Foundation Courses
Foundation Courses:
The official Ashoka website.
Social and Political Formations (Monsoon 2017)
Professor: Vinay Sitapati
This course dealt with basic concepts of politics and had a theme of Religion and Politics. It covered religious political parties from all across the globe, including the Republicans in America, the Jana Sangh and BJP in India, the AKP in Turkey, and Likud in Israel. You can read my final paper on the Jana Sangh and BJP here.
Trends in History (Monsoon 2017)
Professor: Gwen Kelly
This course dealt with the different trends in history and how history has been perceived through the ages.
Indian Civilizations (Monsoon 2017)
Professor : Alexander Bruce Watson
This course dealt with the different philosophical traits of the Indian Civilizations, from the ancient Vedas right up to the Islamic Movements. It also included all alternate movements, like the Sufi movement and Bhakti movements. You can read my paper for the course here.
Great Books (Spring 2018)
Professor: Mahesh Rangarajan.
This course covered a set of important books about the environment. They were:
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
Barry Commoner, The Closing Circle
Frances De Waal, Our Inner Ape
Erik Eckholm, Losing Ground
Ivan Illich, Energy and Equity
John McNeill, Something New Under The Sun
EO Wilson, Half Earth
Mahmood Mamdani, The Myth of Population Control
You can read my papers for this course here.
Quantitative Reasoning and Mathematical Thinking (Spring 2018)
Professor: Krishna Maddaly
This course covered basic mathematical and quantitative concepts.
Environmental Studies (Monsoon 2020)
Professor: Alexander Philips
This course looked at the intersection of environment and literary, political, and cultural discourse surrounding the same. Some of the texts we read for the course were:
Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons”
Lynn White, “The Historic Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis”
David Blackbourn, The Conquest of Nature
Anita Desai, The Village by the Sea
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species
Philippe Squarzoni, Climate Changed
Amitav Ghosh, The Great Derangement
Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts
Vandana Shiva, Earth Democracy
Ursula LeGuin, The Word for World is Forest