Potter, Slumdog, Mills and Boon in MA English

Updated on: Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Watch Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham in Dostaana while you read chapters from the Mahabharata. Or view clippings of Bombay and Tamanna side by side with Iliad. Else go for the latest: enjoy India’s Oscar pride Slumdog Millionaire. This is the new syllabus for MA English (annual and semester scheme) at Bangalore University.

In a makeover of the syllabus for the coming academic year, literary and cultural studies has been made a mandatory paper for the first time, but with a sweet twist to it. Popular culture has got an emphasis in semesters three and four. In the new syllabus, students would read romance like Mills and Boon, bestsellers like Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, detective thrillers like Sherlock Holmes and ghost stories like The Demon Lover.

In the study of a sub-culture, clippings of the movies Bombay and Tamanna will be included. Popular films Dostaana and Fire will be included for gender studies. A Rajasthani folk tale and Supreme Court judgment on sexual harassment feature in the “entertaining highlights” of the syllabus.

“So far, the paper was optional and it was heavy on theory. Many students preferred to stay away. We, therefore, decided to introduce it in such a way that it catches attention and becomes student-friendly,” explained Chitra Panikkar of the English department, who was part of the group that revised the syllabus. Chitra admitted that the new syllabus had faced opposition at various levels of discussion and they had kept their “fingers crossed” for it to pass through all the steps required for approval. But, the rationale they had presented overruled the skepticism.

“Let these not remain separate from our classrooms. They are instances from everyday life and we cannot turn a blind eye to them. There’s a cultural theory attached to the notion of popular culture. Literature does not mean only elite culture. There’s a cultural expression in everything and there’s a way in which we can see it intellectually,” she added.

The course will also let students understand why there’s a demand for these texts. This will help them bring in their own technical know-how to understand what they appreciate, teachers point out.

Potter, Slumdog, Mills and Boon in MA English

More Education news