Course Catalog

Course description not available.

This course shall introduce postcolonial theory and literature from South America, South Asia and Africa. The course will alert the students to larger questions and debates around the term “postcolonial” and how it has had varied (and often contested) meanings and progressions as an academic discipline as well more recently in the larger context of globalisation and cultural imperialism. It will also focus on a close reading of fiction (novels and short stories) as well as memoir writing from South America, South Asia and Africa. Primary Texts Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Erendira and Her Heartless Grandmother” Alejandro Zambra, “Memories of my Personal Computer” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “The Arrangers of Marriage” Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart. Geetanjali Shree, Mai Michael Ondaantje, “The Passions of Lalla”, Running in the Family. References: Ania Loomba, Colonialism/postcolonialism, Oxon, NY: Routledge, 1998. Kwame Anthony Appiah, “Is the Post in Postmodernism the Post- in Postcolonial?”, Critical Inquiry 17, no. 2 (1991): 336-57. Aamir R. Mufti, “Orientalism and the Institution of Indian Literature”, Forget English! Orientalisms and World Literatures, Harvard University Press, 2016. [More books and essays will be suggested as we cover the primary texts.]

Exploring Literature

History of English Literature: Victorian Era COURSE DESCRIPTION : Indian students of English Literature need to know cultural, social and political history of England to fully comprehend the finer nuances of English Literature. This course will include study of the main aspects of English social and political history, which form the background reflected in the literary works. It will trace the development of themes and genres within their historical contexts; and analyze literary works for their aesthetic features and thematic patterns. ASSESSMENT SCHEME: Class Assignment-20 marks; Speaking Assignment-10 marks; Quiz 1- 5 marks; Quiz 2- 5 marks; Final Exam 1( Objective questions)-20 marks; Final Exam 2 (Descriptive questions)- 40 marks.

Development of Language

: Introduction to Creative Writing uses a mixture of classroom lecture, in-class writing, workshopping and production of work to familiarize the students with the basics of poetry and prose writing. In the first half of the semester, we will focus on exercises geared towards writing with the senses, which is essential to the production of poetry. Students will also be familiarized with the basics of using the meter and free verse. In the second half of the semester, we will concentrate on prose. We will discuss issues such as using autobiography to create fiction, choosing the right point of view from which to tell the story, creating a memorable character and coming up with a beguiling plot. Students will also learn to utilise workshopping techniques in this course, which will enable them to become better critics of their own and other people’s work. The accent will be on writing as a reader and reading as a writer Primary texts: Maya Angelou, ‘I know why the caged bird sings,’ (Poem), William Butler Yeats, ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’ (Poem), Ezra Pound ‘In the station at the metro’ (poem), Esther Morgan, ‘Avocados’ (poem), Tim O’Brien, ‘The Man I Killed’ (short story), Junot Diaz, ‘How to date a brown girl (black girl, white girl, or halfie) (short story), Salman Rushdie, ‘Good advice is rarer than rubies’ (short story), Raymond Carver, ‘Popular Mechanics (short story). Secondary Text: Sol Stein, Stein on Writing

Victorian novelist told their stories in a new style, employing methods which changed the way narrative techniques were used by 18th century novelists. Victorian novelists have used almost similar technique but each one among them brought individual innovations that make techniques look similar but at the same time unique and different. Victorian novelists’ desire to unearth new boundaries paved way for the 20th century novelist’ experimentation. This course will explore various narrative techniques employed by Victorian novelists.

This course seeks to address some basic questions that pertain to the domain of the literary. Some of these are: what kinds of texts qualify as literature? Do literary texts possess some special, objectively demonstrable properties, or does the label merely connote some arbitrary social consensus? Moreover, do literary texts invite us to treat them differently, as compared to non-literary texts? Does the appreciation of a literary text, depending on whether it is a poem, a story, or a play, require us to pay attention to different kinds of textual phenomena? What precisely are those phenomena? The kinds of questions raised above will be addressed in this course as we immerse ourselves in a wide-ranging selection of texts drawn from the genres of poetry, fiction, and drama. The texts are chosen so that our engagement with each of them will illuminate some specific aspects of literary appreciation. Also, as we progress through this course, we will build a critical vocabulary that will enable us to express, with increasing perspicuity, our assessments of the literary merits of literary texts. (3:0:0). Prerequisites: none. Primary Texts  A selection of poems ranging across history and geography. The poems for study will be made available to the student either electronically or through handouts. Drama: Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House (1879) Fiction: A selection of short stories including: “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Edgar Allen Poe (1839). “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892).  “The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim,”  Jorge Luis Borges (1935). Trans. Anthony Kerrigan.  “The Cathedral,” Raymond Carver (1983).

In this course students will read drama as a literary text and get a sense for how drama evolves from performance to text and then specifically as text geared to performance. We begin with Medea by Euripides, move on to Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and finish with Shakespeare’s Hamlet along with Vishal Bharadwaj’s film adaptation Haider. This course will think through the types and tropes of classical drama to drama as text for literary analysis and move on to the idea of dramatic adaption in screenplay. (3:0:0). Prerequisites: none. Primary Texts  Euripides, Medea Dover Thrift Edition. (Trans. Rex Warner) Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus (Norton Critical Edition) William Shakespeare Hamlet (Arden Edition) 

Introduction to Creative writing

History of Criticism

Survey of American Literature

In this course we will read a selection of sonnets and 4 plays by Shakespeare. For your final project for this class you will pick one of Shakespeare’s plays that we haven’t read in class. The goal of this class will be an immersion in Shakespeare as we explore questions of gender, nature, poetics of time, literary genre and rhetoric. We will begin by reading a selection of the sonnets. The plays for this semester are: Othello, Twelfth Night and The Tempest . Expect to read some critical essays on the plays in the course. The evaluation for this course will be based on a set of quizzes, two short papers and one final paper on a play of your choice.

