Syllabus

Two books will be used for this course:

Mapping Subaltern Studies and the Postcolonial, edited by Vinayak Chaturvedi (London: Verso, 2000).

In the Shadows of the State, by Alpa Shah (Durham: Duke University Press)

 

The Syllabus is divided into three 'debates' that the course focuses on. Some of these 'debates' are in turn subdivided into sub-themes.

 

Debate 1: Subaltern Studies then and now

 

Foundations

Ranajit Guha (1997). Introduction to Dominance without Hegemony: History and Power in Colonial India (pages 1-23). Stanford: Harvard University Press.

Ranajit Guha (1999). Introduction to Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in colonial India. Durham: Duke University Press.

Frode Helland (2009). Om Spivaks “Can the Subaltern Speak” og oversettelsen. Agora 1: 36-39. (4 sider)

The following articles in Mapping Subaltern Studies and the Postcolonial:

  • Ch. 1 – Guha (8 pages) + Ch. 3 – Arnold (25 pages)

     

Critique and counter-critique

Ram Guha (1995). Subaltern and Bhadralok Studies. Economic and Political Weekly, August 19. (3 pages).

The following articles in Mapping Subaltern Studies and the Postcolonial:

  • Ch. 8 – Prakash (27 pages) + Ch. 9 – O’Hanlon and Washbrook (29 pages) + Ch. 10 – Prakash (18 pages)

     

Political society and its critics

Partha Chatterjee (2008). Democracy and Economic Transformation. Economic and Political Weekly 43 (16). (10 pages)

The discussion pieces by Shah, Baviskar & Sundar, John & Deshpande, and the response by Chatterjee in Economic and Political Weekly: http://www.epw.in/journal/2008/46.  (18 pages).

Aparna Sundar and Nandini Sundar. 2012. The Habits of the Political Heart: Recovering Politics from Governmentality. In Reframing Democracy and Agency in India, edited by Gudavarthy. London: Anthem Press. (19 pages).

 

Postcolonialism vs. Marxism

Dipesh Chakrabarty (2002). A small history of Subaltern Studies. In Habitations of Modernity. New Delhi: Permanent Black. (17 pages)

Vivek Chibber (2013). Postcolonial theory and Subaltern Studies. In Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital. London: Verso. (27 pages)

Gayatri Chakravorti Spivak (2014). Review of Postcolonial theory and the specter of capital. Cambridge Review of International Affairs 27 (1). (14 pages)

Vivek Chibber (2014). Making sense of postcolonial theory: A response to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Cambridge Review of International Affairs 27 (3). (7 pages)

Partha Chatterjee (2013). Subaltern Studies and Capital. Economic and Political Weekly 48 (37). (7 pages)

Subir Sinha (2017). ‘Histories of Power’, the ‘Universalization of Capital’, and India’s Modi Moment: Between and Beyond Marxism and Postcolonial Theory. Critical Sociology 43 (4-5). (16 pages).

 

Debate 2: Indigeneity, Activism, and Citizenship

 

In the Shadows of the State (236 pages).

Amita Baviskar (2011). Dark side of indigeneity? Economic and Political Weekly 46 (44/45). (4 pages).

 

Indigeneity and Activism

Uday Chandra (2013). Going Primitive: The Ethics of Indigenous Rights Activism in Contemporary Jharkhand. Samaj 7. (18 pages).

Alpa Shah (2013). The tensions over liberal citizenship in a Marxist revolutionary situation: The Maoists in India. Critique of Anthropology 33 (1). (19 pages).

Nandini Sundar (2013). Reflections on civil liberties, citizenship, Adivasi agency and Maoism: A response to Alpa Shah. Critique of Anthropology 33 (3). (7 pages).

Alpa Shah (2013). Response to Nandini Sundar’s Response to ‘The Tensions Over Citizenship in a Marxist-Leninist Revolutionary Situation: The Maoists in India’. Critique of Anthropology 33 (4). (4 pages).

 

 

Debate 3: ‘Village India’: Agriculture, Power and Social Change

 

Agriculture and the Making of Modern India

Srinivas, M.N. 1980. The Universe of Agriculture. I The Remembered Village, 102-136. Berkeley: University of California Press. (34 pages)

Madan, Vandana. 2002. Introduction. I The Village in India, edited by Vandana Madan, 1-26. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. (26 pages)

Gupta, Akhil. 1998. Introduction and Agrarian Populism in the Making of Modern India. I Postcolonial Developments: Agriculture in the Making of Modern India, 1-105. Durham: Duke University Press. (105 pages)

Jodhka, Surinder S. 2012. Nation and Village: Images of Rural India in Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar. I Village Society, edited by Surinder Singh Jodhka, 44-63. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan. (20 pages)

Gupta, Dipankar. 2005. Whither the Indian Village: Culture and Agriculture in ‘Rural’ India. Economic and Political Weekly 40 (8): 751-758. (7 pages)

 

Political Economy: Agrarian Questions, Agrarian Transitions

Patnaik, Utsa. 1986. The Agrarian Question and Development of Capitalism in India. Economic and Political Weekly 21 (18): 781-793. (13 pages)

Lerche, Jens. 2013. The Agrarian Question in Neoliberal India: Agrarian Transition Bypassed? Journal of Agrarian Change 13 (3): 382-404. (23 pages)

Levien, Michael. 2012. The land question: special economic zones and the political economy of dispossession in India. The Journal of Peasant Studies 39 (3-4): 933-969. (37 pages)

Published May 25, 2018 9:49 AM - Last modified Aug. 13, 2018 2:08 PM