Watch Brian Cox read ‘If I Must Die’ by murdered Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer

GAZA casualties live statistics On December 7, the beloved Palestinian poet, writer, literature professor, and activist Refaat Alareer was killed in a targeted Israeli airstrike that also killed his brother, his sister, and four of her children. In the week of mourning since, tributes to Alareer’s life, writing, mentorship, and activism have flooded in from around the… Read More Watch Brian Cox read ‘If I Must Die’ by murdered Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer

14th February 202414th February 2024 Dilip

American Public Libraries under Threat: Banning what Matters

REBECCA GORDON Of course, the all-American penchant for banning books didn’t begin in the Trump era. Just ask almost anyone who lived through the Red Scare days of the 1950s (not to speak of the first Red Scare of 1917-1920). But the last few years have seen a remarkable acceleration of attempts to keep certain… Read More American Public Libraries under Threat: Banning what Matters

14th February 202414th February 2024 Dilip

God Forbid Israelis Show Any Humanity to Innocent Palestinians in Gaza

GAZA casualties live statistics B. Michael One of the most puzzling and saddening spectacles of the past few days is the sight of Jewish protesters at the Kerem Shalom crossing and the Ashdod Port, fighting like lions to ensure we do not fail in our inhumanity. They have joined the experts on evil on the… Read More God Forbid Israelis Show Any Humanity to Innocent Palestinians in Gaza

7th February 20247th February 2024 Dilip

The Hyperbolic Style in American Academe

How paranoid accusations of “violence” became all the rage… When scholars of higher education write the history of this strange period, they will surely wonder that, with so much real violence raging elsewhere, the denizens of some of the safest spaces in the world fretted so much over merely verbal arrows. By Len Gutkin Shai Davidai,… Read More The Hyperbolic Style in American Academe

6th February 2024 Dilip

Javed Akhtar recites Waqt, his poem on Time

NB: This is the simplest and most brilliant philosophical reflection on time I have heard. Here is Javed Akhtar’s own explanation of it at the Kolkata Literary Festival, 2022; and here is one of his recent recitals, at the Faiz Festival in 2018. It begins around 4.30 minutes into the video. Javed sahib shukriya. DS… Read More Javed Akhtar recites Waqt, his poem on Time

4th February 20244th February 2024 Dilip

Greil Marcus: Why I Write

NB: The only book by Greil Marcus that I’ve come across is The Dustbin of History; a set of incisive literary essays, mostly book reviews and cultural cum historical meditation. Well worth reading. As is this essay. DS whatever language is the language of your work, if I can move anyone else as that work… Read More Greil Marcus: Why I Write

3rd February 20243rd February 2024 Dilip

The Peacock’s Graveyard

Myth taken symbolically is the glass through which we darkly see: Hans Jonas Amar Kanwar: The Peacock’s Graveyard. Reviewed by Aruna D’Souza Marian Goodman Gallery; New York City, through February 24, 2024 Five poetic stories in image and text reveal the ever-present power of nature, greed, friendship, and philosophical inquiry Amar Kanwar: The Peacock’s Graveyard,… Read More The Peacock’s Graveyard

27th January 2024 Dilip

Albert Camus: Letters to a German Friend (1943)

NB: During World War II, Albert Camus joined the French Resistance against the Nazi occupation; and worked as editor of the underground resistance journal Combat. In 1943, he began writing a series of letters to a hypothetical German friend. In a time when justice and truth seem helpless before ideology and hatred, Camus’ 81 year… Read More Albert Camus: Letters to a German Friend (1943)

26th January 2024 Dilip

Nakul Krishna on A. K. Ramanujan: The literary legacy of an Indian modernist / The essay censored by DU’s Academic Council

First posted August 15, 2013 “Yes, I know all that. I should be modern” – begins Ramanujan’s ‘Conventions of Despair’. Others in India have felt this impulse, and it has pulled them in different directions. In politics, it has drawn them towards nationalism, socialism and fascism. In religion, it has had similarly contradictory effects: either… Read More Nakul Krishna on A. K. Ramanujan: The literary legacy of an Indian modernist / The essay censored by DU’s Academic Council

25th January 202425th January 2024 Dilip

Toys from Trash: Teaching kids science using everyday objects / Visit Arvind Gupta’s Archive

First posted January 24, 2014 The road to the offices inside Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics’ (IUCAA) Children Science Centre in Pune passes through a well-set, well-manicured lawn past the administrative buildings of the place. The tranquil atmosphere of the campus is broken only by the chaos in the room opposite his office. Noisy… Read More Toys from Trash: Teaching kids science using everyday objects / Visit Arvind Gupta’s Archive

22nd January 2024 Dilip

After the truth-shower

Philosophy, history, literature, current affairs, and other stuff. Posted by Dilip Simeon

Tag: the human mind