Development and Acquisition of Language

The Fingers Remember – Aditi Rao (Yoda Press) Ms Militancy - Meena Kandasamy (Navayana) The Country Without a Post Office – Agha Shahid Ali (Penguin Books) The Rebel's Silhouette: Selected Poems - Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Tr. Agha Shahid Ali (University of Massachusetts Press) In Another Country - Rafiq Kathwari (Doire Press) This Number Does Not Exist – Mangalesh Dabral, Tr. Various (Poetrywala)

Studying Culture, Caste and Gender

The commercial playhouses and playing companies of Elizabethan and Jacobean London were a unique socio-cultural phenomenon which produced some of the richest literary texts within the entire corpus of English literature as well as literatures in English. The myth of Shakespeare’s ‘timeless genius’, his universal adaptability across spatio-temporal boundaries has become a critical commonplace. This course seeks to locate Shakespeare in his times, to examine his works as a product of his times. To this end we will read two Shakespearean plays, in conjunction with two plays by contemporary dramatists, to understand better the scope and breadth of English Renaissance drama including and beyond Shakespeare. The course will focus on the specific material circumstances of dramatic production and performance, but also attempt a sustained engagement with the language and formal aspects of the popular theatre, and situate the readings within broader currents of intellectual, political, and religious thought. More specifically, we will engage with disparate ideas ranging from kingship to conjugality, from gender to genre, from self-reflexive theatricality to early modern notions of self-hood. The texts will include one tragedy and one comedy by Shakespeare, and one each by another contemporary dramatist—in this case Middleton (comedy) and Webster (tragedy). This course will aim to inculcate familiarity with the language of Renaissance drama through close readings. It will also equip the students with an understanding of the social, political, religious, and economic conditions which shaped, inhibited, and engendered the rise of the commercial theatre and of the conditions and modes of performance of the plays. (3:0:0). Prerequisites: none. Primary Texts Merchant of Venice (1605) Macbeth (1606) Thomas Middleton Chaste Maid in Cheapside (1613) Webster Duchess of Malfi (1614)

Course Summary This is a basic course, which will introduce students to key theories, models and approaches in Translation Studies relevant to contemporary research and practice in the field. The students would be studying statements from linguists, theologians, and writers to examine and recognize the value of the diversity with which translation has been appreciated and practiced throughout the ages. They will be able to analyse the traditional understanding of the link between the original and translated text, between author and translator, the source and target languages and cultures. Course Aims To enable students to interact critically and productively with examples of translation from various languages and to introduce students to some of the theoretical aspects of translation studies. Learning Outcomes Translation is one of the biggest new sectors opening up in literary studies. This course together with the companion course taught at the master’s level aims to take advantage of India’s multilinguism to raise the quality of translation to levels that may not be possible in monolingual countries. On successful completion of the course, students will be able to: Interact critically and productively with translated texts, would be able to see some of the theoretical implications of translation without producing hasty judgements, comprehend and examine the basic skills in translating  Curriculum Content Lectures, discussions, and practical work, Translation Project, Student Practice Lecture, short term paper, Group work WEEKLY SCHEDULE:       Modules    Weeks    Topics    Explorations Module 1 Week 1- week- 8    Introduction, Definition, History of Translation and Translation Studies  From Classical Period and Middle Ages. Cicero, St. Jerome,  Roman Jakobson, Jean-Paul Vinay and Jean Darbelnet, Peter Newmark, Werner Koller, Eugene Nida, Andre Lefevre, Itamar Even-Zohar, Lawrence Venuti, Susan Bassenet, Hans Vermeer    Videos; Hands on practice; In-Class-Activities – all are graded.  In-Class Discussion and short write-up (400-500 words): Letters of St. Jerome; Letter 57 -- To Pammachius on the Best Method of Translating;  In-Class-Activities x4 – all are graded.  Linguistic approach; Machine Translation; Translation: process and product, Techniques, strategies, and procedures in translation    In-Class-Activities [graded] - Rapid fire questions to be translated  - activity          Module 2 Week 9- 11    Module 2 Student led Discussions followed by Response Papers A Survey of Different Approaches in Translation Studies:  Functional  Systems    Individual Student Practice Lecture (not a presentation) on a specified topic  Week 8-11:  In-Class Discussion and short write-up (400-500 words): The Task Of The Translator by Walter Benjamin. In-Class Discussion and short write-up (400-500 words): The Position of Translated Literature within the Literary Poly-system by Even Zohar  In-Class Discussion and short write-up (400-500 words): The Priority of Purpose (Skopos theory) by Vermeer In-Class Discussion and short write-up (400-500 words):  The Hermeneutic Motion by George Steiner In-Class Discussion and short write-up (400-500 words): English Translation of Marcel Proust “Swann’s Way’ Submission of Topics for Student Practice Lecture  Module 3    Week 12 - 14     Module 3 The video assignment presentation by each group - to be shown and presented in the class for peer assessment.  Translation Studies and Other Disciplines  Cultural turn; cultural studies; gender studies– feminist translation theory  Simon, Sherry  Postcolonial translation theory  Translation Project: (40%) – Translation Project should be worked in two sections: 1.    Section A: Translated text into TL – English 2.    Section B: Critical commentary on the translated text by the student. [Guidelines would be on Blackboard]      The videos uploaded by students to be shown in the class for peer assessment. In-Class Discussion and short write-up (400-500 words): English Translation of ‘Siddhartha’ by Herman Hesse.   In-Class Discussion and short write-up (400-500 words): Guido’s Relations by Ezra Pound In-Class Discussion and short write-up (400-500 words): The Politics of Translation by Spivak Gayatri Chakravorty; Translation Project: (40%)  A.    Submission of Topic for: One 1500 words Long Term Paper  B.    Draft #1 –  C.    Draft #2 –  D.    Final submission on Blackboard  - All are graded.  Teaching and Learning Strategy (Teaching methods and tools, use of LMS, software used or taught, external visits, workshops) Teaching and Learning Strategy    Description of Work    Class Hours    Out-of-Class Hours Lectures and discussion    Lectures    45    45 Practical work        15     ASSSESSMENT Assessment Strategy     Formative assessment and feedback to student, Summary assessment at the end of the course. Weightage to be given for active class participation. 85% Attendance is mandatory. Formative Assessment: a)    Student led Discussions  b)    Response Paper c)    Individual Student Lecture Session d)    Assignment e)    Final Long Term-Paper f)    Class Participation 2.    Mapping of Learning Outcomes to Assessment Strategy  Assessment Scheme Type of Assessment    Description    Percentage Class Attendance, Discussion and Written Essays.    Marks for attendance + Student led Discussions in class for all the essays  To asses and demontrate the ability to assess and deploy  critical thinking      25%  Group Presentation on video presentation made on Translation Errors    To demonstrate the viewpoint about a given idea, topic or theme    15% Individual Student Lecture Sessions      To analyze and demonstrate critical thinking    20% Final Research Translation Project [First Draft Second Draft Final submission]    To analyse and write critical interpretation and assessment    40% Reference Books, Essays and Articles Munday Jeremy; 2008; Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications; Taylor & Francis;  Susan Bassnett, 2002, Translation Studies, 3rd edition The Routledge Encyclopaedia of Translation Studies (eds. Baker and Saldanha, 2nd edition, 2009 John Biguenet and Rainer Schulte, eds., The Craft of Translation The Letters of St. Jerome; Letter 57 -- To Pammachius on the Best Method Of Translating; English Translation  Vermeer Hans J, The Priority of Purpose (Skopos theory)   George Steiner: The Translation Studies Reader.  Even-Zohar Itamar, 1990, The Position of Translated Literature within the Literary Poly-system.  Simon, Sherry; Gender in Translation - Cultural Identity and the Politics of Transmission. 1996.New York: Routledge.    Tejaswini Niranjana; Siting Translation: History, Post-Structuralism and the Colonial Context Spivak Gayatri Chakravorty; The Politics of Translation.   Benjamin Walter,The Task Of The Translator,    Pound Ezra, Guid Primary Texts Munday Jeremy; 2008; Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications; Taylor & Francis; ISBN: 0415396948, 9780415396943 Susan Bassnett, ed. Translating Literature John Biguenet and Rainer Schulte, eds., The Craft of Translation The Letters of St. Jerome; Letter 57 -- To Pammachius On The Best Method Of Translating; English Translation: Fremantle,  pp. 112-119 Vermeer Hans J.;1996; “Skopos and Commission in Translational Action George Steiner: The Translation Studies Reader. 2000. (Ed) Lawrence Venuti. Routledge Itamar Even-Zohar: "The Position of Translated Literature within the Literary Polysystem." Poetics Today 11:1 (1990), pp. 45-51. Simon, Sherry; Gender in Trans-lation — Cultural Identity and the Politics of Transmission. 1996. New York: Routledge Tejaswini Niranjana; Siting Translation: History, Post-Structuralism and the Colonial Context Spivak Gayatri Chakravorty; ‘The Politics of Translation’. In The Translation Studies Reader. 2000. (Ed) Lawrence Venuti. Routledge

