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In this episode of High Theory, Laura Wittman tells us about near death experiences. The central feature of these experiences is a vision and a story, which it turns out are a lot stranger than the “best seller” version. These narrative encounters with death often inspire people to make dramatic moves in search of a more meaningful life, from newfound religious faith or activist commitments to career changes and divorce. In the episode, she talks about the changes in what makes a good death, from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries, and how the narratives of near death experiences reflect our desires for older forms of sociality around life's passing. She references Oliver Sacks's book Hallucinations (Random House, 2012) in regards to the visions patients experience in hospitals, and their desire for a witness in the moments of lucidity that often occur before death. Laura Wittman is an associate professor of French and Italian at Stanford University. She teaches nineteenth and twentieth century literature, and her research focuses on what happens to religious experience in the so-called secular modern age. Her book, The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Modern Mourning, and the Reinvention of the Mystical Body (Toronto UP, 2011) has recently been translated into Italian as Il Milite ignoto. Storia e Mito. (LEG, 2021) She also coordinates the Medical Humanities Working Group at the Stanford Humanities Center. This week's image is a photograph of the Ellen Browning Scripps Memorial Pier in La Jolla, California, taken by Kim Adams in November 2022. On the top of the pier is a research site for the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Two plays about the legal battle to decriminalize homosexuality in India. On September 6, 2018, a decades-long battle to decriminalize queer intimacy in India came to an end. The Supreme Court of India ruled that Section 377, the colonial anti-sodomy law, violated the country's constitution. “LGBT persons,” the Court said, “deserve to live a life unshackled from the shadow of being ‘unapprehended felons.'” But how definitive was this end? How far does the law's shadow fall? How clear is the line between the past and the future? What does it mean to live with full sexual citizenship? In Love and Reparation: A Theatrical Response to the Section 377 Litigation in India (Seagull Books, 2021), Danish Sheikh navigates these questions with a deft interweaving of the legal, the personal, and the poetic. The two plays in this volume leap across court transcripts, affidavits (real and imagined), archival research, and personal memoir. Through his re-staging, Sheikh crafts a genre-bending exploration of a litigation battle, and a celebration of defiant love that burns bright in the shadow of the law. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law
Two plays about the legal battle to decriminalize homosexuality in India. On September 6, 2018, a decades-long battle to decriminalize queer intimacy in India came to an end. The Supreme Court of India ruled that Section 377, the colonial anti-sodomy law, violated the country's constitution. “LGBT persons,” the Court said, “deserve to live a life unshackled from the shadow of being ‘unapprehended felons.'” But how definitive was this end? How far does the law's shadow fall? How clear is the line between the past and the future? What does it mean to live with full sexual citizenship? In Love and Reparation: A Theatrical Response to the Section 377 Litigation in India (Seagull Books, 2021), Danish Sheikh navigates these questions with a deft interweaving of the legal, the personal, and the poetic. The two plays in this volume leap across court transcripts, affidavits (real and imagined), archival research, and personal memoir. Through his re-staging, Sheikh crafts a genre-bending exploration of a litigation battle, and a celebration of defiant love that burns bright in the shadow of the law. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Two plays about the legal battle to decriminalize homosexuality in India. On September 6, 2018, a decades-long battle to decriminalize queer intimacy in India came to an end. The Supreme Court of India ruled that Section 377, the colonial anti-sodomy law, violated the country's constitution. “LGBT persons,” the Court said, “deserve to live a life unshackled from the shadow of being ‘unapprehended felons.'” But how definitive was this end? How far does the law's shadow fall? How clear is the line between the past and the future? What does it mean to live with full sexual citizenship? In Love and Reparation: A Theatrical Response to the Section 377 Litigation in India (Seagull Books, 2021), Danish Sheikh navigates these questions with a deft interweaving of the legal, the personal, and the poetic. The two plays in this volume leap across court transcripts, affidavits (real and imagined), archival research, and personal memoir. Through his re-staging, Sheikh crafts a genre-bending exploration of a litigation battle, and a celebration of defiant love that burns bright in the shadow of the law. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/lgbtq-studies
