|
SALC 40100
Autumn Quarter, 2003
Clinton B. Seely South Asian Languages and Civilizations |
The course is both about texts that can be characterized as literature
and about other texts that are themselves concerned with trying to make
sense of that literature. South Asian texts--literary or otherwise, written
or otherwise--are the given for those of us in SALC, though we may prefer
to spend our time and efforts with some texts and not others. Critical practices
are what we seek to learn so that we, in turn, can pick and choose among
those practices and apply one or a combination of them to make sense of
a given text. Needless to say, neither the literary texts nor the texts
on critical practices selected for this course exhaust the possibilities.
They do provide some examples of both sorts of texts and will be the subject
for discussion in class. We shall want to examine the critical practices
and, particularly, the presuppositions of the critical approaches. We shall
also want to do as close a reading as we can of those literary texts assigned.
What do those texts say, and how do they say it?
Required:
1. Class attendance and a 1-page response paper for each class session,
to be handed in at the end of class. (The response paper should address
issues raised by the readings and pose questions to those texts. Eash
class session will begin with a student reading his or her response paper
and then initiating the discussion to follow.)
2. Attendance of the South Asia Seminar and the TAPSA Workshop, both held
on Thursdays in Foster Lounge at 4:00. (Those of you who are taking
a class that meets during the 3:00-4:20 time period on Thursday, please
see me. Friday's class will include a critique of Thursday's SA Seminar/Workshop
presentation.)
3. Presentation of a conference-type paper during 9th/10th week. (The
paper is to be 15 minutes in length--7/8 double-spaced pages--and will
be read before the class with a question-and-answer period to follow.)
Recommended:
Attendance of at least part of the 32nd Annual Conference on South Asia to be held at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Friday-Sunday, October 24-26. (There will be no class on Friday, October 24th, to allow you to experience the conference. Monday's class on the 27th will include a discussion of some of the papers presented.)
Readings: On reserve and at the CTS bookstore.
week 1:
(Friday, Oct. 3)
R. S. Crane, "History versus Criticism in the Study of Literature,"
in The Idea of the Humanities and Other Essays Critical and Historical,
vol. 2, pp. 3-24
Lawrence Lipking, "A Trout in the Milk" in The Uses of Literary
History, ed. Marshall Brown, pp.
1-12
Jonathan Arac, "What Is the History of Literature?" in The
Uses of Literary History,ed. Marshall
Brown, pp. 23-33
Marjorie Garber, "Discipline Envy," in Academic Instincts,
pp. 53-96
week 2:
(Monday, Oct. 6)
Sheldon Pollock, "Introduction" and "Sanskrit Literary Culture from
the Inside Out," in Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from
South Asia,ed. Sheldon Pollock, pp. 1-130
Sudipta Kaviraj, "The Two Histories of Literary Culture in Bengal,"
in Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia,
ed. Sheldon Pollock, pp. 503-66
Mahasweta Sengupta, "Constructing the Canon: Problems in Bengali Literary
Historiography" Social Scientist,
23:10-12 (1995): 56-69
Vinay Dharwadker, "The Historical Formation of Indian-English Literature,"
in Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South
Asia, ed. Sheldon Pollock, pp.
199-267
(Friday, Oct. 10)
Frederick Crews, Postmodern Pooh,
175 pp.
week 3:
(Monday,
Oct. 13)
(read one or more of the following three novels)
Bankim-chandra Chatterjee, Krishnakanta's Will,tr. J.C.
Ghosh
Bhabani Bhattacharya, He Who Rides a Tiger
Bibhutibhushan Banerji, Pather Panchali (Song of the Road),
tr. T.W. Clark & Tarapada Mukherji
-or-
______,
Pather Panchali,transcreated
by Monika Varma
(Friday, Oct. 17)
Edwin Gerow, "The Persistence of Classical Esthetic Categories in
Contemporary Indian Literature: The Case of Three Bengali Novels," in
The Literatures of India: An Introduction,
E.C. Dimock, Jr., et al., pp. 212-38
Arun Mukherjee, "Introduction," "The Vocabulary of the 'Universal':
The Cultural Imperialism of the Universalist Criteria of Western Literary
Criticism," and "Ideology in the Classroom: A Case Study in the Teaching
of English Literature in Canadian Universities," in Towards an
Aesthetic of Opposition: Essays on Literature, Criticism & Cultural
Imperialism, pp. 4-31
-also in-
______, Oppositional Aesthetics: Readings from a Hyphenated Space,
pp. 3-8, 17-38
Sudipta Kaviraj, "A Taste for Transgression: Liminality in the Novels
of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay," in The Unhappy Consciousness:
Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay & the Formation of Discourse in India,
pp. 1-27
week 4:
(Monday, Oct. 20)
(read both of the following two translations)
Bankim Chandra Chatterji, The abbey of bliss; a translation of
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's Anandamath,tr. Naresh Chandra Sengupta
______, Anandamath,tr. and
adapted by Basanta Koomar Roy
Sudipta Kaviraj, "Imaginary History," in The Unhappy Consciousness:
Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay & the Formation of Discourse in India,
pp. 108-58
Indira Chowdhury, "Excavating the Past: History and Its Icons," in
The Frail Hero and Virile History: Gender and the Politics
of Culture in Colonial Bengal,pp.
