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Folk, Oral, Indigenous, Popular Cultures

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Course Type Course Code No. Of Credits
Discipline Core NSUS1EN307 4

Course Coordinator and Team:                   SES Faculty

Email of course coordinator:                       pcbabed@aud.ac.in 

Pre-requisites:                                               No

Course Description: This course will look into the various songs, stories, paintings, dance, music, tapestries, folklore and rituals that circulate in tribal cultures across space and time and will discuss as to how several communities survive as communities because they are bound up by their oral epics, myths and narratives. The course will bring to the fore the songs of the itinerant street singers, the folklore and tales of the mystics, lovers, as well as those of ordinary people and will see how the folk imagination weaves tales as if it were weaving a tapestry. References in the Indian context may be made to traditional forms of narration like the Dastangoi, Qissagoi, Brihat Katha, Panchtantra and tales of different languages and regions.

Course Objectives:

  • To familiarize students to the folk, oral, indigenous and popular art forms and literature.
  • To analyze the interfaces that exist between these forms.
  • To understand the subtle distinctiveness of each form and its significance for people and communities.
  • To prepare students for a deeper understanding of these forms in a cultural relativist manner.
  • To acquaint students with the richness of textual, performative and visual texts of these four forms.

Course Outcomes:

  • To understand the chief elements/characteristics of these forms and traditions.
  • To develop deep insights into culture and its vast diversity.
  • To get acquainted to varied forms of literary expressions embedded in these forms and traditions.
  • To engage and appreciate the debates surrounding oral versus written traditions from the perspectives of these four forms.
  • To critically engage with the issues of representation, selection and omission in the literary traditions.

Brief description of the modules:

Module 1: Introduction

Introduction to forms.

Critical, Conceptual and Theoretical frameworks

Module 2: ORAL

  • Zirimu, Pio. “Oral Power and Europhone Glory: Orature, Literature, and Stolen Legacies” in Gunpoints, and Dreams: Towards a Critical Theory of the Arts and the State in Africa. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.
  • Ngugi wa. “Notes Towards a Performance Theory of Orature”. Performance Research 12.3 (2007): 4-7. Web. 11 Feb. 2013. <http://www.ohio.edu/people/hartleyg/ref/Ngugi_Orature.html>
  • Ao, Temsula. 1999. The Ao-Naga Oral Tradition. Baroda: Bhasha Publications, 1999.
  • Devy, G.N. ed. Painted Words: An Anthology of Tribal literature. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2002.
  • Creation myths: Binti and other creation myths
  • Selections from the Bhilli Mahabharat
  • Selections from the Kunkana Ramayan
  • Verses by Bhakti and Sufi poets
  • Cultural Diversity, Linguistic Plurarity and Literary Traditions in India. Ed. Sukrita Paul Kumar, Vibha S. Chauhan, Bodh Prakash, 1981.
  • Selections from Anhad Garje, 4 vols.,
  • pBitek, Okot. Song of Lawino. London: Heinemann, 1984

Module 3: INDIGENOUS

  • Carter, Asa Earl. The Education of Little Tree (1976) Mexico: University of New Mexico Press; 25th anniversary edition (August 31, 2001)
  • Devy, G.N. ed. Painted Words: An Anthology of Tribal literature. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2002.
  • Devy, G.N. The G.N. Devy Reader. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan. 2009.
  • Duane Niatum. Ed. Harper’s Anthology of Twentieth Century Native American Poetry. San Francisco: Harper, 1988.
  • Heiss, Anita and Peter Mirtin McGill. Eds. Anthology of Australian Aboriginal Literature. London: Queen’s University Press, 2008.
  • Harlem Frescos.
  • Lazmi, Kalpana. Rudali. 1993.
  • Seathl. “A Simple Philosophy”. Contemporary English. New Delhi: OUP, 1991.
  • Selections from Mahashweta Devi’s Dust on the Road: The political Writings of Mahashweta Devi
  • Promod Gupta Development at Gunpoint
  • Indegenous art forms

Module 4: FOLK

  • Dandetha,Vijay.‘Duvidha’, http://www.manushi-
  • <india.org/pdfs_issues/PDF%20files%2062/the_dilemma_short_story-vijay_dan_detha.pdf>
  • Kaul, Mani. Dir. Duvidha. 1973
  • Palekar, Amol. dir. Paheli. Red Chillies Entertainment. 2005.
  • Dangrembga, Tsitsi. Kare Kare Zvako (Long Time Ago) Mother’s Day (a Shona (African) Folk Tale
  • Gorky, Maxim. “Soviet Literature” in People’s Art in the twentieth Century: Theory and Practice. Jana Natya Manch, Delhi, 2000.
  • Gupta, Sudheer. dir. Anant Kalakar 2006.
  • Naithani, Sadhana. “The Colonizer Folklorist”. Journal of Folklore Research 34.1 (1997): 1-14.
  • Ramanujan, A. K. A Flowering Tree and Other Oral Tales from India. Berkley: University of California Press, 1997.
  • Virmani, Shabnam. dir. Had-Anhad . 2008.
  • ---. dir. Chalo Hamara Des. 2008.
  • ---. dir. Koi Sunta Hai (Someone Listens) 2008.
  • V., Propp. Morphology of the Folktale. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968.
  • This module will also discuss folk songs and folk music specifically from India.

Module 5: POPULAR

  • Anand, Vijay. dir. The Guide. Navketan Films. 1965.
  • Tamasha 2016
  • Berlin Wall graffiti
  • Chauhan, Anuja. Zoya Factor. New Delhi: Harpercollins, 2014.
  • India, a Joint Venture with India Today Group, 2008. Print.
  • Selections from: Radway, Janice. Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984.
  • Williams, Raymond. Culture and Society: 1780-1950. London: Chatto, 1958.
  • Selection from Morley, David, Chen, Kuan Hsing (ed.). Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies. London: Routledge,1996.
  • Pawling, Christopher. Ed. Popular Fiction and Social Change. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1984.
  • Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979.
  • Selections from the songs of Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Justin Beiber

Assessment Plan

S. No

Assessment

Weightage

1

Assignment (written)

25%

2

Project Presentation

25%

3

End Semester Examination

50%

References

  • Bettelheim, Bruno. Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. New York: Alfred A. Knofp, 1976.
  • Dundes, Alan. Essays in Folkloristics. Meerut: Folklore Institute, 1978.
  • Georges, Robert A. and Michael Owen Jones. Folkloristics: An Introduction.
  • Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995.
  • Jung, C.G. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968.
  • Selections from Bronislaw Malinowski’s writings on culture and ethnography
  • Joseph Campbell The Mask of Gods
  • Levi-Strauss, Claude. Structural Anthropology. 2 Vols. London: Allen Lane, 1968.
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