Wednesday 6 July 2016

Theory of Colonialism:An Approach to Cultural Studies

·         Why “Theory of Colonialism”? 
o   Why now? 
o   What is the cognitive puzzle that existing scholarship on Colonialism raise?
o   Why is it inadequate? 

·        There are many “Cultures”
o   But only one culture (western culture) has produced descriptions of all others cultures 
o   Until recently these descriptions were seen as true
o   After the work of Edward Said (Orientalism, 1978), these descriptions are seen as reflecting imperial interests 
o   Examples: 
§  The Sati Debate 
·        Problem of Moral Principle 
§  Debate on Secularism 
·        Problem of Good vs. True doctrine 
§  Sanskritisation and Growth of Indian vernaculars 
·        Problem of social vs. ritual order

·        Strategies of Post-colonial approaches to studying Colonialism 
o   Denying the veracity of Western representations of non-western cultures at the object level 
o   Providing alternative descriptions at the object level

·        Problems with the Postcolonial Strategy 
o   Trivializes the Western Experience 
o   Looks at non-western cultures in the terms defined by western intellectual traditions

·        Alternative Strategy
o   To look at Orientalism not as an “object-level” description of non-western cultures but as the cognitive limit of western culture 
o   That is, Orientalism as a key to western experiences of non-western cultures and therefore of itself 
o   Reducing western descriptions of non-western cultures to a theory about Western culture 
o   Delineating the “limit of intelligibility” of western theories

Translator Training Programme

                                             

This course is a practical, hands-on training in translation. It trains students towards becoming professional translators and reviewers of translation activity. The course focuses on all genres of translations, including, prose, poetry, technical writing, media communication and several other professional contexts where translation is needed. It is an exercise-heavy course and requires students to turn in small pieces of translation every week. The material for the successive sessions of the course will be generated through the student assignments of previous sessions.

  • Unit I: Language Competence
    • Understand grammatical, lexical and idiomatic structures as well as the graphic and typographic conventions of language A and one's other working languages (B, C)
    • Knowing how to use these same structures and conventions in A and B
    • Developing sensitivity to changes in language and developments in languages
  • Unit II: Intercultural Competence
    • SOCIOLINGUISTIC dimension
      • Function and meaning in language variations (social, geographical, historical, stylistic)
      • Appropriate register to a given situation, for a particular document (written) or speech (oral)
    • TEXTUAL dimension
      • Understanding and analysing the macrostructure of a document and its overall coherence
      • Grasping presuppositions, implicit allusions, stereotypes and intertextual nature of texts
      • Describing and evaluating one's problems with comprehension and defining strategies for resolving those problems
      • Extracting and summarising the essential information in a document
      • Recognising and identifying elements, values and references proper to the cultures represented
      • Bringing together and comparing cultural elements and methods of composition.
      • Composing a document in accordance with the conventions of the genre and rhetorical standards
      • Drafting, rephrasing, restructuring, condensing and post-editing rapidly and well (in languages A and B)
  • Unit III: Information Mining
    • Identifying one's information and documentation requirements
    • Developing strategies for documentary and terminological research (including approaching experts)
    • Extracting and processing relevant information for a given task (documentary, terminological, phraseological information)
    • Developing criteria for evaluation for documents accessible on the internet or any other medium, i.e. knowing how to evaluate the reliability of documentary sources
    • Knowing how to use tools and search engines effectively (e.g. terminology software, electronic corpora, electronic dictionaries)
    • Mastering the archiving of one's own documents
  • Unit IV: Technological Competence
    • Effectively using software to assist in correction, translation, terminology, layout, documentary research (text processing, spell and grammar check, the internet, translation memory, terminology database, voice recognition software)
    • Translation of multimedia and audiovisual material
    • Preparing and producing translations in different formats and for different technical media
  • Unit V: Translation Service Provision
    • Clarifing the requirements, objectives and purposes of the client, recipients of the translation and other stakeholders
    • Complying with instructions, deadlines, commitments, interpersonal competences, team organisation
    • Standards applicable to the provision of a translation service
    • Self-evaluation (questioning one's habits; being open to innovations; being concerned with quality; being ready to adapt to new situations/conditions)
    • Complying with professional ethics
  • (Source:http://www.prevajalstvo.net/objective-aims-and-competences-graz)


English for Academic Purposes

                                             

The aim of the course is to enable students to think logically and communicate their ideas clearly in writing. By developing critical reading and critical thinking skills in students, the course intends to refine the writing competence of the students. Focus will be on hands-on experience in academic reading and writing, and students will be expected to do regular writing exercises.