This course is designed to introduce students to some of the most important and vibrant texts in contemporary South Asian literature. It straddles the genres of novel, poetry and short-stories written in different regions of South Asia, including Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan and the disputed Kashmir valley. This course seeks, thus, to familiarize the students with the literary output in South Asia and its diasporas, that comes to grips with vital questions of form, political conflict, caste, language, religion and gender. (3:0:0). Prerequisites: none Primary Texts Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things (1997) Michael Ondaatje, Anil’s Ghost (2000)    Premchand, The Chess-Players (tr. by Hans Raj Rahbar) Ismat Chughtai, The Quilt (tr. by M. Asaduddin) Saadat Hasan Manto, Toba Tek Singh (tr. by Khalid Hasan) Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Last Night, Don’t ask me for that love again, A Prison Evening, Bangladesh III in The Rebel’s Silhouette: Selected Poems by Faiz Ahmad Faiz, translated by Agha Shahid Ali (1991) Agha Shahid Ali, Tonight, Homage to Faiz Ahmad Faiz, The Country Without a Post Office, I See Kashmir From New Delhi At Midnight in The Veiled Suite: The Collected Poems (2009)

Special Topics In Literature: Medieval to Romantic

This course attempts to study British Romantic poetry from Blake to Keats. We will contextualise British Romanticism as a literary, aesthetic and cultural phenomenon arising within a particular historical milieu, and study how the poetry of this period evolves, the recurring concerns shared by the six poets: the role of nature, its relationship with art, the concept of revolution, individual autonomy, education, and the conflict between empirical rationality and intuitive imagination. We will begin by locating Romantic poetry within a literary tradition, examining the continuities and ruptures between Romanticism and its Enlightenment predecessors. Our exploration of the poetry of this period, the poetic and metrical forms employed, and the use of figures of speech, will be juxtaposed with a reading of certain key philosophical and political tracts, to get a better sense of the intellectual backdrop against which these poems were composed and read.

Advanced Creative Writing Level III - Prose

18th Century Prose: Essayists, Pamphleteers and Diarists

This course provides an introduction to contemporary folklore from around the world. How do people from all walks of life create meaning and beauty in their everyday lives? How do communities and groups maintain a collective sense of themselves that distinguishes them from other communities/groups, particularly in a period of rapid globalization? What does it mean to respect and conserve cultural as well as biological diversity? Students will begin by learning key concepts of folklore scholarship: culture, tradition, performance, genre, the local/global distinction, the folk/popular divide, the dynamics of the customary and innovative in folklore production. Through an exploration of these concepts students will develop an expansive definition of folklore as the means by which groups both distinguish themselves from as well as fashion bridges with diverse communities. Additionally, we will explore a set of special topics in folklore through readings and films from different world regions. We will focus on the transmission and transformation of cultural knowledge and practice in situations of want and plenty, peace and conflict. Please note: This course will involve videoconferencing. We will have at least two sessions with students in OSU, allowing the class to enact global communication strategies as we study global cultures.

