COURSES IN DISCIPLINE 2

Offered by the Department of English, Mata Sundri College for Women, University of

Delhi

The aim of the courses in this syllabus is to acquaint students from other Discipline 1 courses with various kinds and contexts of literature that would meet, as far as possible, their trans-disciplinary expectations.

OBJECTIVE

Students who will now begin their third semester can enroll for these interdisciplinary

courses. Students pursuing their majors in English

are not eligible for the same. While you can opt for your choice of course,

we will assign these courses to you on the basis of your first semester results.

WHO CAN OPT FOR THESE COURSES?

The six DC-2 English courses are divided into two blocks. Block 1 consists of –

1. Individual and Society2. Cultural Diversity, Linguistic Plurality and literary Traditions of

India3. Reading World LiteratureBlock 2 consists of-4. Literature and Film5. Crime and Literature6. Literature of the PartitionStudents can opt for either all 6 courses from English, or

they can choose one block, consisting of 3 courses from English and another block from some other subject

COURSE DETAILS

We offer you one course per semester in the order mentioned above. Please note that if you opt for the first course, you will have to continue with the remaining two English courses in Block 1for 2 consecutive semesters.

Unlike the Applied courses, it is not possible to change your DC course every semester.

After the completion of Block 1,however, you can change your choice of DC course.

ALERT

4 lectures/week 12*4= 48 class hours 1 student presentation/week 12*1= 12 class presentations 1 tutorial 12*1= 12 tutorials

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Some of the courses may have a list of Background topics and readings. While these are not meant for compulsory classroom teaching, they will be used by students for their class presentations. The teachers may provide extra reading material to the students to improve the quality of classroom discussion.

BACKGROUND TOPICS AND READINGS

INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY

Individual and Society consists of texts that raise questions of caste, class, gender, race and war and how they affect the individual. As modern society moves towards globalization, colonial exploitation takes new forms with the result that cross cultural encounters become a part of daily life. Since such themes are likely to appear in other courses the student is taking, the classroom will hopefully provide a fruitful cross-fertilization between the insights of literature and those of other disciplines.

OBJECTIVE

The book comprises of short stories, poems and non fictional prose and is divided into five distinct sections.

1. Caste/Class: This section will expose the students to the writings of Phule, Valmiki, Premchand, Ismat Chughtai and Bansode. The aim will be to understand the politics of caste and it’s complex relation to questions of class.

2. Gender: Students will read Woolf, Tagore, Piercy, D’Souza, Ambai. Learning to understand the concepts of Feminism and Masculinities, defying stereotypes and understanding queer identities

INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY- CONTENTS

3. RACE: Students will read Wole Soyinka, Langston Hughes, Roger Mais and Maya Angelou. Emphasis will be on understanding the lived experience of race in context of the history of slavery and contemporary racial bias across cultures.

4. VIOLENCE AND WAR: Reading Wilfred Owen, Henry Reed, Saadat Hasan Manto and Amitav Ghosh. Understanding the historical reality of war and violence in different contexts ranging from the World Wars to Partition.

5. LIVING IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD: Reading Roland Barthes, Imtiaz Dharker and Edward Braithwaite. Understanding contemporary contexts of colonization.

INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY- CONTENTS Cont.

READING WORLD LITERATURE

This paper will acquaint the students with writers from around the world. Students and teachers together will attempt to develop an expansive definition of World Literature.

Understanding concepts of memory, displacement and diaspora.

Understanding hybridity, race and culture. Reading techniques, audience reception,

Children Literature

READING WORLD LITERATURE

Reading World Literatures in translation. Understanding the politics of translation and the circulation of literary texts

Reading narratives from Latin America, Australia, Africa etc. Understanding their varying literary cultures.

Understanding the GLOCAL: How does the Local interact with the Global and what is it’s impact on resulting literatures. Issues of accessibility of local literatures.

READING WORLD LITERATURE

CULTURAL DIVERSITY, LINGUISTIC

PLURALITY AND LITERARY

TRADITIONS IN INDIA

The course offers a glimpse of the varied cultural diversity of India, by including selections from the varied literary currents, flowing simultaneously in many languages here.

Students will be exposed to local traditions in poetry and music and storytelling. This would include Sufi and Bhakti poetry, alongside the literary traditions of modern India.

Besides varied literary cultures, the course will also introduce students to the multiplicity of voices originating from the diversity of lived experiences in India. Creative expressions across caste, class and gender and time and space are included in this course.

LITERATURE AND FILM

This course will deal with the myriad ways in which the two genres of Literature and Film interact with each other. Emphasis will be on the language and signs of films and literature, concept of adaptation and the transformation it brings about when one text is transposed from one genre to another. Students will be exposed to interpretive techniques and the ways in which the gaze is structured. Students will be required to make presentations on an interesting list of film adaptations of literary texts.

CRIME AND LITERATURE

This course will deal with the representation of crime and the formation of the criminal identity across different types of media. Students will be required to read texts by Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, Raymond Chandler and HRF Keating. Emphasis will also be on the cultural production of crime, where students will acquaint themselves with cultural stereotypes and moral codes of crime fiction.

LITERATURE OF THE PARTITION

This course will deal with the wide oeuvre of Partition Literature. Students will be required to read 2 novels- Intizar Husian’s Basti and Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines. In addition to this there will also be short stories and non fictional prose and poetry by Faiz, Gulzar and Jibananda Das. The course will aim to familiarize the students with the socio-political and cultural impact of partition. The themes of dislocation and Exile, Communalism, violence and national identity will be at the forefront of this course