Part: I.   Academic Reading
Unit 1: Introduction
Reading Skills: Basics
Close Reading
Analytical Reading and Rhetorical Reading
Unit 2: Critical Analysis
Evaluating the quality and sufficiency of evidence and other forms of support for an argument
Recognizing the explicit and implicit features in communication
Accurately assessing similarities and differences in points of view
Applying critical reading and thinking skills to evaluate and revise arguments, opinions, and claims (including students’ own) to avoid deception (self-deception) and conformity.
Part II: Academic Writing
Unit 3:  Introduction
Free Writing
Brainstorming
Mind Mapping
Listing
Clustering
Spidergram
Unit 4: Components of Writing Process
Ideas and development
Organization
Voice and tone
Word choice
Sentence fluency
Conventions and presentation
Unit 5: Writing Strategies
Description
Narration
Instructions
Comparison/contrast
Cause and effect
Definition
Exemplification
Analogy
Argumentation
Unit 6: Writing Processes
Focused Free Writing
Generative Writing
Making an Outline
Unit 7: Paragraph Structure
Topic Sentences
Linking Paragraphs and Sentences
Coherence and Cohesiveness in Writing
Unit 8: Editing
Proofreading
Revising
Unit 9: Research Skills
Finding resources
Format and Style

Plagiarism and Academic Ethics

Modernism

                                                  

This course attempts to trace the central philosophical and conceptual issues in the study of Western Modernist thought. Emphasis is on reconstructing the main ideas of the period and examining the literature of that age in relation to these ideas. As the last in a four-part paper, this is an attempt to acquaint students with the cultural and intellectual ideas that have shaped the modern western culture. Alongside the literary appreciation of texts, it is expected that students will also learn to appreciate the political and social contexts which the shape the ideas represented in these texts. Selections include literary and non-literary texts from the period and critical and scholarly works from recent times which attempt to throw new light on the period. A selection of texts for self study has been suggested which will help students gain more in depth knowledge about the issue treated in the in the course.


    • Unit I: Introduction to Key Themes and Issues
      • Perry Anderson, "Modernism and Revolution"
      • AndrĂ© Breton, First and Second Manifesto of Surrealism, including later prefaces
      • Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus Chapter 4
    • Unit II: Key Ideas
      • Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents , Part III
      • Friedrich Nietzsche: from preface to Human, All Too Human [modernism anthology, 17-22]
      • Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, including prefaces.
    • Unit III: Texts
      • Manifestos of Futurism: Marinetti et al.
      • Eliot, The Love Song of Alfred J Prufrock
      • Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent
      • Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    • Unit IV: Revisiting Modernism
      • Bell, The Metaphysics of Modernism
      • Todorov, Imperfect Garden: The Legacy of Humanism Chapter 1
    • Texts for Self Study
      • Shaw: Man and Superman
      • Charles Darwin, from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
      • Leon Trotsky, Diego Rivera, AndrĂ© Breton, "Manifesto: Towards a Free Revolutionary Art"
      • Kundera, Life Is Elsewhere
      • Antonio Gramsci, "Marinetti, the Revolutionary"

Romanticism

                                                                                         

This course attempts to trace the central philosophical and conceptual issues in the study of the Romantic Movement in Europe. Emphasis is on reconstructing the main ideas of the period and examining the literature of that age in relation to these ideas. As the second in a four-part paper, this is an attempt to acquaint students with the cultural and intellectual ideas that have shaped the modern western culture. Alongside the literary appreciation of texts, it is expected that students will also learn to appreciate the political and social contexts which the shape the ideas represented in these texts. Selections include literary and non-literary texts from the period and critical and scholarly works from recent times which attempt to throw new light on the period. A selection of texts for self study has been suggested which will help students gain more in depth knowledge about the issue treated in the in the course.


