General Guidelines for I FEP, IJPEng, II JPEng, III PSEng, and III FEP students who are taking my courses

Teaching Methods

The classes will have lectures and student presentations. The lectures may draw upon visual material namely painting, films, advertisements, print media and literary works. Lectures will explore the theme of the course at the intersection of various disciplines. Supplementary reading will be announced from time to time.

CIA II/III

Will depend on the way discussion will shape up by the first week of the semester.

Guidelines for Submission in case of written assignments:

· The written assignment should be based on your field research. The typed assignment should adhere to the following specifications: A4 size paper, 12 font size, 11/2 line space, font: Times New Roman, Book Antiqua, or Garamond

· Assignment details - your name, reg. no, class, semester, assignment code, name of the University, name of the teacher in-charge and date of submission- should be mentioned on the top right-hand side of the first page. Do not use a cover page.

· You are free to take the assignment beyond the expected criteria. Such efforts will be appreciated.

· Those who are going to be out of town can submit the assignment online.

· No late submission is entertained.

· Plagiarism will not be tolerated and may result in rejection of assignment .

· Remember to give reference at the end of your assignment of the books, articles, websites, and films that you have referred to. The following pattern may be followed: Author’s name with the last name first, a period, name of the book italicised, a period, Place of Publication, colon, name of publication, year of publication, page no

o E.g.: Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand, My Experiments with Truth, New Delhi: Penguin, 1998.

o In case of a website give the complete URL of the site referred to along with the above details

o If you are directly lifting some lines quote them. If you are using some idea write it in your words but acknowledge it

For further information on bibliography writing please refer to MLA Handbook – Sixth Edition.

Note:

Ø Attendance is compulsory for all the sessions.

Ø Please be punctual. If you are late, you will not be allowed to attend the class. However, should there be any serious issue, do discuss with me or bring to my notice through the counsellors.

Ø I expect you to come to class having read the required texts. Failing to which you may not be allowed to attend the classes.

Ø Please feel free to clarify your doubts, ask questions or give feedback in the class, or through email. While emailing please mention your name, class and batch.

Ø If you are absent for any of the classes please get the help of your classmates to get updated, before you approach me for help.

Ø If you wish to make classroom presentation on any topic or idea within the framework of the syllabus, you will be given encouragement and guidance.

Ø Please visit my blog for notices and announcements regularly.

Ø As far as possible avoid calling me on my mobile phone.

Ø If you wish give feedback or leave any message for me, you may do so in the brown hard cover book on my table.

Ø All the best. Let us grow together.

VI Semester FEP and PSEng (Nov 2008 – Mar 2009) Course Plan

Course: British Literature: World Literatures
Total No of Hours (approx) : 26
Framework: Understanding Modernity

Topics	Hrs	Dates
Introduction	2	Nov
400 Blows	2	Nov
A Doll’s House	9	Nov/Dec/Jan/Feb
Medea	3	Nov/Dec/Jan
Fire	2	Dec/Jan
Feminism as modernity	2	Jan
The Outsider	2	Jan
Albert Camus	2	Mar
Alexander Solzenitsyn	2	Mar
Feedback	1	Mar

II Semester FEP (Nov 2008 – Mar 2009) Course Plan

Course: British Literature: Late Victorian to the Present
Total No of Hours (approx) : 29
Framework : Industrialisation, Patriarchal State and Discontents

Topics	No of Hours	Dates/Remarks
Introduction to the course	2
George Orwell: Animal Farm	5	Nov
Virginia Woolf: A Room of One’ Own	6	Dec
Charles Dickens: Hard Times	8	Jan
Modernity and Modernism	2	Feb
Bernard Shaw Arms and the Man	5	Feb, Mar
Feedback	1	Mar

II Semester JPEng (Nov 2008 – Mar 2009) Course plan

Total No of Hours (approx) : 42
Course: British Literature: Late Victorian to the Present
Framework: Industrialisation, Patriarchal State and Discontents

Topics	No of Hours	Dates/Remarks
Introduction to the course	3	Nov
Ulysses	3	Nov
My Last Duchess	3	Nov
Dover Beach	2	Dec
God’s Grandeur	2	Dec
Modernity and Modernism	3	Dec
The Second Coming	2	Jan
Psychoanalysis	2	Jan
The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock	6	Jan
The Unknown Citizen	2	Feb
The Thought Fox	3	Feb/Mar
Look Back in Anger	11	Mar
Feedback	1	Mar

