Tag: the human mind

What happens to accidental heroes when the headlines fade? ‘You get your award and then there’s nothing’

After traumatic events we look for reminders of humanity’s good, and flashes of courage from ordinary people become symbols of hope. But it can be hard to wear the hero’s crown Aston Brown The smell of burning flesh and pulverised concrete is seared into the psyche of Anneke Weemaes-Sutcliffe. On 22 March 2016, the Australian… Read More What happens to accidental heroes when the headlines fade? ‘You get your award and then there’s nothing’

Dilip

Seeing Cuttack

Abinash Dash Choudhury Cuttack first came to me as a palimpsest of stories in which the personal, the historical, and the mythological mingled without clear distinction. From my father, I learnt that it was the city where my paternal grandfather spent his final days in penury, shuttling between his workplace in the Old Secretariat and… Read More Seeing Cuttack

Dilip

How Hindi Cinema is Preparing India for Violence

Once humiliation is naturalised as a civilisational condition, violence no longer appears as aggression but as rectification. Anubhav Singh Cinema has never merely reflected political life; it has functioned as one of its most efficient laboratories. From its earliest mass forms, cinema has been a technology for organising affect, disciplining perception, and training populations to… Read More How Hindi Cinema is Preparing India for Violence

Dilip

Venezuela: Private Wounds, Loud Audiences

Carlos Padrón Venezuelan psychoanalyst As Venezuelans, we share embodied knowledge formed by living through violence, terror, collapse, authoritarianism, migration, fear, absurdity, trauma, and survival. But we also share a layered archive of extraordinary stories: the struggles and resilience of our people; our complex and fascinating history; our literature, art, and music; our relentless and often… Read More Venezuela: Private Wounds, Loud Audiences

Dilip

‘Indianisation’ of Syllabi is Hollowing Out Knowledge in Our Universities

For now, “anti-national” or “anti-Indian” books are merely being removed from syllabi. Slowly, they will disappear from libraries. Soon, they will cease to be mentioned at all. A long winter has begun to descend on the land of knowledge. Apoorvanand Knowledge – its very disciplines – are today locked in a struggle for survival on… Read More ‘Indianisation’ of Syllabi is Hollowing Out Knowledge in Our Universities

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State of Madness: Psychiatry, Literature, and Dissent After Stalin

Dr Rebecca Reich examines politics, culture and reality in the Soviet Union “Dissenters in the USSR responded by making literary use of psychiatric discourse to both validate themselves and challenge the authority of the state. “The impact of their essays, transcripts, poems and works of fiction may have seemed limited within the isolation and silence… Read More State of Madness: Psychiatry, Literature, and Dissent After Stalin

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