Yesterday, I posted a review essay on a pair of books by SN Balagangadhara and Rajiv Malhotra that critique the field of “Indian studies.” In my essay I attempted to place into some context the recent controversy over the recall from circulation of Wendy Doniger‘s book, The Hindus: An Alternative History. Amongst the many chargesContinue reading “Hot, Bothered, and Devout: The Religious Policing of Sex”
Category Archives: History
SN Balagangadhara and Rajiv Malhotra on Reversing the Gaze
On 12 February, Penguin India announced it was withdrawing and destroying—in India—all published copies of historian Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus: An Alternative History (2009). Penguin’s decision came after reaching an out-of-court settlement with Shiksha Bachao Andolan, which, in 2011, had filed a legal complaint objecting to sections of Doniger’s book. Amidst the vocal expressions ofContinue reading “SN Balagangadhara and Rajiv Malhotra on Reversing the Gaze”
The Empire State Building: From Picture to Window View
I’m writing this post on the second floor of the CUNY Graduate Center (to be more precise, in the library). My desk is by a window, and looking out from it, I can see the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street. That confluence of streets, of course, marks the location too, of the EmpireContinue reading “The Empire State Building: From Picture to Window View”
The Black Absence in Academic Philosophy
Jason Stanley recently posted the following interesting status message on his Facebook page: The first sentence of this article is “Nationwide, just over 5 percent of all full-time faculty members at colleges and universities in the United States are black”. If that is so disturbing as to give rise to this headline, what are weContinue reading “The Black Absence in Academic Philosophy”
Losing and Gaining Citizenships
I became an American citizen more than fourteen years ago. Ironically, my decision to do so was prompted by my leaving the US–for what was supposed to be a two-year stint as a post-doctoral fellow in Australia. I was then a permanent resident of the US, equipped with the famed ‘green card.’ Subject to certainContinue reading “Losing and Gaining Citizenships”
Aristophanes’ Sausage-Seller and the Tea Partier
I have just finished writing a draft review of Lee Fang‘s The Machine: A Field Guide to the Resurgent Right (New York: The New Press, 2013); it will appear shortly in The Washington Spectator. As I read Fang’s depressing history of the corporate-funded ‘New Right’ that has derailed the Obama presidency, looked over its roguesContinue reading “Aristophanes’ Sausage-Seller and the Tea Partier”
Social Media From Beyond the Grave
Charles Simic describes an ingenious and profitable aspiration for immortality: [The] poet Mark Strand…told me excitedly one day that he had invented a new kind of gravestone that….would include…a slot where a coin could be inserted, that would activate a tape machine built into it, and play the deceased’s favorite songs, jokes…whatever else they findContinue reading “Social Media From Beyond the Grave”
History as Chronicle of the Inevitable
From Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America: [A]s Lindbergh’s election couldn’t have made clearer to me, the unfolding of the unforeseen was everything. Turned wrong way round, the relentless unforeseen was what we schoolchildren studied as “History,” harmless history, where everything unexpected in its own time is chronicled on the page as inevitable. The terrorContinue reading “History as Chronicle of the Inevitable”
Hagiography as Biography: Turning Writers into Saints
Tim Parks wonders why biographies of writers flirt with hagiograpy, why they are so blind to their subjects’ faults: With only the rarest of exceptions…each author is presented as simply the most gifted and well-meaning of writers, while their behavior, however problematic and possibly outrageous…is invariably described in a flattering light…special pleading is everywhere evident,Continue reading “Hagiography as Biography: Turning Writers into Saints”
An “Orphan’s Sense of History”
Today I plunder Divisadero again, for a personal note: Those who have an orphan’s sense of history love history. And my voice has become that of an orphan. Perhaps it was the unknown life of my mother, her barely drawn portrait, that made me an archivist, a historian. Because if you do not plunder theContinue reading “An “Orphan’s Sense of History””
Samir Chopra 