kriticulture

A timely article, a semi-obituary. . . But I still have hope that the history of cultural studies might matter to the university—and to the world beyond it. My hopes aren't quite as ambitious as they were 20 years ago. I no longer expect cultural studies to transform the disciplines. But I do think cultural studies can do a better job of complicating the political-economy model in media theory, a better job of complicating our accounts of neoliberalism, and a better job of convincing people inside and outside the university that cultural studies' understanding of hegemony is a form of understanding with great explanatory power—that is to say, a form of understanding that actually works. Link: http://chronicle.com/article/Whats-the-Matter-With/48334/

“Identity and Cultural Dynamics Tribes of South Africa, Nigeria and North East India” Rajiv Gandhi University, Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh, India October 28-30, 2009 A three-day International Multidisciplinary Seminar on “Identity and Cultural Dynamics: Tribes of South Africa, Nigeria and North East India” is being organized by Rajiv Gandhi University, Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh, India in collaboration with the African Studies Association of India, New Delhi, from October 28 to 30, 2009. Papers are invited on any of the sub- themes of the seminar. Please send in the abstracts (not exceeding 300 words) by 30th September 2009 and full research papers by 15 October 2009. For further details please contact: 1. Dr. Shreya Bhattacharji Seminar Coordinator Email: bhattacharjishreya@gmail.com shreya_bhattacharji@yahoo.com shreya_b3@rediffmail.com 2. Mr. Miazi Hazam Email: miazimiazi@rediffmail.com “Identity and Cultural Dynamics Tribes of South Africa, Nigeria and North ...

By Rajesh Kumar Sharma It was a tight, neat cabin. Files were piled up like trophies against a wall. An air-conditioner peeped out of the twisted mouth of a window. Across the table sat the gatekeeper, the all-potent PA, chattering with some malevolent soul on his elegant white-gray telephone. “I am like a mongrel’s carcass, torn to shreds by those vile crows,” he said with the touching vanity of a poet who has just discovered himself. The tall man looming over him with a file and a smile frowned at the comparison, unable to determine whether the first simile was more honourable or the second. “VIP after VIP has been tearing into my flesh, but I tell them I can’t get them an appointment with the Sahib. At least not yet.” I was amazed at the range of images his uneven head could harbour – from disintegrating dogs and scavenging crows to exhausted courtesans! Keats’s negative capability, or the ancient seers’ aham brahmasmi? Had I yielded to a fit of that idiotic sentiment which sometime...

Memories come like winter sunshine when the mind turns to those who have been my teachers. Now that I have myself been a teacher for several years, I have begun to realize how difficult – impossible even – it is to become, and remain, one. Teaching, like learning, begins – as the story of Nachiketa and Yama hints – with dying. The will to know, which sprouts in the will to be, must crash against the farthest bounds of being. To seek is to eternally destroy and create your being. It is to be, like Nachiketa, the flames of yajna agni (sacrificial fire) . . . even as it is to be Yama, the one who lives dying . ...

Rajesh Kumar Sharma Even as the country moves towards evolving a comprehensive higher education programme, we need to steer a middle course between euphoria and cynicism. Comprehensive restructuring is urgently required, but it should not lead to a monolithic system. Diversity needs to be nurtured if only to realize the larger purpose of restructuring, which is to develop global competencies in an increasingly challenging world. Innovation and creativity flourish most in the soil of diversity. In place of a New Delhi-centric conception, a multi-centric conception of higher education would therefore better serve the purpose. It is possible to strive for uniformly high standards while keeping the focus on specific regional and local priorities. Moreover, the needs of rural India also should be adequately integrated into the project of restructuring. Care has to be taken that the project does not become a prisoner of the metropolitan agenda. The guiding mantra of restructuring should be g...

Alain Badiou Translated by Alex Ling and Aurélien Mondon Philosophy only exists insofar as there are paradoxical relations, relations which fail to connect, or should not connect. When every connection is naturally legitimate, philosophy is impossible or in vain. Philosophy is the violence done by thought to impossible relations. Today, which is to say “after Deleuze,” there is a clear requisitioning of philosophy by cinema — or of cinema by philosophy. It is therefore certain that cinema offers us paradoxical relations, entirely improbable connections. Which ones? Link

Mary Beard (Courtesy: TLS Online ) I wouldn't want to claim that exams are as bad for the markers as they are for the sitters. But the Cambridge Tripos is still a big investment of time and hard work for the dons. It's not just that you have to read each paper carefully (and I have spent more or less the whole of the last week on this, more than 12 hours a day). You have also to decide what principle of marking to adopt. Put simply, if you are dealing with standard "essay" papers, you can either go question by question (that is mark all the answers to question one, then all the answers to question two and so on) -- or you can go candidate by candidate (that is, mark all the answers from candidate a, then move on to candidate b and so on). The advantage of the former is that you can compare the answers more directly and see more easily which candidates have got new or more interesting material. Link to the article

Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy (born 11 July 1950) is Professor of High Energy Physics and the head of the Physics Department at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan. He graduated and also received PhD from MIT and continues to do research in Particle physics. He received the Baker Award for Electronics in 1968, and the Abdus Salam Prize for Mathematics in 1984. He has authored various scientific research papers in peer-reviewed journals. He is also a prominent environmental and social activist and regularly writes on a wide range of social, cultural and environmental issues. He is the chairman of Mashal, a non-profit organization which publishes Urdu books on women's rights, education, environmental issues, philosophy, and modern thought. He is a staunch opponent of Wahhabist militant Islam in Pakistan and an advocate for democracy in the country. His article, ‘India Through Pakistani Eyes’, is worth a read and is appended below. It was emailed by my frie...

(New Scientist Science in Society May 13, 2009) It will soon be possible to boost human brainpower with electronic "plug-ins" or even by genetic enhancement. What will this mean for the future of humanity? Would it widen the gulf between the world's haves and have-nots -- and perhaps even lead to a distinct and dominant species with unmatchable powers of intellect? It won't be long before... Read here

The age of the printed book is drawing to a close. But there's no need to mourn its passing, says Jürgen Neffe In the shadows of the global financial crisis of the early 21st century, another revolution is gathering pace, whose repercussions reach far beyond the current correctable economic buckling. It impact on the world will compare with Gutenberg's. And with it, the era of the printed book will come to a close. Dissolved digitally like sound and image beforehand, limitlessly copyable, globally downloadable by the million with the click of a mouse, the book is entering the world of multimedia like its disembodied cousins from film, photography and music. This is the disintegration of the oldest serially produced data carrier in terms of form and content. Read here --

By John L. Jackson Jr. (Courtesy: The Chronicle Review ) My one-year-old and I spent the bulk of this week down at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, sitting in on both a dissertation defense and a dissertation proposal defense. It was a wonderful way to spend three days. I always tell people that my favorite moment as a Columbia graduate student had to be during the two hours (maybe it was only an hour and a half) that I spent discussing/defending my dissertation proposal with a dissertation committee that included faculty members from Columbia and NYU, the Department of Anthropology and Columbia Law. They were critical and encouraging. They cautioned me against methodological missteps and challenged me to think more ambitiously about my intellectual endgame. I appreciated them taking the time to really engage my work, and the session gave me the nerve I needed to strike out for “the field” and begin my ethnographic research. But the other side of that dissertational experienc...

Aarttee Kaul Dhar To quote S Vivekananda, “The Ramayana and Mahabharata are the two encyclopedias of the ancient Aryan life and wisdom portraying an ideal civilization which humanity has yet to aspire after.” Tracing Indian philosophical and literary history is an interesting exercise as it reveals records of religious and philosophical developments all striving towards ‘samanvaya’ which is synthesis, reconciliation and concord. Cultural patterns different environments diverse racial contributions and numerous local and historical traditions must have though influenced the Indian culture and philosophy they could not but affect its continuity during six thousand years or more. It would be impatient on my part to just talk of the epics without mentioning the itihasas, puranas, dharmas and other shastras significant in their own way providing necessary base and background to the whole picture in this humble tour-de-force. It is a huge topic but this is just a glimps...

The Revenge of Karl Marx Link: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200904/hitchens-marx

Looking for a Different India Do you Really want a True Alternative to the traditional Politics ? to Corruption & Violence ? to Poverty & Unemployment ? to Illiteracy and Illnesses ? to Discrimination, Injustice and divisions ? to unfulfilled manifestos and broken promises ? to unequal growths ? to growing crimes ? If YES, Come ?The Time is Now ! We can do it and We Will Do It Together ! Welcome to the world of Changemakers. The world of Humanists volunteers. Let's work with similar minded people, selflessly, to build a Different India, a Humanist Nation, the India of our dreams. Visit www.humanistparty.org/index.php/change

Jeon Joge By Sukhwant Kaur Mann Translated by Paramjit Singh Ramana All the surroundings have gone desolate. I don’t know why peacocks don’t cry any more.... Day before yesterday, the feathers of the wild fowl lay scattered all over the road. It used to flutter around that big acacia tree and settled in the same tree every night.... How bright and sharp coloured its feathers were! .... In the morning the feathers lay scattered on the road. God knows which hunter found him or some dog or cat got hold of him.... It was the last wild fowl that had this acacia as his shelter. This village was destined to be demolished. But its residents were not willing to vacate it at all. The expanding city was almost touching it. Many notices had been issued ordering the villagers to clear out. But most of them had not been allotted any space to resettle. Some of them had been running dairies from their premises and some other had set up small businesses within the city. And a few aged people were too ...