Professional Documents
Culture Documents
201
6
Introduction
It is now commonplace to begin any thinking about the modern by marking its
capaciousness; by announcing that we are helpless around its multiple and changing
significations. In some constitutive sense, perhaps, we are all modern, whether it is a
disposition and/or characteristic of the individuals. Given that, is it best to approach the
modern as a normative ideal or as a historical phenomenon? Or, is it a certain
configuration of the institutional order? These are questions on which it is difficult to take
explicit positions.
The introductory segment (over six sessions) strives to get a handle on this debate and
to introduce some key terms through which we will investigate the modern.
In this years instalment of the course, we propose to grapple with the modern through
three categories: as
1) institution
2) value and
3) practice
Further, we propose to focus particularly on one institutionthe marketplace; one
valueautonomy and one practiceself-making
Course Details
This, along with the readings will be furnished by individual instructors
Evaluation
If learning to do research can be thought of as comprising
a) operationalizing a vague thought into a researchable question,
b) bringing together a coherent and focused set of scholarship on the question
c) producing and engaging with data, and finally
d) analyze and work towards an argument
Our evaluation in this course is geared towards getting you to doing these tasks in both
disparate and consolidated fashion.
You will be called upon to do
a) 4 assignments (2 for ramesh; 1 for sharmila)
b) 1 project (jointly evaluated)
201
6