Lessons in love

Kolkata's iconic Presidency University has decided to introduce a course on "love" as part of the new interdisciplinary studies programme. From the love portrayed in various western classics to the new age Bollywood genres, the definition of love will now be explained to students by sociology experts at the city's renowned institution. "We decided to introduce such interesting subjects to make the pass course papers more interesting to students. "Generally, the pass papers are ignored and students don't take much interest in them. It was a move to make these subjects more interesting to students," Presidency University Vice-Chancellor Malabika Sarkar told Mail Today.

"We are trying to explain it from the point of view of cultural studies, structuralism and economic theories, taking examples from the classics to Bollywood. "It will have a definite focus on sociological and economic aspects of love as well," she said. The course is scheduled to be introduced from the next semester that will begin in January, 2014. It will be an optional 50 marks unit which can be taken up by students from science as well as from humanities disciplines. The total number of seats for the course will be not more than 50. The university began an initiative in July to introduce students to a variety of interesting topics. Accordingly, various interesting courses such as Love, Shakespeare for All, Space-Time and Universe were designed as optional general education units carrying 50 marks each.

"In sociology there are so many jargons which students are not generally interested. The course 'love' will be like an old wine in a new bottle. Already it has created a lot of buzz among the students. Now the key challenge for us is to make it interesting and de-trivialise," Hia Sen, a faculty of Presidency's sociology department, said. Sen said the course will deal with serious academic topics like political economy of love and the historical, cultural and social aspects related to it. Established in 1817, Presidency College is one of the oldest educational institutions in India. Initially established as the Mahapathshala wing of Hindu College, it was renamed Presidency College in 1855.