NB: In India nowadays there’s a separate problem. You need to be in agreement with the world view of the ruling dispensation – whether or not you know any history. DS David A. Bell A historian friend once told me that when he went on the job market, he put in three applications and received… Read More So you want to be a history professor
Chandan Gowda Sara Aboobacker and her husband, an engineer with the government, moved to Bangalore in 1981. He had been transferred from Mangalore. One day, as she was heading out of a public library in Halasur, Lankesh Patrike, which was dangling in a roadside stall, caught her eye. She bought a copy of the eight-page Kannada… Read More Nadoja Sara Aboobacker
The outcry in Bareilly last month over students singing an Iqbal poem reminds us that we live in a hyper-nationalist time, where leaders glorify territorial nationalism beyond measure and deliberately concoct insidious ancillaries anchored in religion, language, race or colour. As I read about the furore in Bareilly over Iqbal’s poem “Bachche ki Du’a” (“A… Read More A child’s prayer. By C. M. Naim
First posted October 25, 2011 I’ve learned that you can’t hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk. (age 6) I’ve learned that I like my teacher because she cries when we sing Silent Night (age 7) I’ve learned that when I wave to people in the country, they stop what they are… Read More What I have learned (humans aged 6 to 92)
Sonali Kolhatkar There is a common feeling that many of us have experienced in professional or academic environments, especially when we struggle against gender or racial bias. It’s called “imposter syndrome”—the feeling that one doesn’t deserve one’s position and that others will discover this lack of competence at any moment. I felt this way as… Read More Nepotism babies and the myth of American meritocracy
Eric Bennett First posted April 26, 2018 NB: This comment on the issues connected to ‘multi-culturalism’ and ‘deconstruction’ is written about American literary and media studies departments, but is relevant in other continents. DS Now that we have a culture of higher education in which business studies dominate; now that we face legislatures blind to the… Read More Dear Humanities Profs: We Are the Problem
Following the Taliban’s ban on university education for girls, the male students in the country have boycotted their classes condemning the suspension of higher education for women, Tolo news reported on Sunday. The male students have put forward a strong opposition to attending classes until they are open for female students as well. “We will… Read More Male Afghan Students Boycott Classes, Protest Women’s Education Ban / ‘We are treated worse than animals’: Afghan women speak out against university ban
NB It is evident that the Taliban’s version of orthodox Islam treats women as second class beings, as children of a lesser God. All believers ought to either renounce these beliefs as inhuman, or hang their heads in shame. DS Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have ordered an indefinite ban on university education for the country’s women,… Read More Taliban ban Afghan women from university education
First posted September 23, 2019 NB: Thank you Ayush. You are a brave and conscientious boy. Many of us are proud of you – DS Ye kisne kahaa aapse aandhi ke saath hun // Main Godse ke daur me Gandhi ke saath hun If the Danish child who swam against the adult tide to speak the truth about… Read More Ayush Chaturvedi: Main Gandhi ke saath hun / Samar Halarnkar: A search for Hindus who will stand with Gandhi
by Matthew Rose In the spring of 1941, as Hitler was laying plans for his invasion of the Soviet Union, Leo Strauss gave a lecture at the New School for Social Research as part of a seminar on “Experiences of the Second World War.” The lecture, which was not published until five decades later, marked one… Read More Leo Strauss and the Closed Society
After the truth-shower 