A Two-Week Theory Praxis Course  

Forum on Contemporary Theory, Baroda

The Forum on Contemporary Theory has been conducting an intensive Theory/Praxis Course annually since 2003 for the benefit of scholars across disciplines interested in new developments in Theory and its application. The course includes intensive textual readings in specific areas, supported by seminars and talks on broader but related issues. This Course will be held in Hyderabad, in collaboration with the English and Foreign Languages University Hyderabad during 19 – 31 May 2025. The Forum which has completed thirty nine  years of its existence, is a member of the Consortium of the Humanities Centres and Institutes (CHCI), so far the only member from South Asia. The Course is organized around the following topics to be discussed in depth by the core faculty, supported by lectures by guest faculty and mini-seminars by the invited scholars.

Theme of the Course 

Interdisciplinarity in the Humanities

Interdisciplinarity is increasingly becoming a major approach to doctoral research in Indian universities. Ph.D. scholars registered at many universities of India have chosen topics in the departments of English Literature and Indian & World Literatures that have an interdisciplinary focus. Examples of such research projects include medical humanities, digital humanities, environmental and ecological humanities to refugee narratives, food-and-literature studies, Literature and Philosophy/Ethics, and studies of literary space. The theory/praxis course to be organized at EFLU, Hyderabad during 19-31 May 2025 is intended to equip research students with in-depth knowledge of the concepts and methods of interdisciplinary literary studies, an aspect that is not quite often emphasized in their coursework. The course has been designed keeping in mind the research needs of Ph.D. scholars and young faculty. Eminent faculty drawn from the humanities will teach the courses. The in-person talks will be supplemented by customized guidance, discussions and presentations by the participants.

Course Outlines

1. Understanding English and its Relations

Professor K. Narayana Chandran (Core Faculty)

This series will deal with the following topics, each in a session no longer than 90 minutes (1- hour talk followed by questions/comments lasting 30 minutes):

• Preliminary distinctions: topic/ area; ‘discipline’ versus ‘field’ Focus on English and its relations
• Knowledge: what one works with (“The Politics of Knowledge” by Edward Said)
• Ways/Kinds of Reading: relations and relatives “The End of English” by Terry Eagleton (detailed study followed by discussion)

The objective of these talks will be to begin with some basic terms and concepts which are generally understood by all of us rather vaguely, inaccurately, if unquestioningly. The Humanities/English thinking about disciplines and disciplinary formations has mostly followed rigorous debates about nationalities, languages, cultures, pedagogy, and dominant institutional practices. Since an academic “discipline” cannot but share the other meanings of this key term (such as controlling/regulating rules, compliance with them in behaviour, willingness to obey and conform, self-imposed rigour in practice and conduct, regular application and dedication, etc.), research in English and the Humanities returns to these meanings often with the objective of setting certain protocols of reading, writing, and related discursive activities. Occasional bibliographical references in these talks will make for a list for further reading. These readings will help those interested in understanding the limits and limitations of English, sometimes narrowly conceived and taught in Indian colleges and universities.

K. Narayana Chandran

BIONOTE A teacher of English for about 50 years, K. Narayana Chandran lives in Hyderabad. His publications exceed 200, among which are monographs, edited books, articles and short notes, anthologies for teaching poetry, review-essays, prefaces, and translations from and into Malayalam, his first language. His latest work has appeared in such journals as Anglo- Saxonica, The CEA Critic, English Academi Review, Forum for Modern Language Studies, Fulbright Chronicles, Journal of Contemporary Thought, Modernism/modernity, Pedagogy, Renascence, Studia Polensia, Theatre Topics, The T S Eliot Annual, etc. His post- superannuation term as the Institution of Eminence Research Chair Professor in Literary and Cultural Theory in Humanities/ English at the University of Hyderabad ended in June 2024.

