Teaching Philosophy and Courses Syllabi | Srinivas Raghavendra

Teaching Philosophy

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My teaching philosophy and practices are inspired by two of the fundamental tenets of Tagore’s educational vision. First is the notion of freedom in learning and the second is the notion of harmony with oneself and with nature. My own lived experiences as a student in rural town in India always have prompted me to think about the notion of freedom in learning, but never had the imagination to articulate it until I read this evocative Tagore’s poem, Where the mind is without fear:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Gitanjali by Tagore, Translated by William Radice (2011)

Tagore saw true freedom as a state where knowledge is free and able to produce clear stream of reason that is not lost its way in the dreary desert sand of dead habit and that leads the mind forward into ever-widening thought and action. This poem continues to inspire and redefine my teaching to date.

You can find my Teaching Portfolio here.

Recent courses (2023-2025)

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Azim Premji University, India (2023-2025)

BA

MA

Past courses (2000-2023)

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University of Galway, Ireland (2004-present)

Undergraduate

Advanced Economic Theory
Comparative Economic Thought
International Monetary Economics
Macroeconomics and Public Policy
Mathematics for Economics
Modelling, Analysis and Simulation
Money and Banking
Principles of Economics
Quantitative Methods for Economics
Seminar in Financial Economics
Topics in Macroeconomic Theory

Postgraduate

International Monetary Economics
Macroeconomic Theory and Policy
Quantitative Methods in Finance
Seminar in Financial Economics

PhD

Research Seminar in Macroeconomics

Madras School of Economics, India (2000-2004)

MSc

Capital Markets
Macroeconomic Theory 1
Macroeconomic Theory 2
Statistical Methods for Economics

Indian Institute of Science, India (Visiting Professor 2013-2017)

Ways of Doing: Mapping Science-Society Relationship

International Labor Organization, Italy (Visiting Professor 2013-2017)

Economic Development

Aalborg University, Denmark (2008-2009)

Advanced Macroeconomic Theory