Readings and Assignments, July 5-23

We begin in a rather freewheeling fashion, with some theory, poetry and non-fiction.
Attendance was sparse on day 1, but we're just getting started with the semester, and I'm sure that everyone will be tuned in by Monday the 5th of July (BANDH?!).
Since I will be at King's College, London for the next 3 weeks, we're going to do distance education. Do note that the time difference between Kolkata and London is 5.5 hours, meaning you're 5.5 hours ahead of me.

I. Classes
Format: Each week, starting from Monday the 5th till Friday the 23rd, I will be posting the class lectures on this blog on Thursdays and Fridays. You get 1 attendance point by posting your detailed comments at the end of each blog post - in other words, responding to two lectures gets you two attendance points.

II. Home Assignments - Reading Journals
Format: On Saturdays, beginning from the 3rd of July, and then on the 10th and 17th of July, I will put up on the blog some questions that might help you to get thinking about the readings that you have been assigned for the coming week. Of course, they are simply to start you off, to get you thinking. Please maintain lively reading journals that record your responses, doubts, questions, etc. with regard to the readings assigned for the week, also record any related reading that you have done that week. You will email the reading journal at the end of that week to me, on Sunday the 11th, 18th and 25th of July. For your week-wise journal submissions on these dates, you get 2 attendance points for that particular week.

Your reading for the week of 5th July includes:
Dipesh Chakrabarty, Subaltern Studies and Postcolonial Historiography (essay)
Kancha Ilaiah, Why I am Not a Hindu (book)
Sekhar Bandopadhyay, The Namasudras Of Bengal (essay)
The readings for the week of 12th July include:
The poetry of Namdeo Dhasal (feel free to respond to poems that you particularly enjoyed)
S. Anand, Touchable Tales: Publishing and Reading Dalit Literature
Your reading for the week of 19th July is:
Sharan Kumar Limbale, Towards An Aesthetic Of Dalit Literature: History, Controversies And Considerations (translated by Alok Mukherjee)

The master copies of the texts for the next three weeks are with the three troopers who turned up for class on day 1 : Sunrita Chakravarti, Doel Bose and Oindrila Mondal.
Get cracking, then. Any questions or clarifications?