40-65
Victor A. van Bijlert, "Bankim's Mother: Imagery of the Indian Nation,"
in ed. Rama Datta, Clinton Seely, & Zillur Khan, Bengal
Studies: A Collection of Essays,
pp. 113-36
(Friday, Oct. 24)
no class; the 32nd Annual
Conference on South Asia
at the University of Wisconsin, Madison
week 5:
(Monday, Oct. 27)
Lord Byron, "The Giaour," in The Poetical Works of Byron,
pp. 309-23
Michael Madhusudan Dutt, "The Captive Ladie," in Madhusudana racanavali
(collected works of M.M. Dutt), ed. Ksetra Gupta, pp. 479-508
______, "An Essay" and "The Anglo-Saxon and the Hindu: Lecture I,"
in Madhusudana racanavali,
ed. Ksetra Gupta, pp. 518-33
Rosinka Chaudhuri, Gentlemen Poets in Colonial Bengal: Emergent
Nationalism and the Orientalist Project,
pp. 85-126
Ashis Nandy, "The Psychology of Colonialism: Sex, Age and Ideology
in British India," in The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of
Self under Colonialism, pp. 1-63
Sumanta Banerjee, The Parlour and the Street: Elite and
Popular Culture in Nineteenth-Century Calcutta,
pp. 153-90
(Friday, Oct. 31)
Jayadeva, Love Song of the Dark Lord: Jayadeva's Gitagovinda,
ed. and tr. Barbara Stoler Miller
Baru Candidasa, Singing the Glory of Lord Krishna: The Srikrsnakirtana,
tr. and annotated by M.H. Klaiman, pp. 1-118 (intro. & Janma-,
Tambula-, & Danakhandas), 163-88 (Vrndavanakhanda), 265-311 (Radhaviraha)
Edward C. Dimock, Jr. & Denise Levertov, trs. In Praise
of Krishna: Songs from the Bengali
Vikram Seth, The Golden Gate
week 6:
(Monday,
Nov. 3)
Rudyard Kipling, Kim;intro. by Edward Said
(read all of one and part of the other following two translations)
Rabindranath Tagore, Gora,
tr. author with revisions by Surendranath Tagore
______, Gora,tr.
Sujit Mukherjee
Rukmini Bhaya Nair, "The Pedigree of the White Stallion: Postcoloniality
and Literary History," in The Uses of Literary History,
ed. Marshall Brown, pp. 159-86
(Friday, Nov. 7)
Phanishwar Nath Renu, "Queen of Red Betel," in The Third Vow and
Other Stories,tr. Kathryn Hansen,
pp. 25-41
Arun P. Mukherjee, "Reading Renu: Text, Language, Culture and Translation,"
Toronto South Asian Review,
8, 1 (Summer 1989):59-69
-also in-
______, Oppositional Aesthetics: Readings from a Hyphenated Space,
pp. 56-66
week 7:
(Monday, Nov. 10)
Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali,tr. author
______, Gitanjali,tr. Joe
Winter
Buddhadeva Bose, "Tagore in Translation," in Yearbook of
Comparative and General Literature,
12 (1963): 15-26
Edward C. Dimock, Jr., "Rabindranath Tagore--'The Greatest of the
Bauls of Bengal,'" Journal of Asian Studies,
November 1959, pp. 33-51
Nabaneeta Sen, "The 'Foreign Reincarnation' of Rabindranath Tagore,"
Journal of Asian Studies,
February 1966, pp. 275-86
(Friday, Nov. 14)
Rabindranath Tagore, The Broken Nest
(nastanir), tr. Mary M. Lago & Supriya Sen
Aijaz Ahmad, "Jameson's Rhetoric of Otherness and the 'National Allegory,'"
in In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures,
pp. 95-122
A.K. Ramanujan, "Is There an Indian Way of Thinking," Contributions
to Indian Sociology,(new series)
23, 1 (1989): 41-58
Debjani Ganguly, "G.N. Devy: The Nativist as Postcolonial Critic,"
in Nativism: Essays in Criticism,
ed. Makarand Paranjage, pp. 129-52
Gerry Smyth, "The Modes of Decolonisation" and "Culture, Criticism
and Decolonisation," in Decolonisation and Criticism: The Construction
of Irish Literature, pp. 9-53
week 8:
(Monday, Nov. 17)
Mahasweta Devi, "Draupadi," tr. with forward by Gayatri Chakravorty
Spivak; Mahasweta Devi, "Breast-Giver," tr. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak;
and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "A Literary Representation of the Subaltern:
A Woman's Text from the Third World," in Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak,
In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics,pp. 179-96, 222-68
Terry Eagleton, "Gayatri Spivak," in Figures of Dissent: Critical
Essays on Fish, Spivak, Zizek and Others,
pp. 158-67
Walter Benn Michaels, "The Victims of New Historicism" in
The Uses of Literary History,ed.
Marshall Brown, pp. 187-96
(Friday, Nov. 21)
Shaukat Osman, Janani,tr.
Osman Jamal
Taslima Nasrin, Lajja,
tr. Tutul Gupta
Saiyeda Khatun, "A Site of Subaltern Articulation: The Ecstatic Female
Body in the Contemporary Bangladeshi Novels of Taslima Nasrin," in
Genders
30 (1999)
week 9:
(Monday, Nov. 24)
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, "Silver Pavements, Golden Roofs" and "Doors,"
in Arranged Marriage,pp. 35-56, 183-202
Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines
(Friday, Nov. 28)
Thanksgiving holiday
week 10:
(Monday, Dec. 1)
paper presentations
(Friday, Dec. 5)
paper presentations