    • Unit I: Introduction to themes and Issues
      • Sir Isaiah Berlin, The Romantic Revolution
    • Unit II: Key Ideas
      • J G Herder, "Is the Beauty of the Body a Herald of the Beauty of the Soul"
      • Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads
      • M H Abrams, The Psychology of Literary Invention: Unconscious Genius and Organic Growth
    • Unit III: Texts
      • Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey
      • Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
      • Blake, Milton
      • Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther
      • Rousseau, The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau
    • Unit IV: Revisiting Romanticism
      • Alfred Kazin: An Introduction to William Blake
      • Martin Heidegger: Holderlin and the Essence of Poetry
    • Texts for Self Study
      • Tristram Shandy
      • Collins: Ode to Evening, Ode to Simplicity, Ode on the poetic character
      • Gray: Ode On A Distant Prospect Of Eton College, Ode to Spring
      • Shelley, Defense of Poetry
      • Warton: The Enthusiast
      • Coleridge, Literature and the Fine Arts
      • William Doyle, The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction
      • M H Abrams The Psychology of Literary Invention: Mechanical and Organic Theories
      • Kermode, The Romantic Image    

Enlightenment and the Birth of Modern Science

                     

This course attempts to trace the central philosophical and conceptual issues in the study of The European Enlightenment and the birth of modern science. Emphasis is on reconstructing the main ideas of the period and examining the literature of that age in relation to these ideas. As the second in a four-part paper, this is an attempt to acquaint students with the cultural and intellectual ideas that have shaped the modern western culture. Alongside the literary appreciation of texts, it is expected that students will also learn to appreciate the political and social contexts which the shape the ideas represented in these texts. Selections include literary and non-literary texts from the period and critical and scholarly works from recent times which attempt to throw new light on the period. A selection of texts for self study has been suggested which will help students gain more in depth knowledge about the issue treated in the in the course.

    • Unit I: Introduction to Themes and Issues
      • Kant, What is Enlightenment?
      • Foucault, What is Enlightenment?
    • Unit II: Key Ideas
      • Paine, The Rights of Man
      • The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen
      • Descartes, Meditations I and II
    • Unit III: Texts
      • Bacon, The New Science
      • Vico, The New Science Book I
      • Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Paras 125-149)
      • Pope, An Essay on Man
      • Addison, On Wit
    • Unit IV: Revisiting the Enlightenment
      • Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
        • Chapter 1: Preliminary Demarcation of a Type of Bourgeois Public Sphere
        • Chapter 2: Social Structure of the Public Sphere
    • Texts for Self Study
      • Bentham, The Principles of Utility
      • Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
      • Reynolds, Discourse on Art
      • Rousseau, The Social Contract
      • Condorcet, The Perfectability of Man
      • Foucault, Omnes Et Singulatim   

Renaissance Humanism

         

This course attempts to trace the central philosophical and conceptual issues in the study of renaissance thought. Emphasis is on reconstructing the main ideas of the period and examining the literature of that age in relation to these ideas. As the first in a four-part paper, this is an attempt to acquaint students with the cultural and intellectual ideas that have shaped the modern western culture. Alongside the literary appreciation of texts, it is expected that students will also learn to appreciate the political and social contexts which the shape the ideas represented in these texts. Selections include literary and non-literary texts from the period and critical and scholarly works from recent times which attempt to throw new light on the period. A selection of texts for self study has been suggested which will help students gain more in depth knowledge about the issue treated in the in the course.


  • Unit I: Introduction to themes and Issues
    • Quentin Skinner, The Ideal of Liberty in The Foundations of Modern Political Thought
    • Stephen Greenblatt, Introduction to Renaissance Self Fashioning
  • Unit II: Key Ideas
    • Umberto Eco, On Beauty Chapter 3 – Beauty as Proportion and Harmony
    • Sir Thomas More, Utopia, Book II: Of the Religions of Utopians, Of their magistrates
    • Francis Bacon, The New Atlantis
  • Unit III: Texts
    • John Milton, Paradise Lost-Book IX
    • Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, Paradiso, Canto 11.
    • Christopher Marlowe, Dr Faustus
    • William Shakespeare, The Tempest
  • Unit IV: Revisiting the Renaissance
    • Stanley Fish, Surprised by Sin, chap. 1
    • Eric Auerbach, Dante: Poet of the Secular World
    • Anthony Grafton, The New Science and the Traditions of Humanism
  • Texts for Self Study
    • Dekker, Rowley and Ford, The Witch of Edmonton
    • Thomas Harriot, Report of the New Found Land of Virginia
    • Desiderius Erasmus, The Praise of Folly and Other Writings
    • Select writings of Petrarch
    • Machiavelli, Selected Political Writings, 24, 25, 26
    • Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy
    • R W Southern, Scholastic Humanism in 'Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe'
    • The Complete Essays of Montaigne