Hari M G | Manipal Academy of Higher Education (original) (raw)
Short-term Courses by Hari M G
Overview One of the pitfalls of our present day education system is its undue emphasis on cognit... more Overview
One of the pitfalls of our present day education system is its undue emphasis on cognitive modes of organising knowledge. Such a cognitive leaning and orientation towards knowledge runs the risk of destroying the imaginative and the creative roots of life as a result of which the student ceases to show interest in the formulation and exploration of life’s emotions and experiences. By focussing on Reading and Writing – the two advanced skills of language learning – and sprinkling upon these skills some colouring of imagination and creativity, the proposed winter school tries to redress the loophole present in our education system. By sensitizing teachers towards the magic potentials of Imaginative Reading and Creative Writing, this training programme aims at enabling them to appreciate, politically as well as aesthetically, the world of literature and culture. In this context it is prudent to remember the simple but a well-established axiom that language, in its literary manifestation, provides a vital and lively means for engaging teachers and students in transformative learning. It is in order to sensitise students and teacher towards this dimension of learning that this theme is proposed for the MHRD/AICTE sponsored winter school.
Course Content
• Literature and Literary Studies
1. Reading a Text: With Theory and Without Theory
2. Is there a Postcolonial Reading of Literature?
3. Feminism: Subversive Reading and Creative Writing
4. Reading a Text at the Expense of the Author: Revisiting Roland Barthes
5. Can You Write Creatively?: A Creative Writing Workshop
6. Translation, Tradition and Intertextuality: Reading a Classic in Translation
• Media Studies
1. Reading a Moving Text vis-à-vis the Frozen Text: Cinema and Novel
2. Teaching Jhumpa Lahiri through Mira Nair: Writer, Director and Teacher
3. Reading Reality & Portraying Life: Artistic Movies and Commercial Movies
4. Satyajit Ray: A Writers’ Dream
5. Writing Short Documentaries
• Performing Arts
1. Reading through Colours: Painting as Text
2. Rabindranath Tagore: Painter as Writer or Writer as Painter?
3. Smile Please: Language of Photography
4. Reading Shakespeare through Performance
5. Singing Text: Music and Poetry
Research Articles by Hari M G
Spirituality Studies, 2023
Kabir is a sixteenth century mystic-poet whose words permeate the socio-cultural life of Indian s... more Kabir is a sixteenth century mystic-poet whose words permeate the socio-cultural life of Indian subcontinent, bringing the dimension of the beyond to the everyday life of ordinary people. This study, through a close textual analysis of select poems of Kabir, seeks to map the variations of "truth" in his poetry and contends that there are three phases in the poet's spiritual seeking-1. the stage of complete negation of everything that one finds to be a lie and seeing the phenomenal world exactly the way it is without any distortions from the mind; 2. the pain of not experiencing the ultimate truth and the longing for it; 3. experience of the transcendent mystic truth. By juxtaposing an analysis of poems that illustrate these three variations of truth, this study argues that even as truth takes on different meanings in his poetry, there is a common factor to the "different truths" of Kabir-a close and intense attention to what one perceives to be true at a given moment.
Muse India, issue 42 (March-April 2012)
Papers by Hari M G
This paper explores the negotiation of identity in K R Meera's novel Hangwoman, in the light of M... more This paper explores the negotiation of identity in K R Meera's novel Hangwoman, in the light of Michel Foucault's deliberations on power, subjectivity, and critique. The novel's layered delineation of the way power shapes subjectivity, and its insightful detailing of the scope for resistance the very process itself entails, echoes the thoughts of Foucault. Meera's protagonist exudes an exemplary resilience when she confronts multi-faceted subjugation. The resistance that she makes is characterised by a resourcefulness to actively engage in the mechanics of power and to remake her own sense of identity. Thus power, as depicted in the novel, is a force that creates 'identities' and at the same time a productive network which gives room for remoulding identities. The paper, also, discusses the protagonist's gritty resistance to the hyperrality of the postmodern visual media.
Of all literary traditions that have silhouetted the contours of modern Indian Poetry, the tradit... more Of all literary traditions that have silhouetted the contours of modern Indian Poetry, the tradition of Bhakti poetry stands out pre-eminently from the rest; it provides a creative template out of which modern Indian English Poetry stems forth. In fact, the subversive poetics of the saint poets that characterises Bhakti poetry becomes a ready tool in the hands of many anti-establishment movements of contemporary Indian literature to critique the established hegemonic structures of the society that prevent a free play of creativity. It is in this context that we can locate the significance of Arun Kolatkar " s poetry. An extensive reading of contemporary Indian English Poetry reveals that no Indian English poet has internalised the sensibility of Bhakti tradition to the extent that Arun Kolatkar has in his works; such internalisation makes his poetry the most fascinating site to look for the contemporary manifestations of Bhakti. Hence, this paper attempts to explore the influence of Bhakti poetry on Arun Kolatkar, arguably the greatest Indian English poet, and seeks to delineate the way the spirit of Bhakti creeps into his poems while detailing the material world. Although Kolatkar is least interested in using poetry as a means to express the intense longing for a personal deity as the Bhakti poets did, his passionate devotion towards life matches the devotion of saints in its intensity. The paper, thus, attempts to bring out the quality of devotion that has an existence in Kolatkar " s poetry without any concrete references to God and religion. Modern Indian English poetry is marked by a passionate engagement with different Indian literary traditions. Of all the literary traditions that have shaped the sensibility of modern Indian English Poetry, Bhakti tradition stands pre-eminently for the way it shares the post-modern scepticism towards all forms of establishments and the refreshing perspective that it offers on the issues and
Overview One of the pitfalls of our present day education system is its undue emphasis on cognit... more Overview
One of the pitfalls of our present day education system is its undue emphasis on cognitive modes of organising knowledge. Such a cognitive leaning and orientation towards knowledge runs the risk of destroying the imaginative and the creative roots of life as a result of which the student ceases to show interest in the formulation and exploration of life’s emotions and experiences. By focussing on Reading and Writing – the two advanced skills of language learning – and sprinkling upon these skills some colouring of imagination and creativity, the proposed winter school tries to redress the loophole present in our education system. By sensitizing teachers towards the magic potentials of Imaginative Reading and Creative Writing, this training programme aims at enabling them to appreciate, politically as well as aesthetically, the world of literature and culture. In this context it is prudent to remember the simple but a well-established axiom that language, in its literary manifestation, provides a vital and lively means for engaging teachers and students in transformative learning. It is in order to sensitise students and teacher towards this dimension of learning that this theme is proposed for the MHRD/AICTE sponsored winter school.
