Modern India: A possible course outline

MODERN INDIA

India’s global role is rapidly changing today, but its future depends on how it can negotiate complex historical legacies. We will discuss the emergence of the modern Indian state and population through analytical readings about political processes including colonialism, state-formation and scientific change. Readings explore historiography and politics, agriculture and technology, caste and gender, development and conflict. The study of modern India has, in recent years, offered models that help us understand the past, present, and possible futures of the subcontinent. In addition, these models have inspired new comparative and theoretical perspectives on a wide range of global issues. Rather than following a strict national frame or chronological development (too large a task for one quarter), we will approach the study of India through these new comparative, interdisciplinary frameworks. There will be a midterm and final paper. Readings are conceptually challenging, and participation in class discussions is a significant part of your final grade.

Readings will be drawn from the following :

BOOKS (Excerpts; To Be Assigned)

Barbara D. Metcalf & Thomas R. Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India (Cambridge Concise Histories)[Paperback]

Nicholas B. Dirks, Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India. Princeton University Press (2001) [Paperback]

Cohn, Bernard S. An Anthropologist Among the Historians & Other Essays.Delhi: Oxford University Press India. 1987.

Cohn, Bernard S.. Colonialism & Its Forms of Knowledge. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1996

Vinayak Chaturvedi ed. Mapping Subaltern Studies and the Postcolonial Paperback, July 2000

Ania Loomba, Ritty A. Lukose eds. South Asian Feminisms , Duke university Press, 2012

Adas, M. (1989). Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance. Ithaca, Cornell University Press.

Viswanathan, G. (1989). Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India. NY, Columbia University Press.

ESSAYS & ONLINE RESOURCES

Sudipta Kaviraj, The Imaginary Institution of India in Subaltern Studies No. 7 http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/subaltern/ss07.htm

Prakash, Gyan. "Writing Post-Orientalist Histories in the Third World: Perspectives from Indian Historigraphy." Comparative Studies in Society and History 32, 2 (April 1990) pp. 383-408.

Arnold, David Agriculture and ‘Improvement’ in Early Colonial India: A Pre-History of Development Journal of Agrarian Change Vol 5 No 4 October 2005, pp 505-525

Susie Tharu and Tejaswini Niranjana, "Problems for a Contemporary Theory of Gender", Subaltern Studies IX: Writings on South Asian History and Society Edited by Shahid Amin and Dipesh Chakrabarty

Bose, Brinda. "Contemporary Problems Routed through History," The Book Review. v.21:no.6 (June 1997) pp. 5-7. http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/subaltern/bbose97.html

Lilly Irani, article on AMT (forthcoming)

Sultana's Dream by Rokheya Shekhawat Hossein (1905) http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/sultana/dream/dream.html

Partha Chatterjee Democracy and economic transformation in India Economic & Political Weekly, april 19, 2008

Perry Anderson- In the LRB Archive: After Nehru · 2 August 2012 Why Partition? · 19 July 2012 Gandhi Centre Stage · 5 July 2012 http://www.lrb.co.uk/contributors/perry-anderson

The Eames Report April 1958 Author(s): Charles Eames and Ray Eames Source: Design Issues, MIT Press, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Spring, 1991), pp. 63-75

James Ferguson with Larry Lohman, “The Anti-Politics Machine,” In The Ecologist Vol 24 No 5 September/October 1994

Agarwal, Bina The Gender and Environment Debate: Lessons from India Feminist Studies; Spring 1992; 18, 1; GenderWatch

Women, Witchcraft and Gratuitous Violence in Colonial Western India Author(s): Ajay Skaria Source: Past and Present, No. 155, (May, 1997), pp. 109-141

Blogs: http://sepiamutiny.com/sepia/faq.php

http://kafila.org/

Video resources :

Cultural Anthropology Reflecting on 30 Years of Subaltern Studies: Conversations with Profs. Gyanendra Pandey and Partha Chatterjee http://www.culanth.org/?q=node/469

Michael Goldman talks about the World Bank: http://www.engagemedia.org/Members/IPTsecretariat/videos/MichaelGoldmanpresentationsmall_0.mp4/view

Aruna Roy discusses the World Bank in India : http://www.engagemedia.org/Members/IPTsecretariat/videos/aruna-roy-at-the-world-bank-tribunal/view

Theme I (week 1&2): Overview: What is “Modern”? What is “India”?

Sudipta Kaviraj, The Imaginary Institution of India

Barbara D. Metcalf & Thomas R. Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India

Perry Anderson, 3 essays in London Review of Books; & responses / critiques

Prakash, Gyan. Writing Post-Orientalist Histories in the Third World

Arnold, David, Agriculture and ‘Improvement’ in Early Colonial India

Loomba and Lukose, textbook

Theme II (week 3): Development and Change

Prakash, G. (1999). Another reason : science and the imagination of modern India. Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press.

Senthil Babu, 2012 “Science and Self-Respect,” Economic and Political Weekly

Ramamurthy, Priti. (2009). "Why are men doing floral sex work? Gender, Cultural reproduction, and the Feminization of agriculture." SIGNS Autumn 2009 (Special Issue on Women and Agriculture).

Loomba and Lukose, textbook

Michael Goldman talks about the World Bank: http://www.engagemedia.org/Members/IPTsecretariat/videos/MichaelGoldmanpresentationsmall_0.mp4/view

Aruna Roy discusses the World Bank in India : http://www.engagemedia.org/Members/IPTsecretariat/videos/aruna-roy-at-the-world-bank-tribunal/view

Theme III (week 4): Colonialism, Orientalism, Modernity

Edward Said, Orientalism (selections)

O'Hanlon, Rosalind. "Recovering the Subject: Subaltern Studies and Histories of Resistance in Colonial South Asia."Modern Asian Studies 22, 1 (1988) pp. 189-224.

Chakrabarty, Dipesh. "Radical Histories and Question of Enlightenment Rationalism: Some Recent Critiques of Subaltern Studies," Economic and Political Weekly v.30:no.14 (8 April 1995) pp. 751-759.

Theme IV (week 5, 6, 7): Sanctioned Silences: Gender, Caste, Violence

Loomba and Lukose, TEXTBOOK

Metcalf, TEXTBOOK; + Online news, contemporary: On caste violence

Agarwal, Bina The Gender and Environment Debate

Susie Tharu and Tejaswini Niranjana, "Problems for a Contemporary Theory of Gender"

Ajay Skaria, Women, Witchcraft and Gratuitous Violence in Colonial Western India

Theme V (week 8, 9, 10): Dialogues with Space and Time: Facts, Fictions & Futures

The Eames Report April 1958 Author(s): Charles Eames and Ray Eames Source: Design Issues, MIT Press, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Spring, 1991), pp. 63-75

Lilly Irani, article on AMT (forthcoming)

James Ferguson with Larry Lohman, “The Anti-Politics Machine,” In The Ecologist Vol 24 No 5 September/October 1994

Rokheya Hossein, Sultana's Dream

Amitav Ghosh, The Slave of MS. H.6 in Subaltern Studies No. 7 http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/subaltern/ss07.htm

Amitav Ghosh and Dipesh Chakrabarty, Conversation, in Radical History Review

Vandana Singh and Anil Menon, selections from new Indian science fiction