Honours Programme
The Honours program is an exemplary feature of St. Xavier's College (Autonomous) Mumbai and has been running for over three decades. This programme is an intellectual challenge for the academically inclined students who want to gain insights beyond the confines of academic syllabus. In this programme the students are required to complete seven credits throughout their undergraduate learning years to be eligible for Honours Certification. This is a co-curricular activity conducted by various departments on the campus.
The department of Mass Media has been offering Honours course for more than a decade that gives both perspectives to students - academic and practical. Each course accommodates a relevant and engaging assignment, the completion of which is mandatory in order to obtain credit/certificate for the course. A meaningful addition to the regular syllabus, it also enables students to explore and develop multi disciplinary areas of learning.
Current Offerings
- Capitalism Realism: Is there no Alternative?
Resource person: Mr. Rutwij Nakhwa, Academic scholar, Coordinator, Film India Worldwide
Number of students enrolled: 25
Course detail: The late British cultural theorist and philosopher Mark Fisher’s book Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? sums up the idea of ‘Capitalist Realism’ in the slogan: ‘it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism.’ However, as the book’s interrogative subtitle suggests, Fisher’s work aims to challenge ‘capitalist realism’ or at the very least makes a plea for us to imagine alternatives, given capitalism’s inherent tendency to generate crises and contradictions in all spheres of life: economic, political, social, cultural, ecological, and psychical.
Philosophically and in general, the first step to solve any problem is asking the right questions. Faced with apocalyptic scenarios of the global Covid-19 pandemic, the time seems ripe to question our ideological presuppositions about the world we live in and to activate our collective imagination towards possible alternatives, especially since the idea of a ‘return to normal’ seems increasingly impossible. This series of lectures aims to interrogate our ideas of what we held to be normal even before the pandemic and whether we really want to (or can) return to that (ab)normal world.
The lectures will focus on broad themes of contemporary pertinence: education, mental health, popular culture, digital media, marketing; and our discussion will be anchored in a close reading of assigned texts, which will animate the class. Students are expected to attend each week’s lecture having carefully read the ‘required’ texts.
Assignments: The students had to present a long research essay individually based on the readings done in class.
Testimonial:
The course was well planned and the material was decided based on what the students could digest. The Prof was thorough and very patient with us. The stage was set with Fisher's Capitalist Realism and it provided a good insight of what the course intended to educate us on. It also succeeded in helping us question structures be it institutional or social.
~Anna Abraham, UID: 183005, TYBMM 2020-21
Rutwij Nakhwa
- Series on Police & Human Rights
Resource person: Devyani Srivastava and Devika Prasad with Dr. Meeran Borwankar (IPS) and Naveen Gautam (Dalit Activist)
Number of Students: 40
Course details: The series helped students understand policing in India better, with a focus on the role of the police in upholding, protecting, and promoting the realization of human rights. Some of the topics covered in the sessions were - Know your Police, filing complaints, women and police rights, and caste based violence. The course was conducted by the Centre for Human Rights, CHRI
About CHRI
The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, international non-governmental organisation working in the area of human rights. Through its reports, research, and advocacy, CHRI draws attention to the progress and setbacks to human rights in Commonwealth countries.
Assignment: Students were given assignments in the form of finding civic information that will inculcate ownership in them as a citizen.
Student Testimonial:
“The course made me realise my privilege, especially during the session when we had a Dalit Advocate talk about his experiences on the field. One of the first assignments- to know our local police- made me realise how unaware I am of things that really matter when it comes to civic knowledge. It helped me develop my sense of civic responsibilities as a citizen.
~ Khwaish Gupta, UID:193121, SYBMM 2020-21
Verbal Sensibility: What is it about?
Resource person, Sroojana Iyer, Freelance Brand Manager, Social Media Strategist
Number of students: 16
About the course: The course aims to help students ideate and work on media briefs. It is to familiarize students with Search Engine Optimization, use of verbal expressions and pitching ideas to the client. They will have a better understanding of verbal expression while writing for social media. The students will be able to work on short scripts for promotional video on different kinds of media- print and online.
Assignment:
Sroojana Iyer is an award-winning creator of fandoms. Through launching Voot, Viacom18's OTT app in India, along with Voot Kids and Voot Select and Tastemade's India chapter, she has honed an understanding of writing for different media, appreciation for analysing content as a consumer, and when to turn off her brain to enjoy a silly drama on Netflix.
Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?
Open to current SYBMM and TYBMMSeries on Police and Human Rights (Interdisciplinary)
By Commonwealth Human Rights InitiativePast Offerings
City Stories
April 2016Resource person: Mr. Chaitanya Marpakwar, Journalist, Mumbai Mirror
Number of students enrolled: 16
Course Details: The course was meant to inculcate observation technique and presentation skills among the students from a journalistic point of view. Keeping in mind the various aspects of Mumbai city the students explored some significant subjects about the vibrant, dynamic life and present it in a crisp way.
As part of the issues covered, a series of lectures was arranged for the students. This included Mr. Vasant Dhoble, Retd. Additional Police Commissioner, who spoke about the importance of filing an FIR and Women Safety Law, Mr. Rajendra Aklekar, Author & Senior Journalist, who gave an insightful lecture on the historical past and current challenges of the local train network in Mumbai and Mr. Sunil Baghel, Senior Legal reporter, who shared the experience of legal proceedings and court matters.
