Research Methodology for CLTS

Course Type	Course Code	No. Of Credits
Foundation Core	SOL3CL303	4

Semester and Year Offered: Monsoon semester, 2017

Course Coordinator and Team: Shad Naved (and Radha Chakravarty)

Email of course coordinator: shad[at]aud[dot]ac[dot]in

Pre-requisites: None.

Aim: This course is designed to introduce the student to the disciplinary methodology of Comparative Literature and Translation Studies and familiarize them with its practice.

Course Outcomes:

Demonstrate competence in the protocols of humanities-based research, i.e. an ability to ask a question that is relevant to the humanities.
Access basic methods available in the most current versions of comparative literary study.
Recognize translation as both method and practice in the study of cross-cultural literary exchanges.
Learn the basic ethics of research in the humanities as a conversation between different literary and cultural sensibilities.

Brief description of modules/ Main modules:

Module 1: Mechanics of Citation, Bibliography & Referencing. How to build an argument
Through this module, researchers will be introduced to the stylistics of writing, referencing and systematic formulation of a research document.

Module 2: Contemporary Trends in CLTS Research
Since Comparative Literature and Translation Studies is an emergent field, the readings for this module need regular updating. Consequently, select readings will be used as an entry point for an engaged exploration of current research in the field.
Module 3: Methods of Comparison and Translation
Introduces the history and modes of research in Comparative Literature and Translation Studies in India and other parts of the world.

Module 4: Ways of Reading
Through selected essays, researchers will be familiarized with different paradigms of critical reading in literary studies.

Module 5: Ethics of Research
This module aims at generating awareness of the researcher’s social responsibility, and the interventionist potential of research, especially in the humanities.

Assessment Details with weights:

Class participations (including presentations/response papers/class discussion): 20%.
Guided reading/book review 40%
Long Paper: 40%

Reading List:

Module 1 and 2
Kaviraj, Sudipta. The Invention of Private Life: Literature and Ideas. New Delhi:
Permanent Black, 2015.
Amin, Shahid. Conquest and Community: The Afterlife of Warrior Saint Ghazi Miyan. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2015.
Apter, Emily. TheTranslation Zone: A New Comparative Literature. Princeton, 2005.

Module 3
Das, Sisir K, and JānsiJayiṃs. Studies in Comparative Literature: Theory, Culture and
Space. New Delhi: Creative Books, 2007.
Ramakrishnan, E.V., Harish Trivedi, and Chandra Mohan. Interdisciplinary Alter-Natives in Comparative Literature. New Delhi: Sage, 2013.
Damrosch, David, Natalie Melas, and Mbongiseni Buthelezi. The Princeton Sourcebook in Comparative Literature: From the European Enlightenment to the Global Present.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009.
Bassnett, Susan. Translation Studies. London: Methuen, 1980. Schreibman, Susan, Raymond G. Siemens, and John Unsworth. A Companion to Digital Humanities. Malden, Mass: Blackwell Pub, 2004.

Module 4
Marxism
Aijaz, Ahmad. In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures. New Delhi: OUP, 1992.
Gender Studies
Ezell, Margaret J. M. Writing Women's Literary History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
Chakravarty, Radha. Feminism and Contemporary Women Writers: Rethinking Subjectivity. New Delhi: Routledge, 2008.
Structuralism and Poststructuralism
Barthes, Roland, and Stephen Heath. Image, Music, Text. New York: Hill and Wang, 1977.
John, Mary. Discrepant Dislocations: Feminism, Theory and Postcolonial Histories. Berkeley, 1996.
Psychoanalytical Criticism
Kakar, Sudhir. Young Tagore: The Making of a Genius. New Delhi: Penguin, 2013.
Rose, Jacqueline. On Not Being Able to Sleep: Psychoanalysis and the Modern World. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Deconstruction
Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.
Spivak, Gayatri C., and Lara Choksey. Readings. London: Seagull, 2014.
Postcolonialism
Ngugi, wa T. Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. London: J. Currey, 1986.
Mufti, Aamir. Forget English!:Orientalisms and World Literature. Harvard, 2016.

Module 5
Charles Hale, ‘What is Activist Research?’ SSRC, vol. 2, no. 1-2, 2001.
Dutta, P.K. ‘Teaching Keats in Delhi’. Heterogeneities: Identity Formation in Modern India. Tulika, 2010.

ADDITIONAL REFERENCE:
Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. New York : Modern
Language Association of America, 2009.
The Chicago Manual of Style. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003