2. Interdisciplinarity and the Contemporary Theoretical Perspectives

Professor Amith Kumar P.V. (Core Faculty)

The series of lectures delivered during the program shall explore the concept of ‘interdisciplinarity’ in its denotative and connotative aspects. Through an inquiry into what constitutes an interdisciplinary approach in humanities, the lectures seek to deliberate upon certain pertinent concerns such as what happens to the notion of a research method under interdisciplinary inquiries. How does a combination of approaches enhance our understanding and knowledge in humanities as against a singular and unidirectional mode of investigation? More importantly, what transformations would one come across in terms of comprehending the ‘object of inquiry’ when explored through an ‘interdisciplinary lens’? For explicating the operative dynamics within the concept under scrutiny, the lectures shall then focus upon certain domains of knowledge that are inherently interdisciplinary; such as, disability studies, memory studies, dialogical studies, posthumanist inquiries and comparative studies. Each of the five lectures proposed shall aim to explore one domain of research mentioned above and shall engage the participants into investigating, interrogating and integrating methods of inquiry towards achieving productive ends.

Dr. Amith Kumar P. V

BIONOTE Dr. Amith Kumar P. V. is a Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and India Studies at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India. He holds a PhD from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) in English Literature. His teaching experience spans over 22 years. He was working as an Assistant Professor at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) , Varanasi before joining the English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), Hyderabad. Currently, He is the Director of the Finishing School, EFL University. Formerly, he has worked as the Director of Non-Formal Courses and Resources (NFCAR), and the Co-ordinator of the Enabling Unit at the EFLU. He spent time as a Fulbright Visiting Fellow at Portland State University, Oregon, USA, from August 2007 to June 2008, and DAAD Visiting Fellow at Technical University, Dresden, Germany from April 2015 to July 2015. He has published research articles in various international journals mainly on Mikhail Bakhtin’s dialogic principles, with a focus on their extension and appropriation in the context of ‘Indian literatures’. His book titled Bakhtin and Translation Studies: Theoretical Extensions and Connotations [2015] has received critical acclaim among the scholars in the field of Translation Studies and Modern Literary Theories. He has presented papers at international conferences held in countries such as Denmark, Finland, Greece, the USA, the UK and Germany. He has delivered several keynote addresses at national conferences in India. Constantly invited as the resource person in several Faculty Development Programmes (FDP) and Refresher courses, he has been an active member in the Board of Studies (BOS) committees across Indian universities. He has supervised 15 PhD thesis mainly in the area of South Asian Literatures, Disability Studies, Latin American Literatures and Literary theories. His areas of research specialization include Bakhtin studies, comparative literary studies, Indian knowledge systems, Disability studies, South Asian Literature(s), Latin American Studies, Memory and Trauma Studies and Posthumanism. As the Director of the Finishing School, he has been conducting several programmes for job aspirants from the university on interview skills, communication skills, content writing, group discussions and life skills. He completed a meta-project on Disability Studies in India sponsored by the Indian Council for Social Sciences Research [ICSSR]. In 2024, he has been awarded a special research project on “Sphota Theory and Image Studies: Extending Bhartrahri’s Theoretical Models to Interpret Image Studies” by the Indian Knowledge Systems Division, Ministry of Education, Government of India.

3. Cultures and Technologies

Professor D. Venkat Rao (Guest Faculty)

A culture comes forth and communicates through its cultural forms. Cultural forms provide access to how a culture and its people reflect and go about in the world. Cultural forms are inseparable from communication technics. It is possible to map cultural forms across five distinctive and changing cultural technologies – ranging from oral to digital. Communication technologies mediate and bring forth cultural forms. There are at least four major modes in which cultural forms manifest. These are Image, Music, Text and Performance; permutations and combinations of these basic modes bring forth innumerable cultural forms. Given the shared nature of communication technologies, can one treat all cultural forms of the planet as homogeneous? How can one figure out cultural distinctions? Further, how do cultural technologies impact cultural forms in their mediation? Is it possible to specify any distinctive trait of what we call the Indian culture in its millennial existence and continuity? The two lectures will address some of the above questions.