Course Content
• Literature and Literary Studies
1. Reading a Text: With Theory and Without Theory
2. Is there a Postcolonial Reading of Literature?
3. Feminism: Subversive Reading and Creative Writing
4. Reading a Text at the Expense of the Author: Revisiting Roland Barthes
5. Can You Write Creatively?: A Creative Writing Workshop
6. Translation, Tradition and Intertextuality: Reading a Classic in Translation
• Media Studies
1. Reading a Moving Text vis-à-vis the Frozen Text: Cinema and Novel
2. Teaching Jhumpa Lahiri through Mira Nair: Writer, Director and Teacher
3. Reading Reality & Portraying Life: Artistic Movies and Commercial Movies
4. Satyajit Ray: A Writers’ Dream
5. Writing Short Documentaries
• Performing Arts
1. Reading through Colours: Painting as Text
2. Rabindranath Tagore: Painter as Writer or Writer as Painter?
3. Smile Please: Language of Photography
4. Reading Shakespeare through Performance
5. Singing Text: Music and Poetry
Spirituality Studies, 2023
Kabir is a sixteenth century mystic-poet whose words permeate the socio-cultural life of Indian s... more Kabir is a sixteenth century mystic-poet whose words permeate the socio-cultural life of Indian subcontinent, bringing the dimension of the beyond to the everyday life of ordinary people. This study, through a close textual analysis of select poems of Kabir, seeks to map the variations of "truth" in his poetry and contends that there are three phases in the poet's spiritual seeking-1. the stage of complete negation of everything that one finds to be a lie and seeing the phenomenal world exactly the way it is without any distortions from the mind; 2. the pain of not experiencing the ultimate truth and the longing for it; 3. experience of the transcendent mystic truth. By juxtaposing an analysis of poems that illustrate these three variations of truth, this study argues that even as truth takes on different meanings in his poetry, there is a common factor to the "different truths" of Kabir-a close and intense attention to what one perceives to be true at a given moment.
Muse India, issue 42 (March-April 2012)
This paper explores the negotiation of identity in K R Meera's novel Hangwoman, in the light of M... more This paper explores the negotiation of identity in K R Meera's novel Hangwoman, in the light of Michel Foucault's deliberations on power, subjectivity, and critique. The novel's layered delineation of the way power shapes subjectivity, and its insightful detailing of the scope for resistance the very process itself entails, echoes the thoughts of Foucault. Meera's protagonist exudes an exemplary resilience when she confronts multi-faceted subjugation. The resistance that she makes is characterised by a resourcefulness to actively engage in the mechanics of power and to remake her own sense of identity. Thus power, as depicted in the novel, is a force that creates 'identities' and at the same time a productive network which gives room for remoulding identities. The paper, also, discusses the protagonist's gritty resistance to the hyperrality of the postmodern visual media.
Of all literary traditions that have silhouetted the contours of modern Indian Poetry, the tradit... more Of all literary traditions that have silhouetted the contours of modern Indian Poetry, the tradition of Bhakti poetry stands out pre-eminently from the rest; it provides a creative template out of which modern Indian English Poetry stems forth. In fact, the subversive poetics of the saint poets that characterises Bhakti poetry becomes a ready tool in the hands of many anti-establishment movements of contemporary Indian literature to critique the established hegemonic structures of the society that prevent a free play of creativity. It is in this context that we can locate the significance of Arun Kolatkar " s poetry. An extensive reading of contemporary Indian English Poetry reveals that no Indian English poet has internalised the sensibility of Bhakti tradition to the extent that Arun Kolatkar has in his works; such internalisation makes his poetry the most fascinating site to look for the contemporary manifestations of Bhakti. Hence, this paper attempts to explore the influence of Bhakti poetry on Arun Kolatkar, arguably the greatest Indian English poet, and seeks to delineate the way the spirit of Bhakti creeps into his poems while detailing the material world. Although Kolatkar is least interested in using poetry as a means to express the intense longing for a personal deity as the Bhakti poets did, his passionate devotion towards life matches the devotion of saints in its intensity. The paper, thus, attempts to bring out the quality of devotion that has an existence in Kolatkar " s poetry without any concrete references to God and religion. Modern Indian English poetry is marked by a passionate engagement with different Indian literary traditions. Of all the literary traditions that have shaped the sensibility of modern Indian English Poetry, Bhakti tradition stands pre-eminently for the way it shares the post-modern scepticism towards all forms of establishments and the refreshing perspective that it offers on the issues and