Preamble / Objectives (Optional):
The Course will allow students to understand the evolution of the concept of
“Culture”. Various theoreticians over the years have provided ideas and interpreted
culture using new paradigms. As the word is one of the most over used word in
English language the implications of using the word in varied context needs to be
investigated. Students will be introduced to various thinkers, the context in which
these thinkers developed the theories and the relevance of allowing the word to
evolve further.
Course Content/ Syllabus:
Edward B Tylor: the complex whole; Raymond Williams: Culture and Society; Stuart
Hall: reception theory; Foucault: Power and Social Change; Homi Bhaba :Locations
of Culture, Commitment to theory; James Clifford: Twientieth Century Ethnography;
Clifford Geertz: Symbolic Anthropology; Textualising culture, Landscape as cultural
product; Disappearing People; Sacred Ecology.
