[Reader-list] Invitation to a book discussion on 'Critical Studies in Politics: Exploring Sites, Selves, Power'

[Praveen Rai]

*Centre for the Study of Developing Societies*

invites you to a book discussion on



*Critical Studies in Politics: Exploring Sites, Selves, Power *

*(Edited by Nivedita Menon, Aditya Nigam and Sanjay Palshikar)*

Discussants: Sudipta Kaviraj, Sanjay Palshikar and Rajshree Chandra



Chair: *Peter deSouza*

Friday, 8 August 2014, 4 pm


Seminar Room

CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road

Delhi 110054

Please join us for tea at 3.30 pm

_______________________________________________________

 *Critical Studies in Politics* is a collection of essays that attempts to
redefine the boundaries of political science. It brings into view objects
of study not normally visible to the discipline, through a creative
engagement with other disciplinary formations.



The volume is divided into four broad intersecting sections. The question
of constructions of selfhood emerges as a central pre-occupation in the
first titled 'Exploring Selfhood'. The essays in this section-ranging from
the modern Dalit self to the construction of the Asura over time -
investigate the construction of the Self in the face of the Other; and
looks at selfhood, not so much as a question of past cultural memory but as
self-fashioning in the present.



The second section-'Spatiality and Power'-analyses the idea of spatiality
and explains its relationship with power. It discusses issues ranging from
urbanisation and the politics of SEZs, to notions of core and periphery in
the margins, and to the entry of cinema halls in Delhi and the formation of
the 'public'. The third section titled 'State and Governmentality' examines
state practices as they render legible various aspects of populations -
from prison labour under colonialism to the organisation of official memory
by the postcolonial state. 'Reconfiguring Categories of Thought'-the final
section-seeks to unsettle conceptual categories such as 'capitalism',
'science', 'politics' and 'development'.

Praveen Rai
Academic Secretary
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
29, Rajpur Road
Delhi - 110054
Phone: 91-11-23942199
Fax: 91-11-23943450
www.csds.in