MA English - Linguistics Syllabus

Subject: MA in English with Communication Studies Credits: 4

Paper title: Linguistics Total Hours: 60

Paper Code: MEL234 Max Marks: 100

The economic globalisation since the early 90s has had a consequent interest in language studies for various socio-political, communicative and technological reasons. With communication - both oral and textual - becoming crucial to widen the global impact of political and economic organisations, and the consequent struggles of resistance to economic imperialism have contributed to the renewed interest in linguistics in multiple domains – Media studies, corporate communication, advertising and marketing, anthropology, and health. In the case of India, in the wake of language becoming a major site of identity politics and the consequent interest of the state through increased funding and establishment of research centres is a testimony for the relevance and need for this paper.

Objectives

• To introduce the students to the scientific study of language

o To expose students to the locate language in a broader socio-political, and economic setting

o To expose students to the use of scientific study of language in multiple domains

1. Introduction to Linguistics. Concept of Linguistics. Branches of Linguistics
2. Language : Definition, nature, properties and functions of language, sub-systems of language
3. Communication: Definition, nature, requirements and types of communication
4. Phonetics: Definition and branches. Brief sketch of articulatory, acoustic and auditory phonetics

Speech: Formation of speech. Speech mechanisms: Air stream, phonatory, articulatory and resonatory mechanisms

Classification of speech sounds: Segmentals and suprasegmentals

1. Segmentals : Vowels and Consonants

Classification of consonants: Place and manner of articulation, voiceless ad voiced consonants

Classification of vowels: Concept of cardinal vowels

2. Suprasegmentals: Stress, pitch, tone, and intonation
3. Semivowels and diphthongs: Formation and classification
4. Sounds formed using non-pulmonic air stream: Ejectives, implosives and clicks

5. Phonology: Definitions of phoneme and allophones. Phonemic analysis with reference to Indian languages. Distinctive feature analysis.

Syllable: Types and structure of Syllables

6. Morphology: Concepts of morph, morpheme, and allomorph and their relationship. Morphemic analysis. Morpheme types-inflectional and derivational. Word: Definition, types, process of word formation
7. Syntax: Syntactic analysis, I.C. Analysis, Phrase structure grammar, Transformational grammar, components of functions of grammar. Acceptability and grammaticality of sentences.
8. Semantics: Concept of meaning. Different types of meanings. Concepts of synonyms, homonyms and antonyms. Semantic ambiguity.
9. Introduction to semiotics: Saussure, Pierce, and Barthes; Discourse analysis and Pragmatics
10. Psycholinguistics: Introduction to psycholinguistics. Competence and Performance. Language acquisition in children. Major theories
11. Introduction to Indian linguistic traditions

Bibliography

Balasubramanian, T. A Textbook of English Phonetics : For Indian Students. Macmillan 2000

Bansal R. K. and Harrison J. B., Spoken English for India: A Mannual of Speech and Phonetics. Longman. Madras, 1983.

Chandler, Daniel. Semiotics: The Basics. New York : 2002.

Hockett. C.F. A Course in Modern Linguistics. New York: Macmillian, 1958.

Krishnaswamy, N. and Archana S. Burde. The Politics of Indians' English : Linguistic Colonialism and the Expanding English Empire. New Delhi: OUP, 2004.

Krishnaswamy, N. and SK Verma. Modern Linguistics: An Introduction. New Delhi: OUP, 2005.

Leech G. N. Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman, 1983.

Levinson S. Pragmatics. Cambridge, CUP, 1983.

O'Connor (1993) Phonetics. Hanmondsworth: Penguin Books.

Palmer, F. R. Semantics : A New Outline Cambridge, CUP, 1976.

Prakasam, V. and Abbi. A Semantic Theories and Language Teaching. New Delhi, Allied Publishers, 1985.

Saussure, Ferdinand de. A Course in General Linguistics. New York: McGraw-Hill. 1966.

Thorat, Ashok. Discourse Analysis of Five Great Indian Novels. Macmillan, 2002.

Widdowson, H. D. Stylistics and the Teaching of Literature. London: Longman, 1975

Testing pattern

CIA – Two written assignments. The second CIA should to be a short research paper of five to 10 pages.