Drama

Language change is constant. Linguistic boundaries are never clear-cut. At best, linguistic boundaries can be described as overlapping transitional spaces where migration and urbanization shape new possibilities of human interaction. Language spoken at present is the best laboratory for a linguist.  This course is both theoretical and empirical inquiry into language change.  Focus of the chosen texts is on language universals and linguistic typology. Second part of this course will be field study- data collection and analysis. Students will learn data analysis through triangulation- statistical analysis of quantitative data in specialized linguistic labs; and critical discourse analysis of qualitative data. (1:0:3). Prerequisites: none Primary Texts Language Universals and Linguistic Typology, Bernard Comrie, 1981. Weinreich,U., Labov, W., Herzog, M., 1968. Empirical Foundations for a Theory of Language Change, in Directions for Historical Linguistics, ed. W.P.Lehmann, Y. Malkiel, 97-195, Austin: Univ. Texas Press.

This course is designed to introduce students to some of the most characteristic forms that the novel has taken through the course of its long and continuing evolution and to the range of expressive possibilities that the novel, as a whole, has acquired. The novels that will be studied in this course are  (i) Don Quijote , not only  because it exemplifies the picaresque form , but also because it is a novel about novel writing itself (ii) Wuthering Heights  because it both represents and radically subverts one of the novel’s great sub genres : domestic fiction and (iii) One Hundred Years of Solitude which brings the novel up to our times and unfurls the whole range of expressive resources that it acquired through the long course of its development This course seeks, thus, to take the student through the great landmarks of the novel form, explain to her how these novels achieve their characteristic effects and enable her to analyze and work with many real life situations that involve prose narratives. (3:1:0). Prerequisites: none Primary Texts Miguel De Cervantes, Don Quijote  Book 1 (1605)  trans.  Burton Raffel Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights (1847) Gabriel  Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) trans. Gregory Rabassa.

This is a special topic course which will examine in detail the intersection of the political and the literary in early modern Europe. Reading political treatises from the archipelago and the mainland in juxtaposition with each other, this course will try and investigate the way in which humanist political thought develops across Europe. At the same time we will immerse ourselves in the study of the stylistic aspects various genres of vernacular prose writing popular in the Renaissance: the polemical pamphlet, the dialogue, the treatise, the advice-book for princes etc. The course will be divided in following four modules, each comprising short excerpts from a two or three key texts. Through a close reading of the material this course seeks to follow the shifting contours of political discourse, the simultaneous emergence of the rhetoric of absolutism and the language of civic rights, while relating these transformations to the major historical landmarks of the period—such as the Reformation, the Huguenot massacre, Mary Stuart’s deposition, the English civil war etc. Some of thematic and formal aspects we will focus on include: political theology, the importance of translation in the humanist project, the material circumstances of circulation of texts and ideas, political counsel, morality and ethics in the political realm, the influence of Platonic and Aristotelian political models, violence and sovereign power.  (3:1:0). Prerequisites: none. Primary Texts The Sovereign and his Counsellors Erasmus Education of a Christian Prince (1516) [Dedication, Chapter I] Machiavelli The Prince (1513) [Chapters XV-XIX, XXIII-XXV] Castiglione The Courtier (1528) [Book IV, chapters 3-10] Sovereignty and Governance Smith De Republica Anglorum (1562-3) [Book I, Chapters 1, 2, 7, 8, Book II, Chapter 1-3] Bodin Six Books of the Commonwealth (1576) [Book I, Chapters VIII, X, Book VI, Chapter 4] Tyranny and Resistance Ponet A Short Treatise on Political Power (1556) [Chapters I and VI] Buchanan De Iure Regni Apud Scotos (1571) [Chapters 7-12, 24, 27, 29, 34] Polemics of the English civil war: Justifying Tyrannicide Milton The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1641) Excerpts from Digger (Gerrard Winstanley) and Ranter tracts (1640’s)  [Winstanley, New Year’s Gift, Norton Anthology of Eng Lit Vol B pp. 1849-55; Nigel Smith,  A Collection of Ranter Writings: Spiritual Liberty and Sexual Freedom in the English Revolution] Compulsory reading: Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols., Cambridge: 1978.

Literary Theory

Philology As The Newbie/Oldie In Literary Method

Political Prose Writings In India Post-1947

Translation Criticism & Translation Project

South Asian Writing

This course, which focuses on material drawn from Europe between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, aims to equip students with the ability to move between literary and visual forms and to track ways in which expressive strategies mutate in this process. The course will focus on formal categories such as realism and the differing ways in which chronotopes are deployed by literary and visual forms , but it will also take students through a set of paintings and novels to demonstrate how these forms can be brought into an interanimating relationship. Unit 1: Time and Space Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Laocoon : An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry translated by Edward Allen McCormick, Chapters 16-18 Mikhail Bakhtin “Forms of time and of the Chronotope in the Novel” ( excerpt) from The Dialogical Imagination translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. 3 weeks Unit 2: Realism E.H .Gombrich, Art and Illusion ( excerpts ) Norman Bryson Vision and Painting ( excerpts) Roland Barthes , S/Z Trans. Richard Miller. Jaques Ranciere, The Future of the Image. trans. Gregory Elliott. Chapter 3, “Painting in the Text” 6 weeks Unit 3: Painting and the Novel Titian , “Venus of Urbino” Vermeer “The Lace maker” Peter de Hooch , “Woman Reading a Letter” Jane Austen, Mansfield Park Hogarth, “Industry and Idleness” all 12 plates Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist 5 weeks

