1. The nature of Aesthetics: Aesthetics as `metacriticism`; the relationship between art-criticism and aesthetic theorizing; the relationship between creative practices and aesthetics 

2. Some major theories of art: Western

(a) Formalism-Structuralism

(b) Post-structuralism

(c) Art and the human mind: Psychoanalysis

(d) Art and human society and culture: Marxism, Cultural Studies

(e) Feminism

(f) Post-modernism and Post-colonialism 

3. Some major theories of art: Indian

(a) the Dhvani theory

(b) the Rasa theory 

Texts/References

Ahmad, Aijaz. In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures. Delhi: OUP, 1992. 

Krishna, Daya (ed.) India`s Intellectual Traditions: Attempts at Conceptual Reconstructions. Delhi: ICPR & Motilal Banarsidass,  1987. 

Niranjana, T., P. Sudhir and V. Dhareshwar (eds.) Interrogating Modernity: Culture and Colonialism in India Calcutta: Seagull, 1993..

Rader, M. (ed.) A Modern Book of Esthetics, Harcourt, 1979. 

Singer, Alan et al (eds.) Literary Aesthetics. Blackwell, 1999. 

Seturaman, V. S. (ed.) Indian Aesthetics: an introduction. Madras: Macmillan, 1992. 

Turner, Byran S. (ed) Theories of Modernity and Post-modernity. London: Sage, 1990. 

Waugh, Patricia (ed) Postmodernism: A Reader. London: Edward Arnold, 1992. 

Zima, Peter V. The Philosophy of Modern Literary Theory. London: The Athlone Press, 1999.