THE essays in this book constitute the preliminary outcome of a research project at The English & Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. The project is part of a research cluster comprising enquiries and explorations into the pedagogy and praxis of English literary studies in India. (Technologies of Literary Pedagogy, https://www.efluniversity.ac.in/RAC-Login-Cluster-4. php)
The thrust area of the research is literary pedagogy, dealing with textual canons, critical traditions and theoretical frameworks employed in the discipline of literary studies. The motivation for this research stems from the crisis facing English studies, and the humanities in general, due to the dominance of STEM education. In the Indian context, this crisis follows a different trajectory as English has a strong presence in tertiary education (at least in terms of enrolment), due mainly to its market demand. Literary studies, however, is plagued by issues of cultural relevance and relatability: debates on why it is taught, what is taught and how it is to be taught continue to pose challenges in today's technologized learning environment.
The research project is an attempt to explore "alternative critical discourses" on conceptualizations of "literature" and "criticism" enframing the discipline of English literary studies in India, and "canonical reconfigurations" of the predominantly Anglo-American canon of literary studies, leading to culturally non-alienating pathways to the study and appreciation of literature. The essays in this book developed from presentations at the preliminary webinar held under the research project. The conceptual basis for the webinar is explained hereinunder.
Questions of the Literary Discourse, Institution and the Context.
Is literary theory/criticism an independent, an allied, or a subdiscipline of literary studies? What is its relationship to literature? What is its role in literary pedagogy? These questions have been asked and answered copiously from within the context and sites of production of theory/criticism, i.e. the West, but seldom from within the context of its reception, i.e. non-Western cultures.
The discipline of literary theory/criticism that thrives today (spanning the classical Greco-Roman to twentieth-century European and American schools of theory) is a European legacy stemming from its intellectual histories and ways of perceiving the text and the world. The celebrated twentieth-century theory wars in Europe and America were essentially fraternal-sibling conflicts within theological/philosophical/political pasts and presents; in these academic skirmishes, interpretive theories and their concomitant methods rose and fell, replacing or reinstating concepts and ideas, underscoring the reach and importance of theory. Concurrently, a distinct anti-theory movement also flourished, at least from the 1970s, comprising largely formalist, stylistic, aesthetic, politically conservative and neo-conservative revivalisms as a reaction to what were perceived as political/ideological, non-literary approaches. In the twenty-first century, with the rise of cultural studies, more and more disciplines are enlisted as "theoretical approaches" and theory itself is expanding its terrain beyond the literary. In such a scenario, how are non-Western cultures located in this framework of conflict? What are their stakes in the theory/culture wars? Are they simply co-opted as subjects of "cultural studies"? Are they mere receivers and propagators of this European legacy of theory/criticism? Do their own inquiries into literature and the discourse of criticism, if any, get any attention and space?
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