A meeting at Penang in autumn 2010 of like-minded intellectuals and activists from the Global South committed to a radical decolonization of knowledge commenced with a screening of the late Howard Zinn’s documentary, We the People. A few years ago, the World Social Forum in Mumbai opened with a screening, before thousands of people, [...]
Archive for March, 2011
*Thesis Eight: Postcolonial Thought and Religion in the Public Sphere
Posted in American Society and Culture, Postcolonial Thought, The Politics of Culture, tagged critical humanism, Edward Said, Hinduism as world religion, notion of proper religion, postcolonial thought and religion, Protestant Christianity as template of religion, religion & the public sphere, secularist response to religion, Tomoko Masuzawa, world religions on March 18, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Proposition: A more ecumenical conception of the future must contend with the question of religion in the public sphere I do not think it can be doubted that postcolonial thought has displayed a stern reluctance to engage with the question of religion or, more broadly, the language of transcendence. Let us acknowledge, in the [...]
*Thesis Seven: The Geography and Psychogeography of Home
Posted in Global Politics, Politics of Knowledge Systems, Postcolonial Thought, The Politics of Culture, tagged Aijaz Ahmad, Cochin Jews, creation of state of Israel, Edward Said, exile and modern culture, exiles, identity politics, immigrants, India's Jewish communities, Indian Jews in Israel, intellectual emigres, majorities and minorities, modern political arithmetic, Nathan Katz, postcolonialism and the idea of home, psychogeography of home, Samuel Hallegua on March 17, 2011 | 1 Comment »
In a trenchant and famous critique of Edward Said to which I have previously alluded, the Marxist scholar Aijaz Ahmad drew attention to what he described as postcolonialism’s fetish with the idea of exile. Ahmad had in mind the fact that the most compelling figures in Said’s intellectual landscape – among them Conrad, Adorno, Auerbach, [...]
*Thesis Six: In incommensurability is the promise of more democratic futures
Posted in Globalization and Cultural Politics, Mohandas Gandhi, Politics of Knowledge Systems, Postcolonial Thought, The Politics of Culture, tagged Ayurveda, Borges and Falkland Islands, contacts between global South & global North, defenders of colonialism, Foucault and Gandhi on sex, Foucault's History of Sexuality, genocide in Australia and Americas, good and bad imperialisms, Gordon Brown's visit to East Africa, local knowledges, loss of autonomy, medical systems, political and intellectual incommensurability on March 16, 2011 | 1 Comment »
One narrative of colonialism insists that, however adverse the consequences of colonialism for the peoples of the Americas, Asia, Africa, Latin America, Polynesia, and so on, it opened up these worlds to the modern West and its scientific, technological, intellectual and political advancements. This argument has seen an extraordinary resurgence over the last two decades, [...]