Assignment: The assignments encouraged gathering information from the field, attending sessions in court and conducting an interview with elected representatives – MP, MLA or Corporator and writing a report about the same. The task to visit places of interest and chronicle the events made the assignments lively.
From Pencil to Pixel
April 2016Resource Person: Mr. Siddharth Bhatia
Number of Sessions: 8
Course Details: The course was meant to communicate ideas through the use of Illustrator and make it effective. The primary aim was to convey that anyone who can think and wants to express can learn Illustrator and communicate with the audience.
Assignment: The assignment was individual wherein each student had to choose a subject and communicate the nuances of that particular idea through the software.
Public Policy
April 2017No. of students enrolled: 17
Resource person: Mr. Kishu Daswani, Mr. Shreyas Narla and Mr. Amal Sethi.
Course details: The first session was to give a brief overview of the basic concepts, including a discussion on the process of policy-making and the players involved. This was followed by discussion on the policy-making process by exploring it in the context of narratives on India and Foreign policy. The next two modules were a discussion on narratives of the stakeholders/institution involved in spinning/producing them, a prominent one being the Media. The session ended with a discussion on Intellectual property rights giving the students an insight into the significance of Public Policy and its implementation in specific areas.
Befriend The Word
April 2017No. of students enrolled: 17
Resource person: Mr. Krishna Warrier
Course details: The programme was designed to help participants develop a writing style, sharpen self-editing skills, use a dictionary effectively, and polish online writing skills. Participants were assessed through a written class test.
Magazine Journalism
February 2019Resource person: Ms. Jasreen Mayal Khanna
Number of students enrolled: 17
Course details: This course was organised to give industrial exposure to students on writing journalistic articles for magazines. The students were taken through the entire process of writing a magazine article - right from pitching a topic, choosing an angle, writing a cover letter and the actual article, including anecdotes, interviews and editing. The resource person engaged individual discussion with students on their ideas and articles. This helped them better their understanding of the topic, writing skills and increased their confidence level.
Brief description of assignments: The first assignment was a profile. A stranger was to be interviewed and his/her profile was to be written purely based on this interview. It was marked on conduct of interview, use of anecdotes, and timely submission of assignments. The second assignment was a 2000-word magazine story on any topic of the student’s choice, with a specific angle. The criteria for marking were title, deck, and angle, use of anecdotes, proper introduction and satisfactory conclusion.
Right to Information
February 2019Resource person: Mr. Chaitanya Marpakwar, editor in Mumbai Mirror. We had two sessions by Mr. Anil Galgali & Mr. Shailesh Gandhi, both RTI activists, respectively.
No. of students enrolled: 40
No. of students completed: 18
Course Details: The course aimed at educating the students about the importance, relevance & usage of the Right to Information Act, passed in 2005. Theoretical knowledge about the history of the emergence of this powerful instrument for the public, the fundamental meaning and its format , the procedure of filing an RTI and getting a reply was explained. Moreover, real life outcomes of RTIs filed was discussed and how to make a successful story out of an RTI response was also given. Both the aspects were covered across the five sessions.
Brief description of assignments: The assessment was to file a RTI by each individual. The students had to select a topic of their interest for enquiry, draft questions on the same (keeping in mind the scope of a good story out of the RTI filed), search for the authorities-in-charge regarding their specific topic then finally file the RTI , submit the Xerox of the acknowledged RTI in the department. A 250-word report on the whole process of the course and the idea of the story they had in mind was also to be attached.
Summer School
April 2018The summer school, open to all students is a bouquet of handpicked, intellectually stimulating courses the students could sign up for to utilise their vacations. These courses, though conducted separately from the honours program, are considered for honours credit to the concerned students.
Media and Visual Anthropology
Resource person: Ms. Vinita Bhatia (Retd. Professor, Dept of Sociology, SXC)
Number of students enrolled: 10
Course details: The course was meant to give an exposure to using Anthropological approaches to understand Media as a representation and as a cultural practice.
Assignment: Each student had to choose a subject and write an extensive essay based on the topics done in the course.
Lens Time
Resource person: Ms. Priyal Thakkar (Commercial Photographer/Artist/Colorist)
Number of students enrolled: 17
Course details: The course included a mix of practical classes and understanding the theory behind the art of photography. The students were given a basic introduction to photography through practical sessions and how to apply the basic skills to enhance visual imagery and storytelling value of everyday pictures.
Assignment: The students did practical photography projects based on various subjects and were graded on the same.
MAJLIS - 'Know Your Rights' (KYR)
Resource person: A team of Lawyers from MAJLIS
Number of students enrolled: 11
Course details: The course was meant to give an understanding to students about legal approaches to understand individual rights on topics related to - Domestic Violence , sexual harassment of women at Workplace and Muslim Women Rights.
Assignment: The students were given a written individual assignment on the topics above mentioned.
Hand Lettering Workshop
Resource person: Ms. Vidhi Mehta
Number of students enrolled: 13
Course details: The course was an attempt to introduce students to the basic skills of Hand- Lettering, Brush Lettering, Illustration March Script.
Assignment: The students did a practical assignment of a theme based illustration using the techniques discussed in the course.
Scholarship awardees: Amanda Seraphina James TYBMM (Advertising)