[Reader-list] Call for Applications: ‘Researching the Contemporary’ 2015

[The Sarai Programme]

The Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS)
<http://www.csds.in/> invites applications for its two-month Course on
‘*Researching
the Contemporary*’. This cross-disciplinary Course will critically examine
the formation of the contemporary and its multiple histories, ideologies,
forms and affects. The three courses offered will enable participants to
familiarize themselves with concepts, theories and methods that help
analyse the contemporary. These include:



*The Work of Theory: Thinking Across Traditions*

*Course Instructors: *Aditya Nigam
<http://www.csds.in/faculty_aditya_nigam.htm>, Prathama Banerjee
<http://www.csds.in/faculty_prathama_banerjee.htm>, Rakesh Pandey
<http://www.csds.in/faculty_rakesh_pandey.htm>

The term ‘theory’ immediately brings to mind names such as Plato, Kant,
Hegel, Husserl, Marx and so on.  That is, theory appears as a particular
body of philosophical thought coming to us from Europe and globally
relevant in its scope. To us theory therefore comes as a given body of
knowledge, as though the essentials have already been settled. In this
course, we shift our attention away from western theory as such and ask the
prior question – namely, what it is to theorize, what is the work that
theorization accomplishes.  We discuss the practice of theorizing by
passing through histories and experiences of the global south as well as
through alternative theoretical possibilities inherent in other traditions,
be they Chinese or Latin American or Arabo-Persian. By using the phrase
‘thinking across traditions’, we imply that good theory and new theory must
shake off its dependence on a single, uncontaminated metaphysical tradition
and on a single, dominant historical narrative of modernity.



*The Urban Experience*

*Course Instructor: *Awadhendra Sharan
<http://www.csds.in/faculty_awadhendra_sharan.htm>

This course shall focus on the making of the urban modern in India and its
relationship to theories of global urbanism. Students will be introduced
both to the formal dimensions of city making and the unintended
consequences of modernist plans and technological transformations. Changing
urban spatial imaginaries, as these are inflected by gender, environmental,
health and aesthetic concerns, shall be discussed. Attention will be paid
to the place of the rural within contemporary urban imaginaries.



*Media & Materiality: The Digital Sensorium*

*Course Instructor: *Ravi Sundaram
<http://www.csds.in/faculty_ravi_sundaram.htm>

The ‘digital’ has become the lens through which life is increasingly being
framed: the personal and the political, money and consumption, memory and
distraction: the list is endless. By mobilising media and cultural theory,
this course seeks to understand the place of the digital within a larger
debate on materiality. Themes include the media event, circulation, memory,
the political and violence.



This is an intensive Course with compulsory readings and class discussions.
Course materials will be made available. Participants are expected to make
presentations and participate in a workshop at the end of the course
period. A participation certificate will be awarded upon successful
completion.

The Course will be conducted over 8 weeks between 1 July – 31 August 2015.
Classes will be held at CSDS on week-day afternoons, three days a week,
from 2.30-5.30 pm.

Applications are invited from MPhil/PhD students as well as independent
researchers. As part of your application please submit your C.V. and a
1000-word description of your research question/topic.

Selected out-station participants shall be provided with roundtrip travel
expenses (3-tier AC) and a stipend of Rs.25,000/-.

*Deadline: 30 April 2015.*

Applications should be sent to: teaching at csds.in

For further details please check: www.csds.in