Walking In and Out of the Archive: Recording the Small Voice of History (1 credit Course) (25 marks) by Professor Shahid Amin, Visiting Research Professor, DD Kosambi Chair from December 04- 18th December 2015

  • Goa University

    DD Kosambi Chair in Interdisciplinary Studies

    VRPP

    Course: HSO 151 Walking In and Out of the Archive: Recording the Small Voice of History

     

    Credits: 01 (15 contact hours; 25 Marks)

     

    Course Instructor: Shahid Amin (M.A., Delhi; D.Phil. Oxon.) taught history at the University of Delhi, 1985-2015.    He has been a Fellow at Stanford Humanities Centre, Shelby Cullom Davis Centre, Princeton University and the Institute of Advanced Studies, Berlin, Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago and Columbia University, Rajni Kothari Chair at CSDS, Delhi and Visiting Research Professor, D D. Kosambi Chair, Goa University. His publications include Event, Metaphor, Memory: Chauri Chaura, 1922-1992 (1995 & 2006), ed. A Concise Encyclopaedia of North Indian Peasant Life (2005) and Writing Alternative Histories: A View from India (2002).  His most recent work, Conquest & Communitythe afterlife of warrior saint Ghazi Miyan was published by Orient BlackSwan, Delhi in August 2015.  He has co-edited Nimnvargiya prasangbhag ek-do (1995-2000), and also authored the Hindustani dialogue of the feature film Karvaan, directed by Pankaj Butalia, starring Nasiruddin Shah.

    Shahid Amin photo for Goa

     

    Objectives: This one credit course aims to familiarize students (at post-graduate level, but also advance undergraduates) with some of the challenging issues thrown up by the practice of researching and the writing histories of the unlettered – men and women who produce goods and services, (both outside and inside the household) and not documents.

     Online Registration Link

    Background Reading: Bernard S Cohn, “India: the social anthropology of a civilization’, in Bernard Cohn Omnibus (Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2004; second edn. 2008), pp. 1-164. People with a history or non-history background, both will benefit from a reading of this short classic essay by one of the doyens of modern south Asian history.

    Date, venue and time of sessions

    Theme

    Recommended Reading

    Session: 1Date: 4th December, FridayTime: 3.30 pm – 5.30 p.m.Venue: Seminar Hall: Social Sciences Block, Goa University

    Introduction & Kosambi on  Fieldwork

    1.  D.D. Kosambi, An Introduction to the Study of Indian History, Delhi: Popular Book Depot, 1956, Chapter 1, “Scope and Methods”, 1-16. Also illustrations and photographs2. D.D. Kosambi,  The Culture and Civilization of Ancient India in Historical Outline, London: Routledge, London, 1970  (Indian Reprint 1972), Chapter 1 “The Historical Perspective”, 1-25 Also illustrations and photographs
    Session: 2Date: 7th December, MondayTime: 3.30 pm – 5.30 p.m.

     

    Venue: Conference Hall, Administrative Building, Goa University

     

    Reading the Archive

    1. 1. Ranajit Guha, “The Small Voice of History” in Guha, The Small Voice of History, Delhi: Permanent Black, 2009, Chapter 14, 304-317
    2. 2. Ranajit Guha, “The Career of Anti-God in Heaven and  on Earth” in Guha, Small Voice, Chapter 11, 239-265
    Session: 3Date: 9th December, WednesdayTime: 3.30 pm – 5.30 p.m.Venue: Conference Hall, Administrative Building, Goa University

     

    Language, History and the State

    1. 1. Shahid Amin, “Some Considerations on Evidence, Language and History”, Indian History Congress Symposium Paper, 1994.
    2. 2. Ranajit Guha, “Two Campaigns” in Guha, Small Voice, Chapter 39, 612-628.

     

    Session: 4Date: 11th December, FridayTime: 3.30 pm – 5.30 p.m.Venue: Conference Hall, Administrative Building, Goa University

     

    Law and Judicial Sentence

     

    1. 1. Shahid Amin, Approver’s Testimony, Judicial Discourse: A Case Study of Chauri Chaura, Subaltern Studies 5, Delhi: OUP, 1987
    2. 2. Upendra Baxi, “‘The State’s Emissary’: The State of Law in Subaltern Studies, Subaltern Studies 7, Delhi: OUP, 1992, 247- 264
    Session: 5Date: 14th December, MondayTime: 3.30 pm – 5.30 p.m.Venue: Conference Hall, Administrative Building, Goa University

     

    Peasant Nationalism and Subaltern Memory

     

    1. 1. Shahid Amin, ‘Remembering Chauri Chaura: Notes from Historical Fieldwork’, in Ranajit Guha (ed), Subaltern Studies Reader, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997, 179-239. ( South Asia Edition: Delhi, Oxford University Press)

     

    Session: 6Date: 16th December, WednesdayTime: 3.30 pm – 5.30 p.m.Venue: Conference Hall, Administrative Building, Goa University

     

     

    The Historian at the Present Sites of Past Events

     