Two plays about the legal battle to decriminalize homosexuality in India. On September 6, 2018, a decades-long battle to decriminalize queer intimacy in India came to an end. The Supreme Court of India ruled that Section 377, the colonial anti-sodomy law, violated the country's constitution. “LGBT persons,” the Court said, “deserve to live a life unshackled from the shadow of being ‘unapprehended felons.'” But how definitive was this end? How far does the law's shadow fall? How clear is the line between the past and the future? What does it mean to live with full sexual citizenship? In Love and Reparation: A Theatrical Response to the Section 377 Litigation in India (Seagull Books, 2021), Danish Sheikh navigates these questions with a deft interweaving of the legal, the personal, and the poetic. The two plays in this volume leap across court transcripts, affidavits (real and imagined), archival research, and personal memoir. Through his re-staging, Sheikh crafts a genre-bending exploration of a litigation battle, and a celebration of defiant love that burns bright in the shadow of the law. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies
Two plays about the legal battle to decriminalize homosexuality in India. On September 6, 2018, a decades-long battle to decriminalize queer intimacy in India came to an end. The Supreme Court of India ruled that Section 377, the colonial anti-sodomy law, violated the country's constitution. “LGBT persons,” the Court said, “deserve to live a life unshackled from the shadow of being ‘unapprehended felons.'” But how definitive was this end? How far does the law's shadow fall? How clear is the line between the past and the future? What does it mean to live with full sexual citizenship? In Love and Reparation: A Theatrical Response to the Section 377 Litigation in India (Seagull Books, 2021), Danish Sheikh navigates these questions with a deft interweaving of the legal, the personal, and the poetic. The two plays in this volume leap across court transcripts, affidavits (real and imagined), archival research, and personal memoir. Through his re-staging, Sheikh crafts a genre-bending exploration of a litigation battle, and a celebration of defiant love that burns bright in the shadow of the law. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/performing-arts
Two plays about the legal battle to decriminalize homosexuality in India. On September 6, 2018, a decades-long battle to decriminalize queer intimacy in India came to an end. The Supreme Court of India ruled that Section 377, the colonial anti-sodomy law, violated the country's constitution. “LGBT persons,” the Court said, “deserve to live a life unshackled from the shadow of being ‘unapprehended felons.'” But how definitive was this end? How far does the law's shadow fall? How clear is the line between the past and the future? What does it mean to live with full sexual citizenship? In Love and Reparation: A Theatrical Response to the Section 377 Litigation in India (Seagull Books, 2021), Danish Sheikh navigates these questions with a deft interweaving of the legal, the personal, and the poetic. The two plays in this volume leap across court transcripts, affidavits (real and imagined), archival research, and personal memoir. Through his re-staging, Sheikh crafts a genre-bending exploration of a litigation battle, and a celebration of defiant love that burns bright in the shadow of the law. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature
Two plays about the legal battle to decriminalize homosexuality in India. On September 6, 2018, a decades-long battle to decriminalize queer intimacy in India came to an end. The Supreme Court of India ruled that Section 377, the colonial anti-sodomy law, violated the country's constitution. “LGBT persons,” the Court said, “deserve to live a life unshackled from the shadow of being ‘unapprehended felons.'” But how definitive was this end? How far does the law's shadow fall? How clear is the line between the past and the future? What does it mean to live with full sexual citizenship? In Love and Reparation: A Theatrical Response to the Section 377 Litigation in India (Seagull Books, 2021), Danish Sheikh navigates these questions with a deft interweaving of the legal, the personal, and the poetic. The two plays in this volume leap across court transcripts, affidavits (real and imagined), archival research, and personal memoir. Through his re-staging, Sheikh crafts a genre-bending exploration of a litigation battle, and a celebration of defiant love that burns bright in the shadow of the law. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
A fresh approach to scholarship on the diverse nature of Indian anticolonial processes, Geographies of Anticolonialism: Political Networks Across and Beyond South India, c. 1900-1930 (John Wiley & Sons, 2020) brings together a varied selection of literature to explore Indian anticolonialism in new ways and offers a different perspective to geographers seeking to understand political resistance to colonialism. It addresses contemporary studies that argue nationalism was joined by other political processes, such as revolutionary and anarchist ideologies, to shape the Indian independence movement. By focusing on a specific anticolonial group, the “Pondicherry Gang,” and investigating their significant impact which went beyond South India, the book helps readers understand the diverse nature of anticolonialism, which in turn prompts thinking about the various geographies produced through anticolonial activity. Andrew Davies is a geographer based in Liverpool who works at the intersection of historical, political and cultural geographies. His work explores how anticolonial ideas helped to create new spaces for political activity and expression. Alongside his research activity, Andy regularly (when allowed) conducts public walks exploring Liverpool's colonial past, particularly working with the Liverpool-based creative arts charity Writing on the Wall. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies
