DEPARTMENT - ENGLISH

Course Pack
FOR
INDIAN LITERATURES: THEMES AND CONCERNS-EST532

EST532 - INDIAN LITERATURES: THEMES AND CONCERNS

Total Teaching Hours For Semester : 75 Total Teaching Hours For Semester : 5

Max Marks : 100 Credits : 04

Course Objectives/Course Description:

Objectives
● To understand the complexities of cultural, economic, political and social forces and their impact on the production of literatures in India of different classes and

backgrounds
● To understand the religious, caste, gender, colonial, national constructs in India through its literatures and thereby develop sensitivity and add to the core value of

love for fellow beings

● To become aware of methods interpreting literary texts in the contemporary context

Learning Outcome
Expected Learning Outcome: Political, social, ideological, literary implications of understanding India as a construct.

Unit-1 Teaching Hours:20

Essays
This module will introduce students to the category of Indian Literatures, its survey of different aspects of
the body of writing as well as a critical understanding of the knowledge systems indigenous to India.
P P Raveendran: “Genealogies of Indian Literatures”, Economic and Political Weekly (June 24, 2006)
●

Amartya Sen: “Indian Tradition and Western Imagination”, Daedalus, Vol. 126, No. 2, Human Diversity
●

(Spring, 1997)

Unit-2 Teaching Hours:15

Poetry
This module surveys select poetry from contemporary India. It surveys cities, people and ideas like faith
and non-violence located within the Indian context.
K Satchidanandan “A Man with a Door”
●

Mirza Ghalib “Be Merciful and Send for Me”

●

Bonsai God by Temsula Ao

●

Basavanna Vachana “Cripple me, father”/ Akkamahadevi’s “Akka Kelavva”

●

Sangam Poetry Ilam Peruvatuti “This World Lives Because”

●

Unit-3 Teaching Hours:13

Play
This module introduces students to caste and its underpinnings through a translated Dalit Drama by
Vinodini. It will also introduce the Subaltern as a conceptual category and interrogate questions of caste
within gender, class and other hierarchic strcutures.
Daaham (Thirst) – Vinodini
Unit-4 Teaching Hours:12

Short Story
This selection of short stories introduces students to a variety of readings about the nation, partition,
women and their social roles as well as resistance to established traditions.Pudumaipitthan “Deliverance
from Curse’’Ambai: “A Kitchen in the Corner of a House”Saadat Hasan Manto: “Dog of Tithwal”
Unit-5 Teaching Hours:15

Novel and Graphic Novel

This section introduces the novel form or the graphic novel as appropriated in the Indian context. The
module will aim to familiazrize students to Indian writing in English and bring forth important questions with
regard to English and India apart from discussing the thematic concerns in the text. Any one of the novels
may be taken to class. Understanding ‘India’ in the contemporary context through the form of the novel will
be the focus of this module. A thematic reading of the novel will also be done in class. (One of the two
novels could be considered).
Arundati Roy, The God of Small Things
●

or
Chetan Bhagat: Five Point Someone
●

● Sarnath Banerjee Corridor

Text Books And Reference Books:

Course pack compiled by the Dept of English, Christ University for private circulation

Essential Reading / Recommended Reading:

Chakrovorty - Spivak, Gayatri. The politics of Translation Tutun Mukherjee, Lawrence Venuti. (ed). Translation Studies Reader. London/New York; Routeldge, 2003.

Studies in Culture and Translation. Vol. 2 ‘Translating Caste’Basu, Tapan. Katha, 2002. New Delhi.Das, Kamala. The Sandal Trees and Other Stories. Disha Books. 1995,

New Delhi.Fresh Fictions, Folk Tales, Plays and Novellas from the North East. Katha. New Delhi, 2005Indian Short Stories. 1900-2000. Ramakrishnan, E.V. (ed).

Sahithya Academy New Delhi, 2003.Indian Literature, Sahithya Academy, bi-monthly journal. Vol.167, New Delhi, 1995.Indian Literature, Sahithya Academy, bi-monthly

journal. Vol .168, New Delhi, 1995.Indian Literature, Sahithya Academy, bi-monthly journal. Vol.169, New Delhi, 1995.Journal of Literature and Aesthetics. Vol.7,

Numbers1 & 2 Jan- Dec.2007.Kollam, 2008.Nandy, Ashis. The Intimate Enemy, New Delhi: O.U.P. 1989.Short Fiction from South India, Krishna Swami, Subasree.

Sreelatha.K (ed), New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2008.Stuart Blackburn and Vasudha Dalmia (ed). India’s Literary History. Essays on the Nineteenth Century. New

Delhi: Permanent Black, 2008.Tendulkar, Vijay. Five Plays. Bombay: 1992.OUP. 2007, New Delhi.Tamil Poetry Today, K.S. Subramanian (ed). International Institute for

Tamil Studies, Chennai 2007.

Additional Information
Testing patternCIA II
● Comparative Study of the issues of any one prescribed piece with another one piece from any Indian language
● Written assignment on any of the typical Indian issues discussed as part of the syllabus.

CIA III
● could be a Translation Assignment of any contemporary literary work

(Poems or Short Stories).

● written assignment on any prescribed piece bringing out the problems of translation
● If the students do not know how to read a regional language, they can listen to a story/poem from the oral tradition and translate that.
● Some students might not have the linguistic competence to translate then, they can learn a folk art form/gather some folk, oral narratives, recipes, sports and

analyze them.

Evaluation Pattern
CIA II
● Comparative Study of the issues of any one prescribed piece with another one piece from any Indian language

● Written assignment on any of the typical Indian issues discussed as part of the syllabus.

CIA III
● could be a Translation Assignment of any contemporary literary work

(Poems or Short Stories).

● written assignment on any prescribed piece bringing out the problems of translation
● If the students do not know how to read a regional language, they can listen to a story/poem from the oral
tradition and translate that.
● Some students might not have the linguistic competence to translate then, they can learn a folk art form/gather
some folk, oral narratives, recipes, sports and analyze them.