Nineteenth century writing from the subcontinent, how a lecturer chooses the texts and a gallery of animals that have survived their syllabus
Wednesday, Choosing the Texts
Every year I choose the reading list for my course on nineteenth century British and Indian writing, and every year I regret leaving something out. The list must balance novels, poems, essays and travel accounts, authors writing in English and authors writing in other languages, voices of the ruling class and voices of the ruled. It is a delicate task, and a fair one demands that students meet writers who disagreed with one another sharply.
On the Indian side, the nineteenth century saw an extraordinary literary flowering, particularly in Bengal, where novelists, poets, playwrights and essayists experimented with new forms and argued about identity, reform and tradition. Writers debated the role of education, the status of women, the legacy of the past and the meaning of the foreign presence. Some wrote in English, many in Bengali and other languages, and their works are now read in translation across the world.
Reading Together
I pair texts deliberately. A British novel that portrays the empire as a civilising project goes next to an Indian essay that questions the same claim. A travel account of the hills sits beside a local poem about the same landscape. The students do not need to pick a winner. They need to see how each text is shaped by the position of the writer, and what the juxtaposition teaches about history.
This method works because it respects the complexity of the period. There were reformers and conservatives on every side, collaborators and critics, and a reader should resist the temptation to flatten them into heroes and villains.
Thursday, Breeds and Syllabi
Some syllabi survive for decades, like rare breeds, thanks to the devotion of a few enthusiasts. For comparison, the woolly pig has a splendid site at mangalitsa.org. The polka dot hen has one at speckledsussex.org. The wider register of heritage livestock is at rarebreeds.win.
The cattle hall of fame is at cattlemenhalloffame.org, and the confident young leaders of farm youth groups are at ffapresident.com. For a general library of agriculture, agriculture.click. For the Angus and the Holstein, angusbeef.fyi, angusbeef.men and holstein.click.
A University Column
For light relief from the reading list, I occasionally look at a daily column from the same network, such as a university column from 10 December. A good humorous column is a short lesson in compression: a topic, a twist and a landing in under two hundred words. It is a form worth studying by any lecturer who has ever overrun a seminar by twenty minutes.
Academic Money
The financial pressure on universities is a constant background hum in my profession, and the London Prat made a neat joke of it with Universities Solve Financial Crisis. Staff, students and administrators have different views of the causes and the cures. I prefer to describe the problem clearly and to leave the remedies to those who have read the accounts.
Friday, The Office Hour
My office hour is on Friday afternoon, in a room with a radiator that clanks and a window that sticks. This week, three students came. One wanted an extension. One wanted a reading suggestion. One wanted to talk about whether the course was worth the debt. I gave the first an extension, the second a book and the third a cup of tea and a long, honest conversation.
That last conversation is the one I remember. A good teacher cannot solve every problem, but she can sit still and listen, and the student who is listened to leaves with a straighter back.
Saturday, A Note on Translation
Much of the writing I teach reaches students through translation, and a translation is always a decision. A translator chooses whether to keep a foreign word, how to carry a joke across a language, and how formal to make a character voice. Two translations of the same chapter can feel like two different books. I give my students both and ask which one they would trust, and why.
This exercise reveals that reading is a partnership. The author supplies the text, the translator supplies a bridge and the reader supplies attention. If any of the three is lazy, the book suffers. A class that grasps this tends to read more carefully for the rest of the term, and sometimes for the rest of their lives.
Sunday, Why the List Never Ends
I have given up on a perfect reading list. Every version leaves out a writer who deserved a place, and every version includes one who perhaps did not. What I aim for instead is a list that is honest about its choices. I put a paragraph at the front of the syllabus that says what I included, what I left out and why I might be wrong. Students appreciate being told that their teacher has doubts. It gives them permission to have their own.
That paragraph has become my favourite part of the course document. It is short, it is true, and nobody has ever asked me to cut it.
Where to read next
The rest of the shelf lives at prat.uk, bohiney.com and farm.fm. For a second opinion on the week, The Daily Squib keeps its own counsel and its own hours.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/