Somdev Banik’s paper argues that there are broadly two kinds of university departments of English... more Somdev Banik’s paper argues that there are broadly two kinds of university departments of English studies in India, metropolitan and suburban, depending on the location of the universities. Though the curricula in most universities are canonical, with an emphasis on teaching English literature as a cultural product, learners in suburban India, unlike their metropolitan counterparts, reject the Macaulayian agenda of appropriating the text, by simply resisting to read the text. While their Anglocentric teachers construe this disaffection in those learners as their ineligibility, these students go on to prefer language studies over literature studies as instruments of their social mobility.
The students of English literature are often found to be lacking in interest when it comes to the... more The students of English literature are often found to be lacking in interest when it comes to the reading of literary texts in their academic syllabus. They would rather approach the texts through interpretations, summaries, prepared answers for suggested questions etc instead of directly reading the texts themselves. Though this has definitely to do with their inadequacy in handling the language, it is also a result of their cultural alienation from the anglicized context, the product of which these literary texts are. This indifference to the texts is on the other hand taken to be a sign of certain 'lack' in those students by the academic fraternity in a typical colonial mentality. This paper attempts to analyse this resistance from a postcolonial perspective.
Somdev Banik’s paper argues that there are broadly two kinds of university departments of English... more Somdev Banik’s paper argues that there are broadly two kinds of university departments of English studies in India, metropolitan and suburban, depending on the location of the universities. Though the curricula in most universities are canonical, with an emphasis on teaching English literature as a cultural product, learners in suburban India, unlike their metropolitan counterparts, reject the Macaulayian agenda of appropriating the text, by simply resisting to read the text. While their Anglocentric teachers construe this disaffection in those learners as their ineligibility, these students go on to prefer language studies over literature studies as instruments of their social mobility.
The students of English literature are often found to be lacking in interest when it comes to the... more The students of English literature are often found to be lacking in interest when it comes to the reading of literary texts in their academic syllabus. They would rather approach the texts through interpretations, summaries, prepared answers for suggested questions etc instead of directly reading the texts themselves. Though this has definitely to do with their inadequacy in handling the language, it is also a result of their cultural alienation from the anglicized context, the product of which these literary texts are. This indifference to the texts is on the other hand taken to be a sign of certain 'lack' in those students by the academic fraternity in a typical colonial mentality. This paper attempts to analyse this resistance from a postcolonial perspective.
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