Spring 2025 Middle East UN2650 section 001

GANDHI & HIS INTERLOCUTORS

GANDHI & HIS INTERLOCUTOR

Call Number 11696
Day & Time
Location
TR 1:10pm-2:25pm
To be announced
Points 4
Grading Mode Standard
Approvals Required None
Instructor Sourav Chatterjee
Type LECTURE
Method of Instruction In-Person
Course Description

Gandhi is in two senses an extraordinary figure: he was the most important leader of anti-imperialist movements in the twentieth century; yet, his ideas about modernity, the state, the industrial economy, technology, humanity’s place in nature, the presence of God - were all highly idiosyncratic, sometimes at odds with the main trends of modern civilization. How did a man with such views come to have such an immense effect on history? In some ways, Gandhi is an excellent entry into the complex history of modern India - its contradictions, achievements, failures, possibilities. This course will be primarily a course on social theory, focusing on texts and discursive exchanges between various perceptions of modernity in India. It will have two parts: the first part will be based on reading Gandhi’s own writings; the second, on the writings of his main interlocutors. It is hoped that through these exchanges students will get a vivid picture of the intellectual ferment in modern India, and the main lines of social and political thought that define its intellectual culture. The study in this course can be followed up by taking related courses in Indian political thought, or Indian politics or modern history. This course may not be taken as Pass/D/Fail.

Web Site Vergil
Department Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies
Enrollment 60 students (60 max) as of 11:06AM Saturday, December 7, 2024
Status Full
Subject Middle East
Number UN2650
Section 001
Division Interfaculty
Note Students in MDES UN2650 must register for MDES UN2651.
Section key 20251MDES2650W001