Seventeenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

This paper draws upon psychoanalytic and psychological methods of analysis allied with reader response theory to interpret the reflections and responses of students in a critical psychology classroom to a shorty story by an oppressed caste writer in India, C. Ayyappan. In the story, the ghost of an oppressed caste woman haunts the sister of her dominant caste lover, someone who had betrayed her. The pedagogical practice draws upon Carol Gilligan’s Listening Method to invite students to reflect on the evocations of the story - thoughts, feelings and associations, which voices in the story, they could hear/understand, which were difficult to relate to, paying particular attention to these as they relate to their social positions as gendered, classed, caste-d subjects, and thereby, to also comment on the transformative learning/insights they gained from the exercise.