
or the lack
of it?
