Other Reasons

Catalog description

Postcolonial Theories, building largely on Frankfurt School theorists, have critiqued the totalizing aspirations of what it calls 'Enlightenment Rationality'. Such critiques have also fed a range of critiques of Science. At the heart of such critiques is a rather restricted and plastic idea of Science as a singular, homogenous body of knowledge that has steadily promoted the disenchantment of the world. In this course we seek to destablize this monolithic vision of science by revisiting its plural, heterogeneous histories. The course is particularly interested in exploring the historical entanglements between the sciences and the enchanted world of intangible entities such as spirits, ghosts and gods. The course will be divided into three broad sections. The first will deal with the theoretical critiques of 'Enlightenment Rationality' and 'Science' in postcolonial theory. The second will undertake a detailed and loosely chronological examination of the multifaceted entanglements of science and technology with the paranormal in the 19th and 20th centuries. Finally, the last section will explore the performative aspects of scientific rationality in colonial and postcolonial contexts in a bid to understand the background that led to the postcolonial theorization.