GANT 5225 -

Institution:

The New School

Subject:

Description:

Gandhi and his Interlocutors Spring 2009. Three credits. Faisal Devji and Vyjayanthi Rao In 1926, after the failure of his first movement of civil disobedience, Gandhi paused to rethink the meaning of nonviolence. He brought to light many complicated relations, making them available to political thought in productive new ways. Among his conclusions were the following: that violence was a positive phenomenon, and nonviolence a negative phenomenon with no life of its own. Moreover violence could not survive without nonviolence, which gave the former a legitimacy it did not otherwise possess. For Gandhi, these seemingly contradictory statements proved that violence and nonviolence were not opposed phenomena, but intimately related to one another in complex ways. Whatever else the Mahatma accomplished, Gandhi is only the most famous among many who have thought about the relationship of violence and nonviolence in South Asia. While this thinking is distinctive because it emerges from the distinct history of South Asia, it is by no means peculiar to it. The region's history has produced not only distinctive forms of violence and nonviolence, but equally distinct ways of thinking about their relationship, whose relevance is not confined to geography. This course explores some of the theories by focusing on the social life of violence and non-violence in contemporary South Asia.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.newschool.edu

Phone Number:

(212) 229-5600

Regional Accreditation:

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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