D. Venkat Rao

BIONOTE D. Venkat Rao teaches at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. He studied at the Kakatiya University, Warangal. University of Kent at Canterbury, UK. He did Postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago, University of California, Berkeley, and University of Washington, Seattle. He taught at various universities in India and at the University of Washington. In addition to books in English and Telugu he has published several articles in national and international journals. His recent work includes India, Europe and the Question of Cultural Difference (Routledge, 2021), Performative Reflections of Indian Traditions: Towards a Liveable Learning (Springer, 2021), Critical Humanities from India: Contexts, Issues, Futures (Routledge, 2018), Cultures of Memory in South Asia (Springer, 2014), and others. His areas of interest include literary and cultural studies, image studies, epic traditions, visual cultures, comparative thought, translation, and mnemocultures. He is the editor of the Routledge book series on Critical Humanities across Cultures. Five volumes have been published so far in the series (https://www.routledge.com/Critical-Humanities-Across- Cultures/book-series/CHAC).

4. Symbolic Geography, Maps and the Representation of Space

Professor Dilip K. Das (Guest Faculty)

Symbolic geography is an interdisciplinary approach to space that examines the meanings attributed to it in cartographic, visual and verbal representations, and the manipulation of these meanings in the service of ideology and power. Space, as Henri Lefebvre has argued, is not an objectively given physical environment that we inhabit, but something that we produce as our lived world through practices of habitation. It is these practices, both personal and social, that imbue space with subjective meanings and values. We are rarely conscious of this in everyday experience, but when we find ourselves displaced – as migrants, refugees or communities deprived of their land by a colonising power – we become acutely conscious of these meanings. Symbolic geography studies these significations and their links to power, and conversely resistance. In the first lecture, I will discuss the politics of spatial representation, by critically reading cartographic and poetic images of the New World in the process of its colonisation by Europe in the 16^th and 17^th centuries. This lecture, in other words, will examine the historical role that maps have played as a strategy of power. In the second lecture, I will draw on the concept of “counter-mapping” from critical geography, to show how spatial representations can equally serve as a tactics of resistance. The text for this lecture, Deep Halder’s Blood Island, is a narrative of refugees who tried to settle in the Sundarbans but were forcibly evicted by the West Bengal government. Subtitled An Oral History of the Marichjhapi Massacre, the book recounts the struggle of the refugees to reclaim for themselves a space that their countries of origin and of refuge deny them. They first try to imaginatively remake the refugee camp as home, and when the attempt fails, they seek home in an uninhabited island that resembles the home they had to flee. In telling their stories of forced displacement, they imaginatively remap spaces to which they can belong and those where they do not.

Dr. Dilip K. Das

BIONOTE: Dr. Dilip K. Das recently retired as Professor, Department of Cultural Studies at The English & Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. He specializes in interdisciplinary studies, critical medical humanities and body culture studies. He has published in these areas at both national and international levels. His latest publications include Teaching AIDS: The Cultural Politics of HIV Disease in India, published by Springer Nature Singapore in 2019 and Epidemic Narratives; The Cultural Construction of Infectious Disease Outbreak in India, published by Orient Blackswan in 2025. Dr. Das has received a Fulbright Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a South Asia Regional Fellowship of the Social Science Research Council, New York.

5. The Interdisciplinary Environmental Humanities

Pramod K Nayar (Guest Faculty)

Deep Time: Geology, Biodiversity and Literature

This talk examines the work ranging from Cuvier’s paleontology to paleolithic fiction. Deep Time, a concept elaborated by geologists, physicists and others, has been a literary theme at least since the 1890s. Any understanding of Deep Time requires approaches from multiple fields, and taken together, these constitute a memory-making project for the planet.

Ecological ‘Plots’: Evolution, Demography and Literature

This talk focuses on 19th century writings from multiple disciplines, including the literary, to demonstrate how ecological ‘plots’ that focus on interconnectedness emerged well before ecology as a science began, and began to speak of such connections across life forms.

