kriticulture

By Badri Raina The Supreme Court having dismissed a Special Leave Petition seeking deferment of the Allahabad High Court judgement which was slated to be delivered on the 24th of September, the decks have been cleared for the said judgement to be pronounced now at 3.30 afternoon tomorrow, the 30th of September, 2010. At the heart of the issue in court is a title suit to determine who is in rightful possession of the site where the demolished mosque stood—a Muslim organization or a Hindu one. Remarkably, after some sixty years of litigation in the matter, all parties to the dispute have welcomed the prospect of a legal determination regardless of who wins or loses, or whether the judgement-to-come confronts the parties with a mixed bag of determinations. But leaving the way open to all to go in appeal to the Supreme Court depending on how the chips fall. It is to be recalled that one justification preferred for the demolition of the Babri mosque in 1992 was that the courts were ...

By Badri Raina However you may cavil, We got the game, the game; However it may unravel, We have no shame, no shame. Only a hundred workers lost their lives, Only a footbridge fell; Only the beggars were put to the knives, Our hands remain in the till. The white man does not appreciate How well we negotiate Reality and bluster, Third world and first world state. Our metaphysics teaches us To look with benign eye On scoundrels and scalawags Who leave us high and dry. O India we assure you Your image shall not be dented; However the shit may hit the fan, Our glories shall be scented. Be not the anti-national wag, Sing praise to national pride; Whatever be the price to pay, We shall bring in the bride. And when we do the beggars will Be back where we know them; And they will so rejoice with us When we show them All the infrastructure we built While they were in quarantine; They will dance to national pride, They will say it is fine If they never have a belly full, Or a shanty in th...

The blog of James Bridle : literature, technology and book futurism, since 2006. booktwo.org | Literature + Technology

from TIME Seligman, in contrast, puts the emphasis on the remembering self. "I think we are our memories more than we are the sum total of our experiences," he says. For him, studying moment-to-moment experiences puts too much emphasis on transient pleasures and displeasures. Happiness goes deeper than that, he argues in his 2002 book Authentic Happiness . As a result of his research, he finds three components of happiness: pleasure ("the smiley-face piece"), engagement (the depth of involvement with one's family, work, romance and hobbies) and meaning (using personal strengths to serve some larger end). Of those three roads to a happy, satisfied life, pleasure is the least consequential, he insists: "This is newsworthy because so many Americans build their lives around pursuing pleasure. It turns out that engagement and meaning are much more important." Link: Science of Happiness: New Research on Mood, Satisfaction -- Printout -- TIME

Taylor is obviously right to say that university systems today, in this country and abroad, face an unprecedented crisis. Costs continue to spiral upwards even as revenue shrinks. Successive cohorts of graduate students move from the Ph.D. to the unemployment lines, or to the wilderness of adjuncting. While magnificent advances in knowledge continue to take place, many tenured professors produce little of real scholarly value. But it is one thing to say that universities have problems. It is another to argue, as Taylor is effectively arguing, that the universities are the problem—that the system that allegedly began with Kant (in fact it began much earlier) has reached the end of its intellectual and social usefulness, and needs to be swept away in favor of something radically new and untested, in accordance with technologies that are still evolving at breakneck speed. That is a reckless, wrong-headed idea, and it has no place in serious discussions of higher education’s...

Mary-Kay Wilmers from London Review of Books Papers speak through their writers. And of all the London Review ’s writers Frank Kermode was the one through whom we spoke most often and most eloquently. In all he wrote nearly 250 pieces for the LRB , the first in October 1979, a review of J.F.C. Harrison’s book on millenarianism, the last, in May this year, a review of Philip Pullman’s The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ . ‘Eloquently’: was that the right word? Not really. Frank’s writing was so much more exact, more stylish, more patient, more ironic, more playful, more attentive, more cunning, more cagey than ‘eloquence’ can suggest. ‘Stealthy’ is another possibility – a word Michael Wood used in introducing the collection of Frank’s essays we published to mark his 90th birthday. But as I pile on the epithets I hear Frank’s voice in my head and I stop. Link: LRB · Mary-Kay Wilmers · Frank Kermode

Here is an urgent message from Amritjit Singh, Langston Hughes Professor of English, Ohio University, USA Dear Colleagues, Much is happening around the country right now to inflame hatred toward Muslims and Arabs. As one dear colleague noted today with understandable alarm, “I am deeply worried about the poisonous environment swirling around the Park51 initiative. Glen Beck and his ilk have given public permission to revile and attack Muslims and their institutions. Mosques are being burned, there is a threat to torch Qur'ans on 9/11, and individuals are being physically assaulted.” Further, those of us with origins in South Asia or the Middle East (Muslim or not) – that is, those of us who are perceived as Muslim or Arab based on our phenotype or our dress – are also beginning to catch the fire. As educators or as individuals otherwise concerned about civil rights and civil liberties, we need to be on the alert and be prepared to do whatever we can to speak up and to educate. At...

It wasn’t until recently that I was forced to reevaluate my stance on the e-book. While researching the negative effects of e-book sales on brick and mortar bookstores, I came across an essay by the science fiction author Charlie Stross. In the essay, “CMAP #5: Why Books are the Length they Are,” Stross lends his support to the e-book, stating that the success of the e-book may lead to a revival of non-novel formats, like novellas and serials, which have been floundering for some time. With this one simple statement, Stross brought me over to the dark side and showed me the brilliant light I’d been missing there all along. If the e-book can revive dead formats, it can also create new ones. We are now in a position wherein we can drastically redefine what counts as a book. As Stross says in his essay, the processes and costs of printing and binding usually dictate the lengths of books, and we have come to define books according to the very narrow specifications of publis...

‘W hen do I start?’ the war artist asked. The captain glanced at his watch, his thin lips pressed into a sliver. Thirty seconds passed. ‘Today,’ he said. From down the hallway a pistol shot rang out, followed by the sprightly pop of a champagne cork. ‘Right now, in fact.’ He handed the war artist a neatly folded uniform, saluted her, and walked out the door. Link: The War Artist | Online Only | Granta Magazine

By Rajesh Kumar Sharma A friend, who also is a teacher, recently sent an sms: satinder singh passed away this morning . Satinder Singh introduced me to the art of reading literature. He taught us to read patiently, to wait like birds even as reading hatched taking its own time. And he taught us to navigate literary works like wayfarers exploring the labyrinthine patterns of some Persian carpets. I remember the day -it must have been in 1980- I first went up to Satinder Singh. As always, he was there outside the classroom well before the class began. I had been reading a poem by Tennyson and had some questions. He heard me out and asked me to see him again the following day. 'Read this book over the weekend and come back to me,' he said, handing me The Complete Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson . I looked apprehensively at the forbidding tome but he reassured me, 'You'll read it through, I know.' And he smiled, patted my shoulder and walked into the class. ...

By Badri Raina From: Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives URL: http://zcommunications.org/so-what-colour-is-terror-by-badri-raina /“Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,/ /Stains the white radiance of Eternity.”/ (Shelley). I Shelley was never more wrong, but to that I shall return. Currently, one of the “burning issues” on media channels here in India is what colour we may ascribe or not ascribe to terror. A conundrum, if there ever was one. The matter has arisen from a comment made by the honourable Home Minister (read Minister of the Interior, incharge of “security” of the realm) to a conclave of senior law-enforcement officers on the state of alertness required of them in these troubled times. Detailing the many sources and forms of terror that now bedevil the even march of the country towards progress and “development,” he made a politic or impolitic “depending on who is listening” reference to a newer source of terror, ...