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The field of humanities generates a discourse that traditionally addressed the questions of what is proper to man, rights of man, crimes against humanity, human creativity and action, human reflection and performance, human utterance and artefact. The university as a philosophical-political institution transmits this humanist account. This European humanistic legacy, which is little more than Christian anthropology, barely received any questioning from cultures that faced colonialism. In such a context, this volume attempts to unravel the ‘barely secularized heritage’ of Europe (Derrida’s phrase) and its fatal consequences in other cultures. The task of Critical Humanities is to explore the ways in which the question of being human (along with non-human others) today from heterogeneous cultural ‘backgrounds’ can be undertaken. The future of the humanities teaching and research is contingent upon the risky task of configuring cultural difference from non-European locations. Such a task is inescapable and urgently needed when tectonic cultural upheavals have begun to show devastating effect on planetary coexistence today. It is precisely in such a context that this collection of essays on critical humanities affirms, ‘without alibi’, the urgency of collective reflection and innovative research across the traditional disciplinary and institutional borders and communication systems on the one hand and Asian, African and European cultural formations on the other. Critical Humanities are at one level little more than communities on the verge (critical) but whose centuries long survival and resilient creations of cultural (and /as natural) habitats are of deeply enduring significance to affirm the biocultural diversities of living that compose the planet. Topical and timely, this book will be useful to scholars, researchers and teachers of cultural theory, literary studies, philosophy, cultural geography, legal studies, sociology, history, performance studies, environmental studies, caste and communalism studies, postcolonial theory, India studies, and education.
This volume critically engages with the question of cultural difference and the idea of living with diversity in the context of India and Europe. It looks at certain essential European categories of learning such as art, nature, the human, literature, relation, philosophy, and the humanities and analyses texts from Sanskrit language (through Telugu resources) to argue that categories like prakriti, loka, jati, dharma, karma, sahitya, kala,etc. cannot be conflated with conceptual formations such as nature, world, caste, religion, (sanctioned) action, literature and art respectively. The book questions and unravels the efficacy of European concepts, theories and interpretive frames in understanding Indian reflective traditions and cultural forms. It also lays the groundwork for reorienting teaching and research in universities in the humanities on the basis of key cultural differences. By focusing on major themes in the humanities discourse and their limitations, the work engages with the writings of Heidegger, Derrida and Agamben, among others, from radically new vantage points of Sanskrit-Indian reflective traditions, and challenges prevailing ideas about Indian art, literature and culture. Part of the Critical Humanities Across Cultures series, this book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of Indian languages and literature, comparative literature, art and aesthetics, postcolonial studies, cultural and heritage studies, philosophy, political philosophy, comparative philosophy, Sanskrit studies, India studies, South Asian studies, Global South studies, and for those working on education in the humanities/human sciences.
This book acquaints the reader to the often invisible-ized practices and policies under the rhetoric of ‘inclusion’, through theoretical and empirical analysis. It emphasizes on the complexities of education policies in a multicultural state by identifying the challenges to the idea of ‘inclusion’ illuminated through judicial interventions, policy-frameworks and everyday experiences of individuals. Higher education is imperative to empowerment in socially stratified societies marred with deep inequalities like India and many other multicultural countries. Disputes over inclusion remains a critical feature in Indian higher education sector, as it is viewed as facilitating access to economic opportunities and providing vertical mobility for individuals belonging to marginalized communities. Higher education empowers, and expands individual horizons of thought and ideas of freedom, dignity, equality, enabling individuals to participate actively in the political-sociological discourses in democratic polity. Therefore, policy makers, political theorists and educationists have been examining the question of inclusion and education as public-good. Contemporary India has witnessed an unprecedented attack on academic freedom, free exchange of ideas and expressions, challenging the very idea of inclusion and inclusiveness.
This volume looks at the implications of transcultural humanities in South Asia, which is becoming a crucial area of research within literary and cultural studies. The volume also explores various complex critical dimensions of transculturation, its indeterminate periodisation, its temporal and spatial nonlinearity, its territoriality and intersectionality. Drawing on contributors from around the globe, the entries look at literature and poetics, theory and praxis, borders and nations, politics, Partition, gender and sexuality, the environment, representations in art and pedagogy and the transcultural classroom. Using key examples and case studies, the contributors look at current developments in transcultural and transnational standpoints and their possible educational outcomes. A broad and comprehensive collection, as it also speaks about the value of the humanities and the significance of South Asian contexts, Transcultural Humanities in South Asia will be of particular interest to those working on postcolonial studies, literary studies, Asian studies and more.
India has often been at the centre of debates on and definitions of the postcolonial condition. Offering a challenging new direction for the field, this Critical Reader confronts how theory in the Indian context is responding in vital terms to our understanding of that condition today. The Indian Postcolonial: A Critical Reader is made up of four sections looking in turn at: visual cultures translating cultural traditions the ethical text global/cosmopolitan worlds. Each section is prefaced with a short introduction by the editors that locate these interdisciplinary articles within the contemporary national and international context. Showcasing the diversity and vitality of current debate, this volume collects the work of both established figures and a new generation of cultural critics. Challenging and unsettling many basic premises of postcolonial studies, this volume is the ideal Reader for students and scholars of the Indian Postcolonial.
Providing a critical humanities approach to ageing, this book addresses new directions in age studies: the meaning and workings of "ageism" in the twenty-first century, the vexed relationship between age and disability studies, the meanings and experiences of "queer" aging; the fascinating, yet often elided work of age activists; and, finally, the challenges posed by AI and, more generally, transhumanism in the context of caring for an ageing population. Divided into four parts: Part I: What Does It Mean to Grow Old? Part II: Aging: Old Age and Disability Part III: Aging, Old Age, and Activism Part IV: Old Age and Humanistic Approaches to Care the volume provides an innovative, two-part structure that facilitates rather than merely encourages interdisciplinary collaboration across the humanities and social sciences. Each essay is thus followed by two short critical responses from disciplinary viewpoints that diverge from that of the essay’s author. Drawing on work from across the humanities - philosophy, fine arts, religion, and literature, this book will be a useful supplemental text for courses on age studies, sociology and gerontology at both undergraduate and graduate levels.
This book considers teaching in modern institutional settings, among other things, as the ethical questioning and reversal of passively accepted prejudices, particularly in contexts of diversities and inequalities. Its thematic focus is the ethics of teacher-learner and learner-learner relationships within the democratic setup, and the possibilities of critique and transformation emerging out of such a relationship. The first theme of the book is diversity and pluralism, the second is the question of inequality in such contexts of radical diversity. With respect to this question, an unavoidable phenomenon of our times is the capitalisation of education and the reductionist view of learners as customers and consumers of knowledge. The approach to education that sees students merely as skilled human resources to be readied for the job market militates against critical thinking and do not respond appropriately to the questions of diversity and inequality. Thus, a significant focus of the book is the impact of inherited inequalities of caste and race on classroom ambience and teachers' interventions in the modern institutional context. The pertinent question is the increasing unwillingness of teachers to recognise and challenge discriminatory views and play their role in social transformation. In this regard, the teaching and learning of the humanities is also investigated. Teaching and the traditional classroom, it is often said, may not be required in the future as machines and remotely located teachers/explicators might claim their place. Hence, another question of focus is whether such a future would be hospitable to the critical task of education to cultivate young citizens of democracies.
What explains the peculiar trajectory of the university and liberal education in India? Can we understand the crisis in the university in terms of the idea of education underlying it? This book explores these vital questions and traces the intellectual history of the idea of education and the cluster of concepts associated with it. It probes into the cultural roots of liberal education and seeks to understand its scope, effects and limits when transplanted into the Indian context. With an extensive analysis of the philosophical writing on the idea of university and education in the West and colonial documents on education in India, the book reconstructs the ideas of Gandhi and Tagore on education and learning as a radical alternative to the inherited, European model. The author further reflects upon how we can successfully deepen liberal education in India as well as construct alternative models that will help us diversify higher learning for future generations. Lucid, extensive and of immediate interest, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers interested in the history and philosophy of education and culture, social epistemology, ethics, postcolonial studies, cultural studies and public policy.
This volume of critical essays explores various facets of the social sciences and humanities from an interdisciplinary perspective. The essays gathered here have been culled from different aspects of humanities research in order to widen the scope of research possibilities. The dialogic mode in which the essays are arranged lends a unique texture to the book. This volume will be of interest to researchers, academics and even the casual reader with an interest in the humanities. The rich array of topics covered here gives an inkling of the range of Professor Milind Malshe’s research interests and his academic associations in his career as a scholar and mentor. The different sections in this volume engage in a performance of sorts, allowing a free play of many voices—identified as the core to teaching and research in the humanities.