In this course we shall, having studying various kinds of fiction writing, look at other forms of fiction making, including RPG, ‘psuedo’ videos on YouTube®, made-up trailers for movies etc, graphic novels and movies and TV shows. The intention is to attempt to understand the difference between reading a more or less structured piece of literature, and forms that at this point in time seem more free-flowing and less deterministic. The following issues will be addressed primarily: Virtuality, Simulation, Actuality, Reality, Virtual Reality, Digital Gaming and its Implications for Gaming, More Recent Digital Innovations, and the question ‘Why does a Game Need a Story?’(3:1:0). Prerequisites: none. Primary Texts Selections from David Bell and Barbara Kennedy, The Cybercultures Reader Richard Stallman, Lecture at Calcutta, 16.08.2006 (text will be provided) Selections from Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (section on the ‘panopticon’, and the section on ‘Docile Bodies’ Gilles Deleuze, ‘Society of Control’ Graphic Novel  Joe Sacco, Palestine, (with an introduction by Edward Said) TV Show/ Movie Westworld

This course will offer some advanced discussion of translation as a cultural form, history of translation studies, and lastly, theoretical approaches to translation. This course provides a study of translation criticism which is the systematic study, evaluation, and interpretation of different aspects of translated works. It is an interdisciplinary academic field closely related to A. Literary Criticism B. Translation Theory. & C. Translation Project. Students will be expected to complete each reading and 1. Prepare a short critical analytical essay (approx. 500 words) and 2. Questions on each assigned reading. Students would bring a typed copy of the prepared short analytical essay and questions to class. Add-on and edit your essay on this printed page after the discussion is over. (3:1:0). Prerequisites: none Primary Texts Montaigne's Essays Montaigne's Essays: Book I (1533-1592) - Translation by J. Florio (1553-1625) Hugo Friedrich; ‘On the Art of Translation’. In Rainer Schulte, John Biguenet (eds), Theories of Translation. Walter Benjamin, ‘The Task of the Translator’, from Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings. Two translations of this essay will be studied. George Steiner ‘The Hermeneutic Motion’. In The Translation Studies Reader. 2000. (Ed) Lawrence Venuti. Routledge Antoine Berman, "La traduction comme epreuve de l'etranger," [Translation and the trials of the foreign] Texte 4 (1985) Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak ‘The Politics of Translation’. In The Translation Studies Reader. 2000. (Ed) Lawrence Venuti. Routledge Jacques Derrida, "From Des Tours de Babel." In Rainer Schulte, John Biguenet (eds), Theories of Translation. The Bible: King James’ Version, Book of Genesis (several translations of this book will be discussed. Translation Project English translation of a text (of the student’s choice) along with details involved in process of translation or a scholarly research project on a topic related to translation, supervised by the faculty member.

This course will look at the short story from 1000 to 3000 words.  Students will study exemplary texts in class.  They will discuss the nuts and bolts of writing fiction such as point of view, creation of character, and plot.  They do that in the Fundamentals of Creative Writing course as well.  However, here they will do it in far greater detail. Furthermore, they will study setting, writing dialogue, editing and revising, and also use workshopping techniques extensively.  In addition to the creative writing, they will write a critical commentary which will make them aware of the fact that the creative and critical go together.  For grading purposes they will produce two stories each, plus a critical commentary to go with the second story.  It would help if students taking this course have taken Intro to Creative Writing at the 100 -level.   In the first half of the course, we will focus on the shorter 1500-word story.  After the mid-term, we will focus on the 2,500-word story.  Through a mixture of lecture and discussion, students will focus on the intricacies of plot, characterisation, point of view, voice and other important attributes of writing fiction. Students will also learn to utilise workshopping techniques, which will enable them to become better critics of their own and other people’s work. (3:1:0). Prerequisites: none. Primary Texts Ernest Hemingway, ‘Hills like White Elephants’ Raymond Carver, ‘A Small, Good Thing’’ Jhumpa Lahiri, ‘When Mr Pirzada Came to Dine’’ James Joyce, ‘Araby’ Anton Chekhov, ‘The Grasshopper’ Etgar Keret, ‘Lieland’ Junot Diaz, Miss Lora Daniyal Mueenuddin, ‘Nawabdin Electrician’ Sol Stein, Stein On Writing, ISBN-13  978-0312254216

This course will highlight the historical emergence and development of vernaculars in European and world literature. Students will be introduced to major theoretical formulations about vernaculars by poets and novelists. Drawing on these readings students will analyze a short fiction and a novel in which the vernacular is the central concern. The goal of the course is to introduce students to the idea that there is a profound fissure at the heart of literature between hegemonic concepts of the literary versus minority or non- elite; controversies and debates that circulate around the notion of the vernacular constitute one way to get at this fissure and analyze it. (3:1:0). Prerequisites: none Primary Texts Module One: Histories of the Emergence of Vernacular Language–Literatures ( Four Weeks) Benedict Anderson, ‘Old Languages, New Models’ Imagined Communities, Verso Revised Edition 2007, 69-84. Sheldon Pollock, ’The Cosmopolitan Vernacular ’ The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 57: No. I ( Feb 1998) 6-37. Korean television drama, Tree with Deep Roots (the TV serial dramatizes King Sejong who lived in 1397-1450 and his promotion of the Korean vernacular and invention of Hangul alphabet at a time of elite dominance of Mandarin Chinese). Module Two: Debates around the concept of vernaculars (Four Weeks) Aligheri Dante, De Vulgare Eloquentia (1302). Ngugi Wa Thiongo, ’The Language of African Fiction” Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (1986), 63-86. UG Krishnamoorthy, English Brahmins, Kannada Shudras Module Three and Four: Two Case Studies of Vernacular Literary Studies (Seven Weeks) Phaniswarnath Renu’s The Third Vow (Aanchalik Sahitya) Perumal Murugan, One Part Woman (Vattara Ilakkiam) ->

