Syllabus - Semester 3

Semester 3

Paper X – Literary Theory II [6 hours/week]

Course description - Topics to be covered

The course will help the student to understand that:

1. Human societies are structured by the economic system.
2. All social and political activities aim at gaining and sustaining economic power.
3. History is not linear and progressive.
4. It is impossible to analyze history objectively.
5. The mundane activities and conditions of everyday life can tell us much about the belief systems of a time period.
6. Discourses wield power for those in charge and they do not remain permanent.
7. Colonization is a process of political domination mainly based on race, ethnicity, economic greed and expansionism.
8. A literary text represents various aspects of colonial oppression.
9. Media has its effects on society and culture.
10. Media’s relationship with other forms of arts and society is informed by ideology.

Module I: Marxist Theories

Literary and other cultural texts are ideological in background, form and function and the production and consumption of texts reflects class ideologies. An attention to the material conditions of life and a critical engagement with our attitudes about those conditions are essential for achieving positive social change.

• Raymond Williams. “Literature.” Marxism and Literature. USA: Oxford UP, 1978. Pp. 45-54.

Module II: Theories of New Historicism

History is not linearly progressive and is not reducible to the activities of prominent individuals. The mundane activities and conditions of everyday life can tell us much about the belief systems of a time period.  Literary texts are connected in complex ways to the time period in which they were created and systems of social power are both reflected in and reinforced by such texts.

• Michel Foucault. “What is an Author?” Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader. Ed. David

                             Lodge. UK: Longman, 2000. Pp. 174-187.

Module III: Postcolonial Theories

The analysis of racism and ethnocentrism in texts from the past may have relevance to the ways we live our lives today.  Textual analysis of race, ethnicity, and postcoloniality can serve as a starting point for positive forms of social change in the future. 

• Edward W. Said. “Introduction”. Orientalism. UK: Penguin. 1900. Pp.1-28.

Module IV: Theories of New Media

Media theories examine the reciprocal relationship between media and its audience. The development of print media and digital media is associated with the development of consumerism and commercialism. Media theory emphasizes the fact that media cannot exist outside the ideological constraints and become constitutive of the very ideology it re-presents.

• Manuel Castells. “The Network Society: from Knowledge to Policy”. The Network Society: from

        Knowledge to Policy. Eds. Manuel Castells and Gustavo Cardoso. Washington, DC: Johns  

        Hopkins Center for Transatlantic Relations, 2005. Pp. 3-21.Web.

Recommended Reading:

1. Marx. “The German Ideology: Wage, Labour and Capital.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed.

    Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. USA: Blackwell, 1998. Pp. 653-658.

2. Althusser. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie

    Rivkin and Michael Ryan. USA: Blackwell, 1998. Pp. 693-702.

3. Terry Eagleton. Marxism and Literary Criticism. London: Routledge, 1976.
4. Stephen Greenblatt. “Towards a Poetics of Culture.” The New Historicism. Ed. H. Aram Veeser.

    London: Routledge, 1989. Pp. 1-14.

5. Dipesh Chakrabarty. “Post Coloniality and the Artifice of History.” Representations 37, Special

    Issue: Imperial Fantasies and Postcolonial Histories (Winter, 1992). Pp. 1-26.

6. Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield. Political Shakespeare: New Essays in Cultural

    Materialism. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1994.

7. Franz Fanon. “On National Culture.” The Wretched of the Earth. Trans. Constance Farrington.

    Penguin, 1967. Pp. 168-78.

8. Partha Chatterjee. “Nationalism as a Problem in the History of Political Ideas.” Nationalist

Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? The Partha Chatterjee Omnibus.  New Delhi: Oxford UP, 1994. Pp. 1-35.

9. Ania Loomba. Colonialism/Post-Colonialism. London: Routledge, 2005.
10. Nancy Fraser. “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing

Democracy.” The Cultural Studies Reader. 2nd ed. Ed. Simon During. London: Routledge, 2007. Pp. 518-536.

11. M. Madhava Prasad. “The Absolutist Gaze: Political Structure and Cultural Form.” Ideology of

    the Hindi Film: A Historical Construction. Pp. 52-87.

12 Dan Laughy. Key Themes in Media Theory. London: McGraw-Hill, 2007.