JUPS 250-01: Emotion, Identity, and Agency in South Asia

Course Description
Georgetown University
Spring 2004

Instructor: Maggie Ronkin Class Meetings: T, Th 11:40-12:55 ICC 204B Office: 409 New North Office Hours: TBA E-mail: ronkinmATgeorgetownDOTedu

1.0 Course Overview

This course draws from ethnographic writings on South Asia to investigate: (1) constructions of emotion, identity, and agency as tied to discursive practices, (2) the culture, politics, and ethics of representing these phenomena, and (3) contributions of the texts to understanding social life, sociocultural change, and relationships between researchers and those researched. The selected writings exemplify an ethnographic perspective in which culture is viewed as emergent, rather than essentialized, and subjectivity and human agency are seen as shifting, multiply voiced practices. In addition, the writings address social inequality and justice by recovering and depicting modes of expression that have long been understudied, trivialized, mythologized, and denied. Our sites of inquiry extend from the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan and rural Nepal to South India, while nodes of social organization range from families and local groups to social categories, such as gender, class, and caste, to postcolonial nations and global development agencies. Linguistically, we encounter speakers of Iranian, Indic, and Dravidian languages, all of whom deploy languages as instruments of subjectivity and agency and some of whom are intensely passionate about language itself as a locus of identity and resistance. Chronologically, the texts span a decade of empirical and interpretive work by scholars who have made important contributions to ethnography by researching:

• the culturally encoded construction and performance of emotion among Paxtun women through exchanges of illness and misfortune narratives—gham performances—that maintain speakers’ honor and family standing;

• the poetics of resistance in songs, stories, and personal narratives that North Indian women perform, in which they infuse evaluations of experiences of gender and kinship relations with alternative moral perspectives;

• discourses that reveal how the emotional attachment of Tamil language devotion historically transformed the language into a goddess, mother, and maiden, as well as an instrument of empowerment, conflict, and separatism;

• historical narratives through which Indian and Pakistani school children are socialized into nationalist discourses with different stock heroes and "facts" about the freedom struggle, and implications for teaching peace;

• love letters as instruments of literacy that have altered young rural Nepalis’ senses of self with new ideas of personhood, agency, cultural value, and change that are drawn from global discourses of development;

• a Pakistani red light district as seen through the eyes of an American-educated activist, who aims to expose myths about and link the plight of stigmatized sex workers to power relations experienced by women of all classes, and

• the new English translation, from Hindi, of the autobiography of Joothan, a middle-class Dalit who bears witness to the oppression and transformation of consciousness that he has experienced as a member of a stigmatized group.

2.0 Texts, by First Date of Publication

Note: Six of the seven books below are required; students will have the choice of reading Saeed or Valmiki.

Grima, Benedicte. 1992/1993/2004. The Performance of Emotion Among Paxtun Women: ‘The Misfortunes Which Have Befallen Me’. Modern Middle East Series No. 17, Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press and Karachi: Oxford University Press, Pakistan.

Raheja, Gloria Goodwin and Ann Grodzins Gold. 1994. Listen to the Heron’s Words: Reimagining Gender and Kinship in North India. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.

Ramaswamy, Sumathi. 1997. Passions of the Tongue: Language Devotion in Tamil India, 1891-1970. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.

Kumar, Krishna. 2001. Prejudice and Pride: School Histories of the Freedom Struggle in India and Pakistan. New Delhi: Viking Penguin Books, India.

Ahearn, Laura M. 2001/2003/2004. Invitations to Love: Literacy, Love Letters, and Social Change in Nepal. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Saeed, Fouzia. 2002. Taboo!: The Hidden Culture of a Red Light Area. New York and Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Valmiki, Omprakash. 2003. Joothan: An Untouchable's Life. Translated by Arun Prabha Mukherjee. New York: Columbia University Press.

3.0 Fit with the Goals of PJP and the Audience

This is a core course and social structure elective in the Program on Justice and Peace (PJP) that is cross-listed in Linguistics, Sociology and Anthropology, and Women’s Studies. That its home is PJP is best reflected by its fit with two goals in the PJP statement Justice and Peace: Study, Act, Reflect, and Analyze: (1) "ecumenism based on the acceptance of all people and creeds as equal and deserving of dignity," and (2) Georgetown’s explicit pedagogical emphasis on the link between scholarship and "social ethics, justice, and service to others".

The course complements PJP’s foundational course, and will particularly interest students whose research interests may center on:

• the discursive turn in ethnographic inquiry, along with ethnographic methods and modes of representing others;

• inequality and justice in non-Western contexts and in South Asia, in particular;

• expressions of identity, agency, and morality by actors who are considered to be underrepresented, marginalized, and oppressed, and

• causes of conflict and prospects for peace in one of the world’s most volatile regions.

In addition, the course will attract diverse students: those interested in extending their values education through scholarship and those considering careers in international development and advocacy. Students with background knowledge of South Asia are welcome to enroll; however, such knowledge is not required or expected. Supplementary films and guest speakers may be selected after assessing students’ backgrounds and interests.

Prerequisites: None except genuine interest; junior standing or permission of the instructor advised.

4.0 Course Structure and Methodology

4.1 Sample Course Schedule (two classes per week over twelve weeks)

Key

4.2 Description of Requirements

Mandatory class attendance: Students must attend class regularly and arrive on time. They will not be penalized for missing class twice. Each additional unexcused absence will result in the reduction of the final grade by one full letter grade.

Preparation for each class: This is a rigorous reading course. Preparation for each class includes reading the assigned reading and writing comments of a few paragraphs summarizing its main points. As appropriate, comments should also focus on the author’s assumptions, the arguments and their implications, and reflections and related experiences.

Participation in class discussions: Participation in online electronic discussion boards and in-class discussions includes sharing ideas and questions, and responding thoughtfully to others. Students are welcome to use prepared comments and encouraged to do so if it helps them communicate.

Four five-page reflection papers: These are formal writing assignments, five pages double-spaced and word-processed. They will be assigned at least a week before they are due. Students will be asked to summarize main points of readings and perhaps other activities, and to respond thoughtfully to them.

Turning in work on time: Grades on reflection papers will automatically be dropped one full letter grade each day that the work is late.

4.3 Performance Criteria and Grading

The performance criteria that determine letter grades are the following:

• Four five-page reflection papers 80%
• Class preparation and participation 20%

University standards for evaluation appear in the Undergraduate Bulletin and equate letter grades with descriptors:

4.4 Academic Integrity

University standards of academic conduct are set forth in the Honor Pledge. Students are obliged to follow the Pledge and to become familiar with the responsibilities defined in the Honor Council Section of the Undergraduate Bulletin. Suspected violations of the Pledge will not be treated lightly.

Copyright ©2004-2006 Maggie Ronkin