Issues in Higher Education

Imperial Possession in Victorian Literature

This course will introduce post-graduate students to the art of research and formal research paper writing. Expect to be taken through the nitty-gritties of research training in genres of formal writing: research proposal, research paper, conference abstract, conference presentation, MLA citation, methods of researching library catalogues (card and digital), indexes and databases and how to access and gain membership in the major research libraries in Delhi. Unit 1: Reading to Write Brooks, Cleanth., Gregory Colomb, Joseph Willams Eds. The Craft of Research. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1995. Foucault, Michele. “The Statement and the Archive” from The Archaeology of Knowledge & the Discourse on Language. New York: Pantheon Books, 1972 Gallaghar, Catherine and Stephen Greenblatt. “Introduction” Practicing New Historicism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997 Geertz, Clifford. “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretative Theory of Culture” in The Interpretations of Culture. New York: Basic Books Inc., 1973 MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, Seventh Edition. 3 weeks Unit 2: Pick an area for a research paper Make a Bibliography Annotate the Bibliography Research Proposal Write a literature Review 3 weeks Unit 3: 5-page Paper 5-page paper due (1700 words) Draft 1 Draft 2 3 weeks Unit 4: 10-15 page Paper 10-15 page paper due (3500-4000 words) Rough Draft 1 Rough Draft 2 Final Draft Conference abstract Conference presentation

The three European nations that play a crucial role in the evolution of the novel in Europe in the nineteenth century are Britain, France and Russia. In this course we will investigate how the novel evolved in these countries with a view towards locating the points of convergence and divergence. As part of this investigation we will also study what two influential critics have to say about the novels in question as well as the 19th-century European novel in general. Unit 1 Jane Austen, Mansfield Park 4 weeks Unit 2 Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment 6 weeks Unit 3 Stendhal The Red and the Black 4 weeks Secondary Readings Georgy Lukacs ,"Balzac and Stendhal’’ in Studies in European Realism, pp. 65- 85 Mikhail Bakhtin, excerpts from "Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel" from The Dialogical Imagination pp.243-258. Evaluation 3 papers of 1500 words each on all 3 novels (one on each novel) A research paper of 2000-2500 words on one of the three authors studied during the semester An examination at the end of the semester

Women, Subjectivity and Modernity in India and Engliand

This course which focuses on material drawn from Europe between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries aims to equip students with the ability to move between literary and visual forms and to track ways in which expressive strategies mutate in this process. The course will focus on formal categories such as realism and the differing ways in which chronotopes are deployed by literary and visual forms , but it will also take students through a set of paintings and novels to demonstrate how these forms can be brought into an interanimating relationship. Unit 1: Time and Space Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Laocoon : An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry translated by Edward Allen McCormick, Chapters 16-18 Mikhail Bakhtin “Forms of time and of the Chronotope in the Novel” ( excerpt) from The Dialogical Imagination translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. 3 weeks Unit 2: Realism E.H .Gombrich, Art and Illusion ( excerpts ) Norman Bryson Vision and Painting ( excerpts) Roland Barthes , S/Z Trans. Richard Miller. Jaques Ranciere, The Future of the Image. trans. Gregory Elliott. Chapter 3, “Painting in the Text” 6 weeks Unit 3: Painting and the Novel Titian , “Venus of Urbino” Vermeer “The Lace maker” Peter de Hooch , “Woman Reading a Letter” Jane Austen, Mansfield Park Hogarth, “Industry and Idleness” all 12 plates Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist 5 weeks Evaluation Evaluation in this course will be continuous and conducted throughout the semester. The object of evaluation will be to test a student’s knowledge of the material taught through the course and the development of her analytical, critical and writing abilities. A final grade will be awarded on the basis of written presentations in seminars, participation in seminars and a 2,000 words term paper to be submitted at the end of the course. The course instructor may also set a short written examination to test the student’s knowledge of the texts taught.

This course is meant to introduce students to the major debates within the field of Postcolonial Theory. The debates are outlined under three subheadings which familiarize the students with, first, the field of postcolonial literature and how it responds to the long history of the Empire, second, an exploration of how Postcolonial Theory is deeply invested in revising Eurocentric discourse and studying its consequences, and third, an investigation of how colour prejudice has been both the primary medium and the effect of the long duree of colonial domination. Unit 1: Writing Back Achebe, Chinua. “African Writer,” in Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory, Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman, Eds. New York: Columbia UP, 1994. Ashcroft, Bill, et al., “Introduction”, “Cutting the ground: critical models of post-colonial literatures”, “Theory at the crossroads: indigenous theory and post-colonial reading”, “Rethinking the post-colonial: post-colonialism in the twenty first century” in The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. London, Routledge, 1989. 4 weeks Unit 2: Changing Discourse Said, Edward., “Introduction”, “The Scope of Orientalism”, “Orientalism Structures and Restructures”, in Orientalism, New York: Pantheon, 1978. James, C. L. R., “Preface to the First Edition”, “The Property”, “The Owners”, “Parliament and Property”, “The San Domingo Masses Begin”, “And the Paris Masses Complete”, in The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, New York: The Dial Press, 1938. 5 weeks Unit 3: Colouring Perceptions hooks, bell. “Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination,” in Grossberg, Lawrence et al., Cultural Studies. London: Routledge, 1990. Fanon, Frantz., “Introduction”, “The Black Man and Language”, “The Woman of Colour and the White Man”, “The Man of Colour and the White Woman”, “The Black Man and Psychopathology” in Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove Press, 1962. 5 weeks Evaluation Mid-semester - Written Assignment (Choice between 10 questions) - 1500 words Final Submission - Written Assignment (Question decided individually for candidates in consultation with the instructor) - 2500 words