Pramod K Nayar

BIONOTE Pramod K Nayar teaches at the Department of English, the University of Hyderabad, where he also holds the UNESCO Chair in Vulnerability Studies

5. Diversity, Disciplinarity and the Humanities

Professor Kailash C. Baral (Guest Faculty)

Diversity, Disciplinarity and the Humanities: Intersections and Perspectives

It is my effort to explore the dynamic relationship between diversity, disciplinarity, and the humanities in the context of contemporary knowledge production. The humanities play a vital role in fostering inclusivity and facilitating an understanding of diverse cultural narratives. By examining the intersections among disciplines such as literature, history, philosophy, and the arts, this study reveals how diverse epistemologies and methodologies can enhance scholarly inquiry and challenge traditional academic boundaries. By proposing a framework that prioritizes pluralism and underscores the importance of human experiences, while acknowledging the critical role of diversity in shaping academic discourse.

Integrating Indian Knowledge Systems in Humanities and Social Sciences Research: Perspectives and Possibilities

The integration of Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) into Humanities and Social Sciences research offers a unique opportunity to enrich academic discourse and promote a more inclusive understanding of cultural heritage and social structures. IKS, encompassing a diverse array of philosophies, traditional practices, literature, and socio-political frameworks, presents alternative paradigms that challenge dominant Western narratives. This paper examines the cultural epistemologies and methodologies that enable the incorporation of IKS into contemporary research.

Prof. Kailash C. Baral

BIONOTE Prof. Kailash C. Baral, a former Professor of English and India Studies at the English and Foreign Languages University in Hyderabad, also served as the Pro-Vice Chancellor. He was the Vice Chairman of the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies (MAKAIAS) in Kolkata, under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. Prof. Baral was affiliated with the North-Eastern Hill University from 1979 to 1999, and from 1999 to 2016; he served as the Director of the Shillong Campus of EFL University. He is the author and editor of twelve books, with his latest work, Empire’s Backyard: Colonial Modernity and Northeast India set to be published by Routledge. In 2023, Springer International published his work Cultural Forms and Practices in Northeast India. Among his significant contributions is Theory after Derrida: Essays in Praxis, published by Routledge UK, which has undergone three editions. Prof. Baral has over 50 international and national publications in various journals, along with approximately 30 book chapters. His research articles have appeared in journals such as Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture (Duke University Press, USA), International Journal of Baudrillard Studies (Bishop’s University, Canada), South Asian Review (University of Pittsburgh, USA), Revista Literatura em Debate (Brazil), Asian Profile (Hong Kong/Canada), and several others. Prof. Baral has been a recipient of the Narindra Pradhan Award from the former American Studies Research Centre in Hyderabad, as well as the British Council Fellowship and the ICHR Senior Academic Fellowship. His research interests include Critical Theory, India Studies, and Northeast Studies.

6. Narrative Conception of Self

Professor Amitabha Dasgupta (Guest Faculty)

Lecture1&2: Narrative Conception of Self

The focus of these two lectures will be to explore the idea of narrative conception of self. In this connection, the lectures will deal with the three conceptions of self, that is, self as given, self as an agent and self as a narrative where self is understood in terms of its unfolding story.

Lecture 3: Tagore’s Theory of Surplus

Tagore introduced the notion of surplus. It is a unique and original concept that explains how all our artistic activities are born out of our artistic urge within us. Tagore calls this surplus in man.

Amitabha Dasgupta

BIONOTE Amitabha Dasgupta is former Professor of Philosophy, University of Hyderabad, India. He obtained his PhD in Philosophy form IIT Kapur.  He has published extensively in the areas of philosophy of language, philosophy of linguistics and philosophy of social science. One of his important books is  Meaning, Agency and the Making of a Social World: Themes in the Philosophy of Social Science. He has held several research and teaching positions both in India and elsewhere.

7. Language, Mind and Meaning

Ramesh Chandra Pradhan (Guest Faculty)

Lecture 1: Language, Mind and Meaning: The Interconnections

In this lecture, I will highlight the interconnections between language, mind and meaning in order to show that there is an inseparable relation between the linguistic expressions and the mental contents, and that meaning is deeply entrenched in both of them. Meaning is not a by- product of the use of language, nor is it a mental content itself. Meaning is an autonomous normative content that both language and mind express. In this sense, meaning is logically independent of the linguistic expressions we use to communicate it, and the mental contents which embody it.