    1. Alessandro Portelli, ‘Pecularities of Oral History’, History Workshop, no. 12 (Autumn, 1981), pp. 96-107; also available as ‘What Makes Oral History Different’, in the below book by Portelli, 45-58; to download go to: http://tristero.typepad.com/sounds/files/portelli.pdf
    2.  Alessandro  Portelli, ‘Research as an experiment in Equality’, 29-45
    3.  Alessandro Portelli, ‘The Death of Luigo Trustuli: Memory and the Event’, in Alessandro Portelli, The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 1-29
    4.  Alessandro Portelli, ‘Time in Oral History’, in ibid.,  pp. 59-80

     

    Session: 7Date: 18th December, FridayTime: 3.30 pm – 5.30 p.m.Venue: Conference Hall, Administrative Building, Goa University

    Unsettling the Household

    The Dilemma or ‘Duvidha’ and Other Stories by Vijay danDetha, Translated by Ruth Vanita, Delhi: Manushi Prakashan, 1997, 145-169.Duvidha: a film by Mani Kaul (available on You tube)

     

    Participation: Participation is open for general public, students and faculty members for which a certificate will be provided subject to minimum attendance of 75%.

     

    Participation for credit course: Not more than 25 students; ONLY FOR PG Students of Goa University under CBCS.

    Teaching and Evaluation for credit course: Teaching will consist of a discussion during the contact hours of each of the readings for the seven themes, with one/two ‘students’ making a short presentation, followed by the instructor’s opening up the theme for wider comments and analysis by ‘the class’. Every student will be expected to have written a short one-two page statement after doing the readings for the seven themes. Individual candidates will be encouraged to then take up one of the theme for a longer paper, for which additional and supplemental readings will be suggested in the class.

    Evaluation will not be based on an end of course examination; instead 10 marks (short one-two statement on the readings for each of the seven themes, plus discussions during the seven sessions), and SEA of 15 marks (end of the course longer essay).

     

     

    Public Lecture: “Recording the Bhashas and Bolis of Colonial India: Sir George A Abraham, Ram Gharib Chaube and the Making of the Great Linguistic Survey of India”, in association with ICG, Donapaula, to be delivered at ICG (Date to be announced)

     

     

     

     


     

     

     

     

    Approved Syllabus for this course by BoS in History

    Course: HSO 151 Walking In and Out of the Archive: Recording the Small Voice of History

    Credits: 01 (15 contact hours; 25 Marks)

    Course Instructor: Shahid Amin, Former Professor of History at the University of Delhi and Visiting Research Professor, D D. Kosambi Chair, Goa University.

    Objectives: This one credit course aims to familiarize students (at post-graduate level, but also advance undergraduates) with some of the challenging issues thrown up by the practice of researching and the writing histories of the unlettered – men and women who produce goods and services, (both outside and inside the household) and not documents.

    1:  Introduction & Kosambi on Fieldwork.

    2: Reading the Archive

    3: Language, History and the State

    4: Law and Judicial Sentence

    5: Peasant Nationalism and Subaltern Memory

    6: The Historian at the Present Sites of Past Events

    7:  Unsettling the Household

     

    Teaching and Evaluation: Teaching will consist of a discussion during the contact hours of each of the readings for the seven themes, with one/two ‘students’ making a short presentation, followed by the instructor’s opening up the theme for wider comments and analysis by ‘the class’. Every student will be expected to have written a short one-two page statement after doing the readings for the seven themes. Individual candidates will be encouraged to then take up one of the theme for a longer paper, for which additional and supplemental readings will be suggested in the class.

    Evaluation will not be based on an end of course examination; instead 10 marks (short one-two statement on the readings for each of the seven themes, plus discussions during the seven sessions), and SEA of 15 marks (end of the course longer essay).

    Suggested Readings:

    1. Amin, Shahid. “Some Considerations on Evidence, Language and History”, Indian History Congress Symposium Paper, 1994.
    2. –––––––. “Approver’s Testimony, Judicial Discourse: A Case Study of Chauri Chaura”, in Ranajit Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies V: Writings on South Asian History and Society. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987.
    3. –––––––. “Remembering Chauri Chaura: Notes from Historical Fieldwork”, in Ranajit Guha  (ed), A Subaltern Studies Reader: 1986–1995. Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1997.
    4. Baxi, Upendra. “‘The State’s Emissary’: The State of Law in Subaltern Studies”, in Partha Chatterjee and Gyanendra Pandey (eds), Subaltern Studies VII: Writings on South Asian History and Society. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992.
    5. Cohn, Bernard S. “India: the social anthropology of a civilization’, in Bernard S. Cohn Omnibus. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004.
    6. Davis, Natalie Zemon. The Return of Martin Guerre. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1983.
    7. Detha, Vijaydan. The Dilemma and Other Stories (Translated by Ruth Vanita. New Delhi: Manushi Prakashan, 1997.
    8. Guha, Ranajit, The Small Voice of History. Delhi: Permanent Black, 2009.
    9. Kosambi, D.D. An Introduction to the Study of Indian History. Delhi: Popular Book Depot, 1956.
    10. –––––––. The Culture and Civilization of Ancient India in Historical Outline. London: Routledge, 1970 (Indian Reprint 1972).
    11.  Portelli, Alessandro. The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991).

     

    Suggested Film:

    Duvidha: a film by Mani Kaul (available on You tube)