This course will examine in detail four quintessential moments that visibly shaped thought and knowledge in the British Renaissance. We will read a prose fantasy by a leading humanist, poetry that is mired in anxieties of love, politics and science, a play that puts self-doubt and skepticism at the heart of early modernity, and finally two books of an epic that gives aspiration, failure and the exercise of justification a grand lyric. The theme of wanting to know, sometimes more than what is obviously knowable, will underlie our reading and enquiry. Unit 1: Utopia by Sir Thomas More Stephen Greenblatt, "At the Table of the Great: More's Self-Fashioning and Self-Cancellation," in Renaissance Self-Fashioning Quentin Skinner, "Sir Thomas More's 'Utopia' and the language of Renaissance humanism" 3 weeks Unit 2: “In Defense of Poesie” by Philip Sidney Selections of sonnets by Petrarch, Spenser, Sidney, Shakespeare, Marvel and Donne Dolan, Francis E. “Taking the Pencil out of God’s hand: Art, Nature and the Face Painting Debate in Early Modern England”. PMLA 108. 2 (March 1993) 224-239 3 weeks Unit 3: Hamlet by William Shakespeare Peter Stallybrass, Roger Chartier, J. Franklin Mowery, and Heather Wolfe “Hamlet’s Tables and the Technologies of Writing in Renaissance England” Selections from Kastan, David Scott, Ed. Critical Essays on Shakespeare’s Hamlet. New York: G. K. Hall, 1995. 4 weeks Unit 4: Book I & 2of Paradise Lost by John Milton Fish, Stanley. Surprised by Sin Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967. Guillory, John. "From the Superfluous to the Supernumerary: Reading Gender into Paradise Lost." In Soliciting Interpretation: Literary Theory and Seventeenth-Century English Poetry. Eds Elizabeth D. Harvey and Katherine Eisaman Maus. Chicago and London: Chicago UP, 1990. 68-88. 4 weeks Evaluation 2 papers (2500 words each) 1 creative response to any one of the texts or themes under discussion (this can be a set of poems, a story, a pamphlet, graphic art, anything at all). Word limit can be negotiated depending on the genre) 1 final paper (3500-4000 words) and conference-style presentation at the end of the semester

Students will study the various approaches to the history, theory, and criticism of literary and humanistic translation. Topics of discussion would include study of translation criticism which is the systematic study, evaluation, and interpretation of different aspects of translated works, translator’s working methods, interviews with translators, multiple translations, the changing nature of interpretive approaches, theoretical models of translation, and criteria for the evaluation of translations It is an interdisciplinary academic field closely related to literary criticism and translation theory. Unit 1: Equivalence and equivalent effect Walter Benjamin ‘The Task of the Translator’. In L. Venuti (Ed.)., The Translation Studies Reader, 2000 Eugene Nida ‘Principles of Translation as exemplified by Bible Translating’. R. A. Brower (ed.): On Translation, New York, OUP. Swann's Way. (À la recherche du temps perdu #1) by Marcel Proust, Lydia Davis (Translator) 2004 by Penguin Classics (first published 1913) [ pp ‘Overture’] David Bellos. 2012. Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything. [Article: A Fish in Your Ear: The Short History of Simultaneous Interpreting, pp 259-273] 5 weeks Unit 2: Translation Shift Approach & Linguistic approach to translation Jakobson, Roman. “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation.” In Translation Studies Reader by L. Venuti. 2000. Routledge. Vinay, Jean-Paul and Darbelnet, Jean. ‘A Methodology for Translation’. 1995. John Benjamins Publishing. J C Catford, A Linguistic Approach to Translation. 1965. OUP Zwart, K. M. van: ‘Translation and original: Similarities and Dissimilarities, I’, Target [pp 151 – 189] 4 weeks Unit 3: Translation and Post-Structuralism Season of Migration to the North, 2003 Penguin Classics Series Derrida, J. (1985). Des Tours de Babel. J. Graham (Tr.). In J. Graham (Ed.), [Difference in Translation (pp. 165-207)]. Ithaca, London Geeta Patel . 2002. “Lyrical Movements, Historical Hauntings on Gender, Colonialism, and Desire” in Miraji’s Urdu Poetry. Stanford University Press. 3 weeks Unit 4: Translation as a cultural act K Ramanujan “Three Hundred Ramayanas” Bassnett Susan. 1998. ‘Postcolonial Translation: Theory and Practice’ Bassnett S, Lefevere A. 1998 ‘Constructing Cultures’. [The Translation Turn in Cultural Studies. pp 123-140] 2 weeks Evaluation A short paper and class presentation of 1000 words on each of the Module Final assessment: A Critical Analysis of a translated work (last week) Class Participation and peer review

This course acquaints the student with some key moments in the poetry of nineteenth-century Europe and America. We begin with the English romantics, exploring the romantic engagement with nature, the self, and the tantalizing promise of political revolution. Next, we encounter some distinctively American poetic strains such as the transcendentalist and the gothic. Finally, we return to Europe, to Browning’s dramatic monologue and the French Symbolists, where we witness the early stirrings of the twentieth-century preoccupation with the craft of poetry. Unit 1: The Romantics: Nature and the Imagination Primary Texts: William Wordsworth: “The Daffodils”, “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” S. T. Coleridge:”Kubla Khan”, “The Ancient Mariner” Secondary Texts: William Wordsworth, “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” 4 weeks The Romantics: The Age of Enlightenment Primary Texts: William Blake: London, Tyger P. B. Shelley: Ode to the West Wind Secondary Texts: Thomas Paine: “The Rights of Man” 3 weeks Unit 2: Nineteenth Century American Poetry Primary Texts: Walt Whitman: “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” Emily Dickinson: “I heard a Fly buzz - when I died”, “Because I could not stop for Death”, “The Soul selects her own society”, and other selections from Complete Poems Secondary Texts: Henry David Thoreau, Conclusion of Walden Emily Dickinson, Letters of Emily Dickinson 4 weeks Unit 3: Precursors to Modernist Poetry Primary Texts: Robert Browning: “My Last Duchess”, “The Bishop Orders His Tomb” Charles Baudelaire: “To a Passerby”, “Le Crépuscule du soir [Evening Twilight]”, (from The Flowers of Evil translated by William Aggeler) Secondary Texts: “The Flaneur” from The Writer of Modern Life by Walter Benjamin 3 weeks Evaluation Three assignments, one on each unit (2500 words each) Class participation