Lecture 2: Meaning Holism and Its Implications

In this lecture, I will argue that meaning goes holistic in both language and meaning by becoming the pervasive normative content of both as seamless wholes. Both language and mind are holistic systems within which meaning plays its normative role by cementing the divisions within them. Meaning spreads across mind and language making its presence normatively felt within a holistic system.

Meaning holism gives rise to linguistic and mental holism because neither the linguistic expressions nor the mental contents can function except under a holistic system. It also casts its shadow on the holistic structure of the world by making the world intelligible in language and mind.

Ramesh Chandra Pradhan

BIONOTE: Ramesh Chandra Pradhan retired in 2015 as Professor from the Department of Philosophy, University of Hyderabad. He also taught Philosophy at Utkal University, Bhubaneswar and Karnatak University, Dharwad before joining the University of Hyderabad in 1987.He took his Ph.D. from Banaras Hindu University in 1977. He was awarded the Commonwealth Academic Fellowship at the University of Oxford during 1990-91. He was Member-Secretary of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, New Delhi during 2000- 2003. He was a National Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla during 2018- 2020.His field of specialization includes, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Mind, Metaphysics, and the Philosophy of Wittgenstein. He has published and edited books and contributed many papers to philosophy journals . His recent publications are Mind, Meaning and World: A Transcendental Perspective (Springer 2019), Metaphysics of Consciousness: The Indian Vedantic Perspective ( Springer 2020), The Early Philosophy of Daya Krishna ( Springer 2021), Metaphysical Idealism: A Contemporary Perspective ( CSP,UK, 2024) and Ethics, Self and the World: Exploring the Metaphysical Foundations in Moral Philosophy( Springer 2024). He has participated and presented papers in many national and international conferences.

8. Interdisciplinary Research on Disability

Dr Shilpaa Anand (Guest Faculty)

Lecture 1: Interdisciplinary Research on Disability: Talking Back to Medicine and Psychiatry

Established disciplines such as the medical and psychiatric sciences approach disability as a medical problem that needs to be prevented or ended. The social sciences and humanities engage with disability as a human condition that we must live with and emphasise it as a category of social difference. The latter access the rights discourse and the social justice discourse while also considering the fact of social realities of living with disabilities. In this lecture, I will cover features of the global emergence of disability studies as an interdisciplinary field oriented to the examination of ablebodiedness and ableism.

Lecture 2: Narrative Sources as Historical Material: The Case of Curating Disability Archives

Narratives across the world serve as important archives of social and cultural experiences of disablement and responses to disability. Reflecting on the practices of identifying and interpreting verbal and visual knowledge, both content and form, this lecture will cover the work that goes into the populating archives of disability experiences while considering advances in research methodology that have begun to rely on sensory explorations beyond the visual. In due course, I hope to critically examine the idea of seeing as the only form of knowing and the ableist violence of such intellectual assumptions.

Shilpaa Anand

BIONOTE: Shilpaa Anand is an Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the BITS-Pilani Hyderabad Campus in India. She has a PhD in Disability Studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago and an MA in English from the University of Hyderabad. Her research interests include literary and cultural disability studies, the historiography of disability and culturally different concepts of corporeality. More recently, she is interested in disability access and higher education in India.

9. The Dialectics of Art, Authenticity, and AI

Prof. T.T. Sreekumar (Guest Faculty)

Session 1: The Dialectics of Art, Authenticity, and AI

This session explores the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the philosophical concepts of art and authenticity. It focuses on how AI-generated artworks challenge traditional ideas of creativity, authorship, and originality. It incorporates Jean Baudrillard’s ideas of simulacra and hyperreality, discussing how AI art becomes a simulation of human creativity, evoking emotional depth but detaching from lived human experiences. The session will encourage participants to reconsider authenticity in AI art, suggesting that it lies not in the origin of the work but in the process and its reception. In the context of interdisciplinary literary studies, the session will invite participants to analyse the convergence of digital humanities, aesthetics, and philosophy in understanding the changing landscape of artistic creation in the age of AI.

