Political Thought In Modern India Pdf
Baldovino Caya
Righteous Republic makes an important contribution to the existing literature and should be read by those who truly want to understand more about the past and present in Indian political thought. This carefully crafted and lucidly written book moves beyond exploring the contemporary essence of Indian thought by looking into a vast array of ideas on democracy, culture, religion, ethnic traditions, nationalist aspirations and identities. It is in all a fine piece of literary scholarship that gives readers an opportunity to engage in sustained and in-depth exploration of a subject that has received scant treatment by scholars.
What emerges from Righteous Republic is a sense of the intellectual ferment in India from the turn of the 20th century up to Independence; the sense of men, not just the five in the book, thinking up and imagining a country, rather than just being handed one by the British. The book is as much literary and art criticism as it is history, requiring of Vajpeyi some agile reading. She makes connections her five principals themselves may not have made, particularly in her excellent chapter of Abanindranath Tagore, making us consider afresh men and ideas to which we seem to have become inured.
Vajpeyi is a close and interpretative reader of texts and of paintings. She strives always to be original and writes evocatively. Readers looking for definitive answers will be disappointed. Vajpeyi demands that her readers join her in the journey towards the dark cave of meaning.
Tejas Parasher is Assistant Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Political Science and at the UCLA International Institute. He is the author of Radical Democracy in Modern Indian Political Thought (Cambridge 2023), the first study of a neglected tradition of participatory democracy in South Asia. His research interests lie in the relationship between empire, democracy, and constitutionalism within modern political and legal thought. His current research project explores the critique of political parties in twentieth-century anti-colonial thought.
Martha C. Nussbaum received her BA from NYU and her MA and PhD from Harvard. She has taught at Harvard, Brown, and Oxford Universities and is currently the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics, appointed in the Department of Philosophy and the Law School. She is an Associate in the Classics Department, the Divinity School, and the Political Science Department and a Member of the Committee on Southern Asian Studies. Professor Nussbaum is internationally renowned for her work in Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, feminist philosophy, political philosophy, and philosophy and the arts and is actively engaged in teaching and advising students in these subjects. She has received numerous awards and honorary degrees and is the author of many books and articles. For an up-to-date description, please see her University of Chicago Law School webpage here. Please direct all mail to her Law School address. Professor Nussbaum's CV is available from her upon request.
Animals are in trouble all over the world. Intelligent sentient beings suffer countless injustices at human hands: the cruelties of the factory farming industry, poaching and trophy hunting, assaults on the habitats of many creatures, and innumerable other instances of cruelty and neglect. Human domination is everywhere: in the seas, where marine mammals die from ingesting plastic, from entanglement with fishing lines, and from lethal harpooning; in the skies, where migratory birds die in large numbers from air pollution and collisions with buildings; and, obviously, on the land, where the habitats of many large mammals have been destroyed almost beyond repair. Addressing these large problems requires dedicated work and effort. But it also requires a good normative theory to direct our efforts.
This class is theoretical and philosophical. Because all good theorizing requires scientific knowledge, we will be reading a good deal of current science about animal abilities and animal lives. But the focus will be on normative theory. We will study four theories currently directing practical efforts in animal welfare: the anthropocentric theory of the Non-Human Rights Project; the Utilitarian theory of Jeremy Bentham, J. S. Mill, and Peter Singer; the Kantian theory of Christine Korsgaard; and an approach using the Capabilities Approach, recently developed by Martha Nussbaum. We will then study legal implications and current legal problems, in both domestic and international law.
India has made important contributions to political and legal thought, most of which are too little-known in the West. These contributions draw on ancient traditions, Hindu and Buddhist, but transform them, often radically, to fit the needs of an anti-imperial nation aspiring to inclusiveness and equality. We will study the thought of Rabindranath Tagore (Nationalism, The Religion of Man, selected literary works); Mohandas Gandhi (Hind Swaraj (Indian Self-Rule), Autobiography, and selected speeches); B. R. Ambedkar, the chief architect of the Indian Constitution (The Annihilation of Caste, The Buddha and his Dhamma, and selected speeches and interventions in the Constituent Assembly); and, most recently, Amartya Sen, whose The Idea of Justice is rooted, as he describes, both in ancient Indian traditions and in the thought of Tagore. We will periodically contrast the thought of the founding generation with the ideas of the Hindu Right, dominant today.
Ancient Greek tragedy has been of continuous interest to Western philosophers, whether they love it or hate it. But they do not agree about what it is and does, or about what insights it offers. This seminar will study the tragic festivals and a select number of tragedies, also consulting some modern studies of ancient Greek tragedy. Then we shall turn to philosophical accounts of the tragic genre, including those of Plato, Aristotle, the Greek and Roman Stoics (especially Seneca), Lessing, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Iris Murdoch, Sartre, and Bernard Williams. (III)
Is opera an archaic and exotic pageant for fanciers of overweight canaries, or a relevant art form of great subtlety and complexity that has the power to be revelatory? In this course of eight sessions, jointly taught by Professor Martha Nussbaum and Anthony Freud, General Director of Lyric Opera of Chicago, we explore the multi-disciplinary nature of this elusive and much-maligned art form, with its four hundred-year-old European roots, discussing both historic and philosophical contexts and the practicalities of interpretation and production in a very un-European, twenty-first century city.
Anchoring each session around a different opera, we will be joined by a variety of guest experts, one each week, including a director, a conductor, a designer and two singers, to enable us to explore different perspectives.
ASSIGNMENTS: In general, for each week we will require you to listen carefully to the opera of that week. Multiple copies of the recommended recordings will be available in the library. But you should feel free to use your own recordings, or to buy them if you prefer. There will also be brief written materials assigned, and posted on the course canvas site. No books are required for purchase. Because listening is the main thing, we will try to keep readings brief and to make recommendations for further reading should you want to do more.
REQUIREMENTS: Ph.D. students and law students will write one long paper at the end (20-25 pages), based on a prospectus submitted earlier. Other students will write one shorter paper (5-7 pages) and one longer paper (12-15 pages), the former due in week 4 and the latter during reading period.
NOTE: Ph.D. students in the Philosophy Department and the Music Department and all law students (both J. D. and LL.M.) may enroll without permission. All other students will be selected by lottery up to the number feasible given CA arrangements.
In this interdisciplinary seminar, we ask what duties nations and individuals have to address these inequalities and what are the best strategies for doing so. What role must each country play in helping itself? What is the role of international agreements and agencies, of NGOs, of political institutions, and of corporations in addressing global poverty? How do we weigh policies that emphasize growth against policies that emphasize within-country equality, health, or education?
In seeking answers to these questions, the class will combine readings on the law and economics of global development with readings on the philosophy of global justice. A particular focus will be on the role that legal institutions, both domestic and international, play in discharging these duties. For, example, we might focus on how a nation with natural resources can design legal institutions to ensure they are exploited for the benefit of the citizens of the country. (I)
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