Sunday, October 11, 2009
Friday, October 09, 2009
In Praise of the Common: A Conversation on Philosophy and Politics
Cesare Casarino, Antonio Negri
Cesare Casarino and Antonio Negri, In Praise of the Common: A Conversation on Philosophy and Politics, U of Minnesota Press, 2008, 312pp., $24.95 (pbk), ISBN 9780816647439.
Reviewed by Jason Read, University of Southern Maine
oth formats, becoming in the end something unique. It is also a book that not only became something different than was initially intended, but which also explicitly states this difference. The book was conceived as a series of interviews that would address the historical background of Antonio Negri's thought, the tumultuous period of political action and philosophical reflection of the Italian sixties and seventies that remains largely unknown in the Anglo-American world despite the popularity of Empire and Multitude. However, as these conversations developed they became less about the past, less a matter of one person interviewing another about his experiences, and more about the present and future. The interview became a conversation. Unlike an interview, a conversation is determined less by an asymmetry between the one who knows and the one who asks than by the production of some common understanding. In Casarino's terms, "Conversation is the language of the common" (1).
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Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Religion and the Specter of the West: Sikhism, India, Postcoloniality, and the Politics of Translation
October, 2009
Cloth, 536 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-231-14724-8
$44.00 ($55.00 )
View Sale / £38.00
Arguing that intellectual movements, such as deconstruction, postsecular theory, and political theology, have different implications for cultures and societies that live with the debilitating effects of past imperialisms, Arvind Mandair unsettles the politics of knowledge construction in which the category of "religion" continues to be central. Through a case study of Sikhism, he launches an extended critique of religion as a cultural universal. At the same time, he presents a portrait of how certain aspects of Sikh tradition were reinvented as "religion" during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
India's imperial elite subtly recast Sikh tradition as a sui generis religion, which robbed its teachings of their political force. In turn, Sikhs began to define themselves as a "nation" and a "world religion" that was separate from, but parallel to, the rise of the Indian state and global Hinduism. Rather than investigate these processes in isolation from Europe, Mandair shifts the focus closer to the political history of ideas, thereby recovering part of Europe's repressed colonial memory.
Mandair rethinks the intersection of religion and the secular in discourses such as history of religions, postcolonial theory, and recent continental philosophy. Though seemingly unconnected, these discourses are shown to be linked to a philosophy of "generalized translation" that emerged as a key conceptual matrix in the colonial encounter between India and the West. In this riveting study, Mandair demonstrates how this philosophy of translation continues to influence the repetitions of religion and identity politics in the lives of South Asians, and the way the academy, state, and media have analyzed such phenomena.
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Thursday, September 10, 2009
Monday, September 07, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
Sikh Students Conference sets a new paradigm of activism
Berkeley, CA June 24, 2009 – Sikh Students Conference UC Berkeley hosted upwards of 80 Sikh students from across North America to engage Sikh students on the topic of 1984. The event, organized by Center for Sikh Studies and Sikh Students Federation, engaged the philosophical underpinnings and foundations behind the event leading up to 1984 and the contemporary perception of 1984 by way of Sikh scholars including Professor Balbinder Singh Bhogal (Hofstra Univerity, Sardarni Kuljit Kaur Bindra Chair in Sikh Studies). Participants, consisting mostly of college students and young professionals, were hosted at UC Berkeley dormitories and were provided room and board. In addition to lecture and discussion with scholars, participants explored the bay area including Muir Woods, Ocean Beach, and wider Berkeley.
Lectures were followed by discussion, in which participants were afforded opportunity to present questions and comments. Scholars were Randeep Singh (UC Berkeley), Amandeep Singh (SUNY Stony Brook), Harjeet Grewal (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), Prabhsharandeep Singh (Center for Sikh Studies), and Professor Balbinder Singh Bhogal (Hofstra University).
The conference began on the afternoon Thursday, June 18 with Rehraas Sahib. After Rehraas Sahib, there was Kirtan and Ardaas. Afterwards, Prabhsharandeep Singh explained the detailed purpose of the conference. Prabhsharandeep Singh said that any nation’s autonomy is connected with its ideological commitments and philosophical depth. For this reason, awakening the Sikh students’ appreciation for deeper thought was the purpose of this conference.
During Friday’s first session was Randeep Singh’s (student of philosophy at UC Berkeley) lecture. Exploring the roots of western secularism, Randeep Singh showed that colonized nations have tended to be influenced to this ideology. In India, Sikhs are also under this influence. Randeep Singh presented the trend towards secularism in Kantian philosophy and its implication for the modern nation state including India and India’s attack on the Sikhs in 1984 in particular. This effort traced back India’s constitutional secularism to its philosophical grounds and thereby demonstrated the force of India’s violence.
Amandeep Singh’s (Stony Brook University New York) lecture followed during the evening session. Amandeep Singh spoke about the attacks of 1984 from the perspective of theology of the event. He expressed his views in dialogue with John Caputo and Deleuze. He said that the event as the 1984 attacks are of sometimes of such a magnitude that they make some fundamental changes between human existence and time while transcending history. Professor Bhogal initiated discussion on this lecture and students participated in discussion. At the evening, students went to Meir Woods.
On Saturday, the first session began with Prabhsharandeep Singh’s lecture in which the major events since 1849 were narrated in a philosophical context and he explained the present-day situation of the Sikhs by centering his lecture around violence and metaphysics. Prabhsharandeep Singh explored the Sikh experience through the most significant events that are 1849 (British occupation of the Punjab) and 1984 (Indian army invasion on Sri Darbar Sahib Amritsar and several other Gurdwaras). The violence of 1984, as argued, is not mere political or military violence against the Sikhs, but a violence of metaphysics that was there long before 1984. Saturday Morning also marked Jaspreet Singh’s speech on United Sikhs’ humanitarian work and the scope of legal activism.
In the second session, Harjit Singh Grewal (University of Michigan) demonstrated that during the state oppression, the resistance shifts from violence to artistic expressions. Harjeet Singh uses the contemporary desire for autonomy as a lens to understand what is now memorialized as the Khalistan demand. Thus, Harjeet Grewal aimed to explore how the violent resistance of the Khalistan movement turned into the contemporary “fantasy of violent resistance”. Harjit Grewal’s speech was preceded by Gurvinder Singh’s speech on the impetus for dialoguing with the events of 1984.
On Sunday, Professor Balbinder Singh Bhogal (Sardarni Kuljit Kaur Bindra Chair in Sikh Studies, Hofstra University) discussed the difference between Sikh sovereignty and the rule of government. Professor Bhogal drew the difference between the coercive nature of government and the spiritual sanction of the Sikhs, showing that governance of the nation-state demands a silence of obedience whereas the Sikh’s strength invokes a silence of expectation.
Lectures were followed by discussion, in which participants were afforded opportunity to present questions and comments. Scholars were Randeep Singh (UC Berkeley), Amandeep Singh (SUNY Stony Brook), Harjeet Grewal (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), Prabhsharandeep Singh (Center for Sikh Studies), and Professor Balbinder Singh Bhogal (Hofstra University).
The conference began on the afternoon Thursday, June 18 with Rehraas Sahib. After Rehraas Sahib, there was Kirtan and Ardaas. Afterwards, Prabhsharandeep Singh explained the detailed purpose of the conference. Prabhsharandeep Singh said that any nation’s autonomy is connected with its ideological commitments and philosophical depth. For this reason, awakening the Sikh students’ appreciation for deeper thought was the purpose of this conference.
During Friday’s first session was Randeep Singh’s (student of philosophy at UC Berkeley) lecture. Exploring the roots of western secularism, Randeep Singh showed that colonized nations have tended to be influenced to this ideology. In India, Sikhs are also under this influence. Randeep Singh presented the trend towards secularism in Kantian philosophy and its implication for the modern nation state including India and India’s attack on the Sikhs in 1984 in particular. This effort traced back India’s constitutional secularism to its philosophical grounds and thereby demonstrated the force of India’s violence.
Amandeep Singh’s (Stony Brook University New York) lecture followed during the evening session. Amandeep Singh spoke about the attacks of 1984 from the perspective of theology of the event. He expressed his views in dialogue with John Caputo and Deleuze. He said that the event as the 1984 attacks are of sometimes of such a magnitude that they make some fundamental changes between human existence and time while transcending history. Professor Bhogal initiated discussion on this lecture and students participated in discussion. At the evening, students went to Meir Woods.
On Saturday, the first session began with Prabhsharandeep Singh’s lecture in which the major events since 1849 were narrated in a philosophical context and he explained the present-day situation of the Sikhs by centering his lecture around violence and metaphysics. Prabhsharandeep Singh explored the Sikh experience through the most significant events that are 1849 (British occupation of the Punjab) and 1984 (Indian army invasion on Sri Darbar Sahib Amritsar and several other Gurdwaras). The violence of 1984, as argued, is not mere political or military violence against the Sikhs, but a violence of metaphysics that was there long before 1984. Saturday Morning also marked Jaspreet Singh’s speech on United Sikhs’ humanitarian work and the scope of legal activism.
In the second session, Harjit Singh Grewal (University of Michigan) demonstrated that during the state oppression, the resistance shifts from violence to artistic expressions. Harjeet Singh uses the contemporary desire for autonomy as a lens to understand what is now memorialized as the Khalistan demand. Thus, Harjeet Grewal aimed to explore how the violent resistance of the Khalistan movement turned into the contemporary “fantasy of violent resistance”. Harjit Grewal’s speech was preceded by Gurvinder Singh’s speech on the impetus for dialoguing with the events of 1984.
On Sunday, Professor Balbinder Singh Bhogal (Sardarni Kuljit Kaur Bindra Chair in Sikh Studies, Hofstra University) discussed the difference between Sikh sovereignty and the rule of government. Professor Bhogal drew the difference between the coercive nature of government and the spiritual sanction of the Sikhs, showing that governance of the nation-state demands a silence of obedience whereas the Sikh’s strength invokes a silence of expectation.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Sikh Students Conference || www.SikhStudents.org
Start Time: Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 4:00pm
End Time: Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 6:00pm
Location: UC Berkeley Campus
Email: sikhstudents.contact@gmail.com
The Sikh Students Conference will bring focus on the determining factors in the current Sikh situation as well as the trends among the Sikhs. The Sikhs, whose entity has been reduced to subjects after 1849, have been victims of the processes that defined the nature of the secular Indian nation-state. Such definitions represent the imperialist agenda to universalize meaning, construct a uniform identity, and deny any difference. The conference aims to contest the accepted definitions and break away with the conventions in Sikh activism. The conference is a result of the realization of having a fresh engagement with the area of Sikh studies in particular and the related areas such as theory and method in the study of religion and different branches of Western philosophical traditions that provide basis for theoretical approaches. Although the conference is mainly focusing on the 1984 attack on Darbar Sahib, Amritsar, the primary focus is on the philosophical trends that shaped historically-significant events or even the historical context itself.
Therefore, the conference is unlike venues that try to locate the Sikhs within any given space, whether it’s Indian secularism, or the American liberal democracy, but an attempt to locate a Sikh space. Because what Sikhs encounter in life, particularly in the West, is unavoidably complex, simplistic approaches are incapacitating. The few available venues are stifling potential. The Sikh Students Conference aims to foster the faculties critical and necessary for a real engagement with life and the issues.
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