Session 2: The Political Economy of Algorithmic Aesthetics

This session investigates the political and economic implications of AI-generated art through the lens of Marxian critique. It explores how algorithmic aesthetics are commodified within the circuits of late capitalism, turning creativity into a product optimized for profit. Drawing from Marx’s concept of commodity fetishism, the session highlights how AI art obscures the labour behind its creation—data curators, programmers, and digital workers—thereby depersonalizing creativity and reinforcing capitalist structures. Furthermore, the session will consider how AI can also become a tool of resistance. Artists can subvert the commodification of AI art by exposing algorithmic biases and using AI to analyze the very structures it supports. By drawing on political economy and digital aesthetics, the session will offer insights into how AI art operates within and against the forces of surveillance capitalism and the commodification of creativity, pushing participants to rethink art’s role in the modern economy.

T.T. Sreekumar

BIONOTE: Currently serving as Professor at the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at the English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), Hyderabad, Dr. T.T. Sreekumar has an impressive academic and professional trajectory. His teaching career spans renowned institutions such as the National University of Singapore, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), and MICA – The School of Ideas in Ahmedabad. At EFL University, he also holds the position of Director of the Educational Multimedia Research Centre (EMRC). Dr. Sreekumar’s pioneering book, ICTs & Development in India: Perspectives on the Rural Network Society (Anthem Books, London, 2011), is a landmark study on information and communication technologies in rural India. He has been widely published in both national and international journals, contributing significantly to the fields of communication and social sciences. Dr. Sreekumar has held editorial positions such as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Creative Communications (2013–2017) and Associate Editor of Media Asia (2014–2019). He is currently the Editor of the International Journal of Media Studies published by EFL University. Additionally, he serves on editorial advisory boards and reviews manuscripts for leading academic journals, further reflecting his commitment to advancing academic discourse. A well-known writer and columnist in Malayalam, Dr. Sreekumar’s literary contributions have earned him accolades, including the C.B. Kumar Endowment Award from the Kerala Sahitya Academy in 2021. With over 500 articles and 21 authored or edited books, his Malayalam books focus primarily on the literature, society, history, and culture of Kerala, his home state. With his multidisciplinary expertise and extensive literary contributions, his career is rich in international exposure in the fields of literature and academic research.

Organizational details

Study material will be made available to the participants after their registration; the participants are expected to have gone through the material before the commencement of the Course. Each participant is required to maintain a day-to-day critical account of the sessions in an academic diary, which will be submitted to the director of the program at the end. In addition, each participant is required to make at least one formal presentation. Both faculty and participants are expected to stay together in the same venue for greater interaction and exchange between them.

Participation Criteria

\Participation in the Course is mainly open to scholars in the humanities and social sciences, preferably those working toward research degree, but post-graduate students and post-doctoral scholars in these disciplines and scholars from the disciplines outside the humanities and social sciences interested in inter-disciplinary studies can also apply. A 1000 word essay on why you need to take this course should be submitted along with the application. Maximum number of participants to be selected is 20. The participants are required to attend all the sessions and to stay until the end of the program in order to receive the certificate of participation. Selected participants will  be required to pay a registration fee (Rupees Twenty Thousand Only)  before the  25^th  April 2025. This will cover their food, accommodation and study materials.

Deadline for Application

The last date for  receiving application  for participation is 31^st March  2025. The application may be sent to the Director, Centre for  Contemporary  Theory, Baroda (forumbaroda@ gmail.com). Selection  for participation will be   made by 15^th April  2025.. Course material will be mailed after receiving the registration fee. 

Application Format

(Please fill in  the form and submit it to : forumbaroda@gmail.com)

.

• Name:
• Gender:
• Address (including telephone no. and email ID):
• Institutional Affiliation:
• Department:
• Date of Birth:
• Teaching Experience (indicate number of years also)
• Academic Qualifications:
• Areas of Research and Teaching:
• Publications, if any:
• Specific Research Topics, if any:
• Whether registered for Research Degree?
• Whether participated in any Course organized by FCT? If yes, when?
• A brief statement about your expectations from the course (max 1000 words)
• Name and Addresses of Two Referees:

Note: Participants will be  accommodated on a shared basis.

Children are not given accommodation in hostels and guest houses

Date:  Signature: