Winter Term 2012/2013

VL: “All About … India: Personal Quests, Road Movies, and Travellers’ Tales”

Mi. 14- 16 c. t.

Geb B3 2, HS 0.03

“Insofar as India is part of the Indo-European world (Sanskrit, hence Hindi, Bengali, and so forth being related to Greek, Latin, and so forth), she is part of our culture, she is non-other. But insofar as India … is geographically, racially, and politically alien to us, she is other.” (W. Doniger) 

India, marking as it does the intersection of specifically European and Indian elements, appears to be a country as ‘exotic’, ‘puzzling’, and ‘full of contrasts and contradictions’, as travellers’ tales proclaim it to be. In using transcultural and intermedial pathways, we will be looking at a variety of contemporary materials on this perennially fascinating subject, including documentary films on India made by foreigners as well as by diasporic Indians, at contemporary travel literature on the country, including documentation based on the premise of the ‘Culture Shock’ that awaits the visitor. What kind of knowledge/s about India, i.e. clichés, stereotypes, fears, and pipe dreams, do these texts seek to provide us with, and why is this so? 

Course material will either be placed in the Semesterapparat (IB) or, if otherwise inaccessible, be made available in CLIX.

 

Participation

All lecture series material to be read as follows: once right through before the first session, and a second time before the session for which the text is scheduled; regular attendance of the full lecture series; end of term written test. Please check the TAS website under "Your Studies" for guidelines, especially on note-taking during a lecture series.

 

KOLL: Studying TAS

Mi. 16-18:30 s. t.

Geb. C5 3, R. 1.20

 

All students intending to take any part of their final examinations in TAS are strongly advised to attend this colloquium. This also applies to students starting out / meanwhile engaging with their written academic work, i.e. those doing an M.A. or a B.A. thesis, or any course of LA. Study, i.e. the Staatsexamensarbeit and/or the final oral exam.

The colloquium provides a forum for the treatment of issues relevant to:

  • Academic writing skills
  • Choice of exam topics
  • Presentation of work-in-progress
  • Mock-oral exams
  • Application of TAS theories to selected texts
  • On-going analysis of contemporary critical issues in this field of study

 

Please contact m.ghosh(at)mx.uni-saarland.de for further details.

 

HS: “The Maoris: Transcultural Representation and Intermediality”

Excursion (7th to 13th October) and Blockseminars on 

Thurs. 14-18 c. t.

Geb. C5 3, R. 1.20

 

Tutorial: Claudia Kilian 

Do, 18-19 c.t.

Geb. C5 3, R. 1.20

The Maoris of Aotearoa (New Zealand), usually perceived as a traditionalist ethnic group, have long fascinated outsiders. Major exhibitions on the history of this Oceanic culture (and  its prolonged resistance to British colonial rule) are a fairly recent trend and this winter perhaps marks the end of this phase, with the Frankfurt Book Fair taking New Zealand as its focus, and several ethnological museums devoting space for only a short span of time to this minority. This seminar will, in following transcultural concerns, track varied pathways to this topic. 

In availing of the opportunities for intensive on-site study provided by current exhibitions on the Maoris, we will be visiting current exhibitions in Paris, Oxford, London and Stuttgart. This museum-oriented approach will be complemented by a focus on Anglophone Maori literature and New Zealand popular cinematic culture. In particular, two meanwhile canonical Maori texts, Witi Ihimaera’s The Whale Rider, and Alan Duff’s Once Were Warriors, will be read as novels in their own right before their respective film adaptations are examined. The insights gained from these readings will then be used to analyse the phenomenon of intermediality.

Please obtain your own copies of these books and films. Materials will either be placed in the Semesterapparat (IB) or, if otherwise inaccessible, be made available in CLIX.

PLEASE NOTE: This seminar, which will take place as a week-long excursion and two block seminars, is open to all those eligible for participation in a Hauptseminar. The mandatory orientation session was at 16 c. t. on Thursday 19th July, and the 2 block seminars are scheduled for 6th December 2012 and 7th February 2013.

Please make sure to email m.ghosh(at)mx.uni-saarland.de to sign up for the 19th July session. 

 

Participation

Regular attendance of all sessions, including the tutorial; thorough acquaintance with all the texts listed above before the first session; individual research on a relevant topic of your choice for short oral presentations / group work, to be followed up by a term paper (7500 words, in MLA format) on a research-oriented topic. Please check the TAS website under "Your Studies" for further details about oral presentation and essay writing modalities. 

 

HS: “The Lives of Princes and Outcastes: Documenting Disadvantage and Privilege in India”

Do. 14-16

Geb. C5 3, R. 1.20, 

Excursion to selected museums, and block seminar.

 

Tutorial: Cristina Cusidó-Bayo

Do. 13-14 c. t.

Geb. C5 3, R. 4.08

 

If there are two images that tend to dominate concepts of India they are surely those of an elite royalty as against the impoverished low-castes. In this seminar we will be approaching these two aspects of Indian life in a variety of ways that include reading a pair of contemporary autobiographies, one by a Maharani, Vijayaraje Scindia, titled Princess, the other text, Karukku, is the testimony of Bama, a writer who became a Catholic nun in her attempt to escape from the stigma of her status as an untouchable woman. Further, we will be looking at Mira Nair’s documentary film, Salaam Bombay, about the street children of Mumbai, alongside the Ivory/Merchant feature film, Autobiography of a Princess, with its authentic footage of princely India. This textual palette is rounded off by Aravind Adiga’s 2008 Booker Prize-winning, yet rather controversially received novel, The White Tiger.

In order to gain more immediate access to the world/s forming the focus of this seminar we will be visiting specialist museums in London and Oxford. The excursion forms an integral part of the seminar and will take place most likely from 18th – 21th January 2013.

These interrelated approaches will be complemented by a workshop (block seminar on Thursday) towards the end of the term, in which experts on the topic of autobiographical writing and film-making in an Indian context will provide us with further insights into these fields of work. 

 

Please obtain your own copies of the texts mentioned above. Materials will either be placed in the Semesterapparat (IB) or, if otherwise inaccessible, be made available in CLIX. 

 

Participation

Regular attendance of all sessions including the excursion and workshop block seminar; thorough acquaintance with all the material listed above before the first session; individual research on a relevant topic of your choice for short oral presentations / group work, followed by a term paper (7500 words, in MLA format) on a research-oriented topic. Please check the TAS website under "Your Studies" for further details about oral presentation and essay writing modalities. 

 

Please contact m.ghosh(at)mx.uni-saarland.de for further details.