A fresh approach to scholarship on the diverse nature of Indian anticolonial processes, Geographies of Anticolonialism: Political Networks Across and Beyond South India, c. 1900-1930 (John Wiley & Sons, 2020) brings together a varied selection of literature to explore Indian anticolonialism in new ways and offers a different perspective to geographers seeking to understand political resistance to colonialism. It addresses contemporary studies that argue nationalism was joined by other political processes, such as revolutionary and anarchist ideologies, to shape the Indian independence movement. By focusing on a specific anticolonial group, the “Pondicherry Gang,” and investigating their significant impact which went beyond South India, the book helps readers understand the diverse nature of anticolonialism, which in turn prompts thinking about the various geographies produced through anticolonial activity. Andrew Davies is a geographer based in Liverpool who works at the intersection of historical, political and cultural geographies. His work explores how anticolonial ideas helped to create new spaces for political activity and expression. Alongside his research activity, Andy regularly (when allowed) conducts public walks exploring Liverpool's colonial past, particularly working with the Liverpool-based creative arts charity Writing on the Wall. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/geography
A fresh approach to scholarship on the diverse nature of Indian anticolonial processes, Geographies of Anticolonialism: Political Networks Across and Beyond South India, c. 1900-1930 (John Wiley & Sons, 2020) brings together a varied selection of literature to explore Indian anticolonialism in new ways and offers a different perspective to geographers seeking to understand political resistance to colonialism. It addresses contemporary studies that argue nationalism was joined by other political processes, such as revolutionary and anarchist ideologies, to shape the Indian independence movement. By focusing on a specific anticolonial group, the “Pondicherry Gang,” and investigating their significant impact which went beyond South India, the book helps readers understand the diverse nature of anticolonialism, which in turn prompts thinking about the various geographies produced through anticolonial activity. Andrew Davies is a geographer based in Liverpool who works at the intersection of historical, political and cultural geographies. His work explores how anticolonial ideas helped to create new spaces for political activity and expression. Alongside his research activity, Andy regularly (when allowed) conducts public walks exploring Liverpool's colonial past, particularly working with the Liverpool-based creative arts charity Writing on the Wall. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history
A fresh approach to scholarship on the diverse nature of Indian anticolonial processes, Geographies of Anticolonialism: Political Networks Across and Beyond South India, c. 1900-1930 (John Wiley & Sons, 2020) brings together a varied selection of literature to explore Indian anticolonialism in new ways and offers a different perspective to geographers seeking to understand political resistance to colonialism. It addresses contemporary studies that argue nationalism was joined by other political processes, such as revolutionary and anarchist ideologies, to shape the Indian independence movement. By focusing on a specific anticolonial group, the “Pondicherry Gang,” and investigating their significant impact which went beyond South India, the book helps readers understand the diverse nature of anticolonialism, which in turn prompts thinking about the various geographies produced through anticolonial activity. Andrew Davies is a geographer based in Liverpool who works at the intersection of historical, political and cultural geographies. His work explores how anticolonial ideas helped to create new spaces for political activity and expression. Alongside his research activity, Andy regularly (when allowed) conducts public walks exploring Liverpool's colonial past, particularly working with the Liverpool-based creative arts charity Writing on the Wall. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Prathama Banerjee's book Elementary Aspects of the Political: Histories from the Global South (Duke UP, 2020) studies the rise of modern politics in India, between the mid-19th and the mid-20thcenturies, at the cusp of colonial modern, classical Indian, Indo-Persian and regional vernacular ideas. It unpacks the political, following modern common sense, into four elementary aspects – Self, Action, Idea and People – and shows how each element is structured around a conceptual instability, rendering its very elementary status questionable. The political subject is split by the tension between renunciation and realpolitik; action driven by the dialectic between labor and karma, each with its distinctive means-end configuration; the idea torn by its troubled relationships with the economic and the spiritual; and the people forever oscillating between being pure structure, as in the political party, and being pure fiction. Through this account, the book argues that the modern political works by virtue not of any irreducible principle or autonomous logic, a priori identifiable as political, but an unceasing process of differentiation of the political from the non-political – variously imagined at various times as science, religion, society, economics and aesthetics – as also through a simultaneous grounding and delimitation of the political by the specter of the extra-political. The book invites us to go beyond postcolonial and decolonial criticism and engage in the positive and creative task of producing new political theory, inspired by histories and practices from the non-European world. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history