Mid-semester written exam based on modules 1 to 6 (2 hours)

End-semester written exam based on modules 7 to 10 ( 3 hours)

Note: The course might undergo minor changes by the end of this week.

President Elect Obama Speech

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=jJfGx4G8tjo

'A More Perfect Union' by Obama

Following is the most famous speech of President Elect Obama which will go down into history.
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=pWe7wTVbLUU

A National Conference on Changing Fabric of Intimate Relationships - Challenges to Theories and Practices in Mental Health

A National Conference on
Changing Fabric of Intimate Relationships - Challenges to
Theories and Practices in Mental Health

The Department of Psychology, Christ University, Bangalore
is organizing a two-day National Conference on
February 13 and 14, 2009.

The last two decades have witnessed rapid transformations in globalization and the ensuing social structure. The advent of technology has strongly impacted intimate relationships – within and without marriage. With an ever-increasing competitive Indian social scenario, one can locate intimate relations on a dynamic continuum. While the end goal of ‘settling down’ still remains a priority among majority of the Indians, the process and nature of marital and familial relations is undergoing a sea-change. Besides the changing conceptualization of ‘normative’ relationships, there is an ever-widening lens to view a variety of intimate relations. The national conference would focus on the challenges thrown up for psychotherapists/counselors/social workers by this evolving dynamics of intimate relations.

Within the broad theme of the conference, (i) an attempt would be made to closely engage with understanding the shifts in the macrosystem which have impacted the family, marital, and couples relations – how changes in the larger social system have percolated to the individuals and rippled to the subsystems of intimate relationships. Changing economies, wide-exposure to Western & technological lifestyle, erratic work-life balance, etc are making in-roads in such a way that the traditional family structure is becoming malleable to adapt itself in order to keep abreast of the times. In continuation with this, (ii) the conference would attempt to capture stories of mental health professionals from the field, who had to re-negotiate their pre-conceived notions of marital/family therapy, and in the process, learnt valuable lessons while engaging with difficult clients/families. These would be stories of experiences of psychologists/ therapist/counselors/social workers who might have had success/failure in terms of outcomes of therapy, but gained insights into renewed ways of conceptualizing intimacies. (iii) The conference would also focus on and give voice to relationships that remain in the margins of social systems, like gay & lesbian intimacies, live-in and cyber relationships. In this context of the social system being in a state of flux, (iv) the conference would also like to address the challenges faced by young mental health professionals in making a radical paradigmatic shift from individual therapy to a systemic framework. In consonance with a systemic framework, a young trainee also needs to grapple with the larger issues of gender, power, and socio-politico-cultural processes. In such a scenario, it becomes important to closely look at psychotherapeutic training in the Indian context, and how it can be garnered to meet the future challenges in this field.

Against this backdrop, this conference will attempt to explore the changing fabric of intimate
relationships in order to engage with the challenges that contemporary mental health disciplines face in both the domains of theory and practice.

Conference Themes
· Family structures in transition
· Culture and Diversity Issues in Intimacy
· Challenges to Parenting
· Emerging contexts of intimacies –Work and Cyber space
· Alternative Sexualities
· Current challenges to mental health practice
· Evolving training needs in mental health
· Intimacies in therapeutic relationship
· Information technology and changing human relationships

The conference will include keynote address, various theme symposia, panel discussion, and free paper and poster presentations around the themes of the conference.Deadline for submission of abstracts (500 words) for paper/poster presentation is December 7, 2008.

E mail: cfir2009@psy.christuniversity.in
Conference Secretariat
CFIR – 2009
Department of Psychology
Christ University
Hosur Road
Bangalore 560029
Tel: +91-80-4012 9316/17/43

A day like never before....

Today I woke up to one of the most memorable days of my life - Obama is the next President of the US. I have deeply admired his concern for the less privileged, values he upholds and the way he has risen to the position he is going to hold. It is not so much of his getting elected but the way it is going to inspire millions across nations, races, communites, religions for the time to come that makes me immensely happy. I am sure he is going to be a role model for many young people. Among the youth I have known, the last person i can remember who had significant influence, across demographies in India was Abdul Kalam. Obama is the next one as I see it.

(Photo taken from http://www.barackobama.com/photos/)