
- UCAS course code
- VT17
- UCAS institution code
- M20
Course unit details:
Goddesses, Demons and Stories in South Asian History: From Early Epics to the Present Day
Unit code | RELT21222 |
---|---|
Credit rating | 20 |
Unit level | Level 2 |
Teaching period(s) | Semester 2 |
Offered by | Religions & Theology |
Available as a free choice unit? | Yes |
Overview
Visit South Asia, and stories are everywhere. This course considers how history, story and religion inform one another in South Asia.
We focus on why stories are a significant part of South Asia, and why history and story is often narrated using religious or cosmological terms. Students will also explore what these narratives reveal about power, devotion, gender, storytellers and society.
Material and case studies on this unit includes authoritative and countercultural texts; women’s songs; folk performances and blockbuster television; sacred spaces; and ideas of sex and sensuality within and across different religious traditions.
As well as exploring these issues theoretically, students will also have the opportunity to engage first-hand with primary texts, including literature; animation; images; dance and oral performances.
You will also develop practical skills of teamwork and peer assessment.
Aims
- To introduce students to the wonderfully varied forms of storytelling in Indian religious and philosophical traditions, and the ways in which they relate to different historical, social and ethical contexts
- To analyse oral, written and visual forms of story-telling texts
- To develop skills in: reading, hearing, analysing and reworking primary sources; working in groups and setting goals; making creative presentations, drawing on web-based materials where appropriate
- To acquire a critical foundation that will enable the study of Indian traditions at more advanced levels
Learning outcomes
Knowledge and understanding
By the end of this course students will be able to:
- Understand ways in which stories are told and retold both within and across Indian religious traditions
- Analyse ways in which narratives are used to explore ethical and social issues in Indian traditions
Intellectual skills
By the end of this course students will be able to:
- Ask critical questions about ways in which story-telling can be used to construct and criticise group identifications, social, political and religious
- Evaluate the ethical implications of an Indian narrative
Practical skills
By the end of this course students will be able to:
- Critically employ a range of hard copy and online resources including those produced by and for Indian groups
- Undertake self and peer review (formative only)
Transferable skills and personal qualities
By the end of this course students will be able to:
- Show an ability to work in a group, to formulate a problem, devise a solution, using a creative medium and tackle issues which arise from this
- Organise your own time and priorities
Employability skills
- Analytical skills
- ¿ Analyse and appraise large amount of complex information
- Project management
- ¿ Understand the importance of working to deadlines, and integrate this into successfully balancing individual initiative and collegial collaboration
- Oral communication
- ¿ Develop and demonstrate their communication skills, including written and oral presentation
- Problem solving
- ¿ Reflect upon their experience of working on a problem and their skills in peer-support, including solving issues which arise in a team and where people have different expertise and ideas, and where conflict may arise
- Research
- ¿ Apply research skills and evaluate the success of a project
Assessment methods
Formative Essay Plan | 0% |
Essay | 50% |
Exam | 50% |
Feedback methods
Feedback method | Formative or Summative |
• Written feedback on essays 1 and 2
| Formative (1), Summative (2) |
• Additional one-to-one feedback (during consultation hour or by making an appointment) | Formative |
Recommended reading
- Suthren Hirst, Jacqueline Sita’s Story (Norwich: RMEP, 1997)
- Abbott, H. Porter, The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, second ed. 2008)
- Behl, Aditya Love’s Subtle Magic: an Indian Islamic Literary tradition 1379-1545 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012)
- Bose, Mandakranta A Woman’s Ramayana: Candravati’s Bengali Epic (London: Routledge, 2013)
- Manjhan, Madhumalati: an Indian Sufi Romance, tr. Aditya Behl and Simon Weightman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)
- Narayan, Kirin Storytellers, Saints and Scoundrels: Folk Narrative in Hindu ReligiousTeaching (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989)
- Prasad, Leela Poetics of Conduct: Oral Narrative and Moral Being in a South Indian Town (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007)
- Suthren Hirst, Jacqueline and John Zavos Religious Traditions in Modern South Asia (London: Routledge, 2011), especially chapters 4, 7b and 9 (whole book esp ch.1 will be useful if you did not do RELT 1022)
Study hours
Scheduled activity hours | |
---|---|
Lectures | 22 |
Seminars | 11 |
Independent study hours | |
---|---|
Independent study | 167 |
Teaching staff
Staff member | Role |
---|---|
Ketan Alder | Unit coordinator |