Prathama Banerjee's book Elementary Aspects of the Political: Histories from the Global South (Duke UP, 2020) studies the rise of modern politics in India, between the mid-19th and the mid-20thcenturies, at the cusp of colonial modern, classical Indian, Indo-Persian and regional vernacular ideas. It unpacks the political, following modern common sense, into four elementary aspects – Self, Action, Idea and People – and shows how each element is structured around a conceptual instability, rendering its very elementary status questionable. The political subject is split by the tension between renunciation and realpolitik; action driven by the dialectic between labor and karma, each with its distinctive means-end configuration; the idea torn by its troubled relationships with the economic and the spiritual; and the people forever oscillating between being pure structure, as in the political party, and being pure fiction. Through this account, the book argues that the modern political works by virtue not of any irreducible principle or autonomous logic, a priori identifiable as political, but an unceasing process of differentiation of the political from the non-political – variously imagined at various times as science, religion, society, economics and aesthetics – as also through a simultaneous grounding and delimitation of the political by the specter of the extra-political. The book invites us to go beyond postcolonial and decolonial criticism and engage in the positive and creative task of producing new political theory, inspired by histories and practices from the non-European world. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science
Prathama Banerjee's book Elementary Aspects of the Political: Histories from the Global South (Duke UP, 2020) studies the rise of modern politics in India, between the mid-19th and the mid-20thcenturies, at the cusp of colonial modern, classical Indian, Indo-Persian and regional vernacular ideas. It unpacks the political, following modern common sense, into four elementary aspects – Self, Action, Idea and People – and shows how each element is structured around a conceptual instability, rendering its very elementary status questionable. The political subject is split by the tension between renunciation and realpolitik; action driven by the dialectic between labor and karma, each with its distinctive means-end configuration; the idea torn by its troubled relationships with the economic and the spiritual; and the people forever oscillating between being pure structure, as in the political party, and being pure fiction. Through this account, the book argues that the modern political works by virtue not of any irreducible principle or autonomous logic, a priori identifiable as political, but an unceasing process of differentiation of the political from the non-political – variously imagined at various times as science, religion, society, economics and aesthetics – as also through a simultaneous grounding and delimitation of the political by the specter of the extra-political. The book invites us to go beyond postcolonial and decolonial criticism and engage in the positive and creative task of producing new political theory, inspired by histories and practices from the non-European world. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
Prathama Banerjee's book Elementary Aspects of the Political: Histories from the Global South (Duke UP, 2020) studies the rise of modern politics in India, between the mid-19th and the mid-20thcenturies, at the cusp of colonial modern, classical Indian, Indo-Persian and regional vernacular ideas. It unpacks the political, following modern common sense, into four elementary aspects – Self, Action, Idea and People – and shows how each element is structured around a conceptual instability, rendering its very elementary status questionable. The political subject is split by the tension between renunciation and realpolitik; action driven by the dialectic between labor and karma, each with its distinctive means-end configuration; the idea torn by its troubled relationships with the economic and the spiritual; and the people forever oscillating between being pure structure, as in the political party, and being pure fiction. Through this account, the book argues that the modern political works by virtue not of any irreducible principle or autonomous logic, a priori identifiable as political, but an unceasing process of differentiation of the political from the non-political – variously imagined at various times as science, religion, society, economics and aesthetics – as also through a simultaneous grounding and delimitation of the political by the specter of the extra-political. The book invites us to go beyond postcolonial and decolonial criticism and engage in the positive and creative task of producing new political theory, inspired by histories and practices from the non-European world. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies
Prathama Banerjee's book Elementary Aspects of the Political: Histories from the Global South (Duke UP, 2020) studies the rise of modern politics in India, between the mid-19th and the mid-20thcenturies, at the cusp of colonial modern, classical Indian, Indo-Persian and regional vernacular ideas. It unpacks the political, following modern common sense, into four elementary aspects – Self, Action, Idea and People – and shows how each element is structured around a conceptual instability, rendering its very elementary status questionable. The political subject is split by the tension between renunciation and realpolitik; action driven by the dialectic between labor and karma, each with its distinctive means-end configuration; the idea torn by its troubled relationships with the economic and the spiritual; and the people forever oscillating between being pure structure, as in the political party, and being pure fiction. Through this account, the book argues that the modern political works by virtue not of any irreducible principle or autonomous logic, a priori identifiable as political, but an unceasing process of differentiation of the political from the non-political – variously imagined at various times as science, religion, society, economics and aesthetics – as also through a simultaneous grounding and delimitation of the political by the specter of the extra-political. The book invites us to go beyond postcolonial and decolonial criticism and engage in the positive and creative task of producing new political theory, inspired by histories and practices from the non-European world. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
What is the history of caste in a city? Indian modernizers assumed that the various processes of modernity, including industrial capitalism, would attenuate caste and create the possibility of new social relationships, including class solidarity. Instead, capitalism relied on caste to recruit and discipline labor, and the colonial and postcolonial governments deployed it for housing, city planning, and provisions for social welfare. On its part, caste adapted to housing, urban planning, and even land tenures. Even the purported antitheses of capitalism — Marxism and Communism — could not annihilate caste. As a result, caste became robust even as it was shrouded beneath the veneer of modern urban life. Outcaste Bombay (University of Washington Press, 2021) examines the interplay of caste and class in twentieth century Bombay. It studies processes that are transnational — capitalism, Marxism, urban planning, literature — and the ways in which they became relevant to life in the city. It focuses on urban outcastes — Dalits primarily, and also the urban poor – to trace their interaction with city-making and urban politics, their sense of self and community, and the cultural life they fashioned in Bombay. This inter-disciplinary book draws on rare English and Marathi language sources — including novels, poems, and manifestoes — and contributes to debates in the fields of South Asian history, global Marxism, social anthropology, urban studies, labor studies, Dalit studies, and literature. Juned Shaikh is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research interests include Modern South Asia, urban studies, labor studies, Dalit Studies, and global Marxism. His second book project will be on the life and times of Gangadhar Adhikari, a scientist who embraced communism, and became a prominent leader of the Communist Party of India. When he is not working, or spending time with his family, he enjoys cooking, gardening, hiking, and following cricket scores from around the world. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is also coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies
What is the history of caste in a city? Indian modernizers assumed that the various processes of modernity, including industrial capitalism, would attenuate caste and create the possibility of new social relationships, including class solidarity. Instead, capitalism relied on caste to recruit and discipline labor, and the colonial and postcolonial governments deployed it for housing, city planning, and provisions for social welfare. On its part, caste adapted to housing, urban planning, and even land tenures. Even the purported antitheses of capitalism — Marxism and Communism — could not annihilate caste. As a result, caste became robust even as it was shrouded beneath the veneer of modern urban life. Outcaste Bombay (University of Washington Press, 2021) examines the interplay of caste and class in twentieth century Bombay. It studies processes that are transnational — capitalism, Marxism, urban planning, literature — and the ways in which they became relevant to life in the city. It focuses on urban outcastes — Dalits primarily, and also the urban poor – to trace their interaction with city-making and urban politics, their sense of self and community, and the cultural life they fashioned in Bombay. This inter-disciplinary book draws on rare English and Marathi language sources — including novels, poems, and manifestoes — and contributes to debates in the fields of South Asian history, global Marxism, social anthropology, urban studies, labor studies, Dalit studies, and literature. Juned Shaikh is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research interests include Modern South Asia, urban studies, labor studies, Dalit Studies, and global Marxism. His second book project will be on the life and times of Gangadhar Adhikari, a scientist who embraced communism, and became a prominent leader of the Communist Party of India. When he is not working, or spending time with his family, he enjoys cooking, gardening, hiking, and following cricket scores from around the world. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is also coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Modern markets and exchange, compared with other social and political spheres, are seen through technical abstractions. This intellectual compartmentalization has political consequences: if capitalism operates through arcane, objective, and rational mechanics, the very real interests and very real consequences of exchange are disguised and simplified. In their empirically dense and theoretically bold edited volume, Ajay Gandhi, Barbara Harriss-White, Douglas Haynes, and Sebastian Schwecke gather historians and anthropologists to reflect on the dynamic, adaptive, and ambiguous realities of markets and exchange in India. Rethinking Markets in Modern India: Embedded Exchange and Contested Jurisdiction (Cambridge University Press, 2020) provides a rich array of vivid case studies – from colonial property and advertising milieus to today's bazaar and criminal economies – to examine the friction and interdependence between commerce, society, and state. Beyond providing a vantage point for rethinking global capitalism from one of the world's major economies, the volume conceptualizes the moral, spatial, legal, and symbolic dynamics of markets in a way that is broadly relevant through the Global South. Two of the volume's editors, Ajay Gandhi, assistant professor at Leiden University, and Sebastian Schwecke, head of the Delhi office of the Max Weber Foundation, discuss the book's theoretical ambitions and empirical range. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is also coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Modern markets and exchange, compared with other social and political spheres, are seen through technical abstractions. This intellectual compartmentalization has political consequences: if capitalism operates through arcane, objective, and rational mechanics, the very real interests and very real consequences of exchange are disguised and simplified. In their empirically dense and theoretically bold edited volume, Ajay Gandhi, Barbara Harriss-White, Douglas Haynes, and Sebastian Schwecke gather historians and anthropologists to reflect on the dynamic, adaptive, and ambiguous realities of markets and exchange in India. Rethinking Markets in Modern India: Embedded Exchange and Contested Jurisdiction (Cambridge University Press, 2020) provides a rich array of vivid case studies – from colonial property and advertising milieus to today's bazaar and criminal economies – to examine the friction and interdependence between commerce, society, and state. Beyond providing a vantage point for rethinking global capitalism from one of the world's major economies, the volume conceptualizes the moral, spatial, legal, and symbolic dynamics of markets in a way that is broadly relevant through the Global South. Two of the volume's editors, Ajay Gandhi, assistant professor at Leiden University, and Sebastian Schwecke, head of the Delhi office of the Max Weber Foundation, discuss the book's theoretical ambitions and empirical range. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is also coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Modern markets and exchange, compared with other social and political spheres, are seen through technical abstractions. This intellectual compartmentalization has political consequences: if capitalism operates through arcane, objective, and rational mechanics, the very real interests and very real consequences of exchange are disguised and simplified. In their empirically dense and theoretically bold edited volume, Ajay Gandhi, Barbara Harriss-White, Douglas Haynes, and Sebastian Schwecke gather historians and anthropologists to reflect on the dynamic, adaptive, and ambiguous realities of markets and exchange in India. Rethinking Markets in Modern India: Embedded Exchange and Contested Jurisdiction (Cambridge University Press, 2020) provides a rich array of vivid case studies – from colonial property and advertising milieus to today's bazaar and criminal economies – to examine the friction and interdependence between commerce, society, and state. Beyond providing a vantage point for rethinking global capitalism from one of the world's major economies, the volume conceptualizes the moral, spatial, legal, and symbolic dynamics of markets in a way that is broadly relevant through the Global South. Two of the volume's editors, Ajay Gandhi, assistant professor at Leiden University, and Sebastian Schwecke, head of the Delhi office of the Max Weber Foundation, discuss the book's theoretical ambitions and empirical range. Saronik Bosu (@SaronikB on Twitter) is a doctoral candidate in English at New York University. He is writing his dissertation on South Asian economic writing. He is also coordinator of the Medical Humanities Working Group at NYU, and of the Postcolonial Anthropocene Research Network. He also co-hosts the podcast High Theory.