This course seeks to equip students from the humanities and especially the social sciences with methods which they might fruitfully deploy when engaging with problems related to culture. The course is made up of four units . The first comprises a set of readings that engage with one of the central problems in the analysis of modern culture : the deeply ambiguous role of technology in the production of culture . The second unit will address another cultural effect of modern capitalism – its capacity to produce desire. The third and fourth sections focus on recent methodological breakthroughs that have unfolded in the key domains of women’s and post-colonial studies. Unit 1: Culture and Industrial Capitalism Theodor Adorno, ‘Culture Industry Reconsidered’ in The Culture Industry – selected essays on mass culture. Edited and with an introduction by J. M. Bernstein, London, Routledge, 1991, pp. 98-106. Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility ” in Walter Benjamin, Selected Writing 1935- 1938 , Harvard University Press, 2002,pp 101-134 3 weeks Unit 2: Desire of the insubstantial “On the fetishism of commodities” From Capital Vol. 1, Part 1, Chapter 1, Section 4. Freud ,“Fetishism” from the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud . J. Strachey tras. Hogarth Press, pp 147-57 Jean Baudrillard,The System of Objects Verso, 1966 4 weeks Unit 3: Gendering Cultural Studies Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century” in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. Routledge: New York, 1991, 149-181. Gloria Anzaldua, "How To Tame a Wild Tongue." in Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Aunt Lute Books: San Francisco. 1999, 75-86. bell hooks, “Gangsta culture" in We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity. Routledge: New York, 2004, 15-31. Supplementary Readings Linda Zerelli, "We Feel Our Freedom': Imagination and Judgment in the Thought of Hannah Arendt" Political Theory 33, No. 2 (April 2005): 158-188. Moira Weigel" Further Materials Towards A Theory of The Man Child" The New Inquiry. July 9, 2013. Wendy Brown, "Freedom and the Plastic Cage." in States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity. Princeton University Press; New York. 1995, 3-29. 4 weeks Unit 4: Post-colonial Cultural Studies Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak, "Moving Devi" in Other Asias. Blackwell Publishing: Oxford, 2003, 178-208. Rajeswari Sunderajan, “The Ameena Case” in The Scandal Of The State: Women: Law and Citizenship in the Postcolonial State. Duke University Press; Durham, 2003, 45-71. Supplementary Readings Dipesh Chakraborty, “Of Garbage, Modernity and the Citizen's Gaze." in Habitations of Modernity: Essays in The Wake of Subaltern Studies. University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2002, 65-79. Bill Ashcroft, “Sugar and slavery” in MSF Dias ed. Legacies of Slavery: Comparative Perspectives. Cambridge Scholars Publishing: Newcastle, UK, 2008, 108-125. 3 weeks Evaluation. Evaluation in this course will be continuous and conducted throughout the semester. The object of evaluation will be to test a student’s knowledge of the material taught through the course and the development of her analytical, critical and writing abilities. A final grade will be awarded on the basis of written presentations in seminars, participation in seminars and a 2,000 words term paper to be submitted at the end of the course. The course instructor may also set a short written examination to test the student’s knowledge of the texts taught.

Conceptualizing World Literature

The course will discuss, mainly, the relation between art and technology, where 'technology' is understood not only as the various techniques of production, fabrication and fabulation that are available at specific moments of production; but also as a condition which makes some techniques possible or impossible. While taking a few examples from painting and sculpting and literary writing, the discussion will mainly focus on how we understand the relation between art and technology, often seen as opposites of each other. After a discussion of the history of various techniques that available technology makes possible or impossible, we shall move on to more contemporary issues of 20th century art and 21st century art as well: graphic images made of ASCII code printing, to digital videography and 'live' coverage of events. The concept of 'virtuality' will be introduced. Unit 1 12 hrs A theoretical consideration of what technology means and does in contemporary society. Reading: Gilbert Simondon, 'Technical Mentality' Walter Benjamin, 'The Work of Art in the Age of Technological Reproducibility' Stanislaw Lem, excerpts from Summa Technologica. Unit 2 12 hrs A discussion of selected stories by Walter Miller Jr., and of positive and negative evaluations of 'technology', with a focus on Section One of 'A Canticle for Leibowitz' A discussion of Ursula Le Guin's 'The World for the World is Forest' Unit 3 13 hrs A return to the theoretical discussion of 'technology', along with a discussion of visual material from recommended readings. Donna Harraway, 'The Cyborg Manifesto' Martin Heidegger, 'The Questsion Concerning Technology' Compulsory Readings: Gilbert Simondon, 'Technical Mentality' Martin Heidegger, 'The Question Concerning Technology' Donna Haraway, 'The Cyborg Manifesto' Stanislaw Lem, excerpts Summa Technologica Walter Benjamin, 'The Work of Art in the Age of Technological Reprducibility' Recommended Readings Philosophy Bernard Stiegler, Technics and Time vol. 1 Fiction Selections from fiction by Walter Miller Jr. 'Big Joe and the Nth Generation' 'Conditionally Human' Section One of A Canticle for Leibowitz Ursula Le Guin, 'The Word for the World is Forest' Visual Material Documentaries BBC 'Life: Primates', the Chimpanzee Section BBC 'Life:Birds' Movies Terminator 1-3 Solaris (Tarkovsky, 1972) (animation) Ghost in the Shell 1-2 (anime) Graphic H R Giger Performance Art Stellarc Stefanie Trojan Marina Abramovic Ted Talks https://www.ted.com/talks/neil_harbisson_i_listen_to_color?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/hugh_herr_the_new_bionics_that_let_us_run_climb_and_dance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqtiM1hK6lU Assessment Attendance and Class Participation: Classroom Presentation: Mid-term Assignment: Term-end Assignment:

M.A Comprehensive Exam

Thesis Draft (8000-10000 words)

Research Methodology

Advanced Academic Writing

Translation Studies

Drama: Medieval to Renaissance

Prose -1: Rise of the Novels

Gender Studies

Poetry: Romantic to Modern

Postcolonial Theory

South Asian Writing

American Literature

Supervised Research Paper

Special Topics In Theory And Criticism

Special Topics In Comparative And World Literature