``Fyataru and Subaltern War Cries:: Nabarun Bhattacharya and the Rebirth of the Subject

Nabarun Bhattacharya, the radical literary voice of Bengal demonstrates notions of dissidence and aesthetic Bolshevism. His fictive dissenting subjects, the fyatarus typify rebellious roles in a post-ideological era when complicity and conformity are rewarded as the norm. Nabarun`s  literary crusade interrogates the status quo and composes counter-currents of subjectivities. As a revolutionary saboteur he redefined the mode of subaltern representation by scripting the prose of counter insurgency through literature. The present excursus pays homage to this noted maverick writer of dissidence and attempts an analysis of the singularity of Nabarun`s fictional domain with specific references to some of his best known fictional works which constitute and explicate his prototypical subaltern anti-heroes such as fyatarus and Choktars who emerge as brilliant metaphorisation of dissent and disgust at our contemporary socio-political praxis. While the popular literary trends of the day have colluded with the hegemonic narrative of global capital that prevents the litterateur to coronate revolutionary anarchism or insurgency, Nabarun has consistently caused epistemic tremors through his overt advocacy of radical violence and systemic change

W.E.B Du Bois, B.R. Ambedkar and the History of Afro-Dalit Solidarity

Caste is not a category, exclusively endemic to Indian society, rather, it typifies universal forms of social stratifications premised on racial, religious, ethnic and colour based segregation. In fact W E B Dubois, the celebrated Black civil rights crusader used the word ‘caste’ while diagnosing the cause of racism in Jim Crow America. DuBois and Ambedkar share a lot of commonalities, both were renowned observers of specific modes of social division prevalent in their individual societies, they spearheaded historic social mobilisations and evinced wonderful capacities to internationalize issues of caste and race as universal forms of social systems of discrimination to be abolished for ever. Both knew each other, communicated to each other and shared a collective vision for social justice. A conjunctive study of DuBois and Ambedkar will throw new light in Ambedkar studies by foregrounding unexplored histories of Afro-Dalit solidarities that had significant connection to postcolonial studies and international struggles for peace

Animal-humanities and the Eco-sophical Parergon:: Homo Reflectus in Species History

Philosophy is perhaps all too human and excludes the non-human Other from its epistemic humano-sphere. This paper dislodges the human monopoly over the planetary life-world so that a “zoography” of morals can be inaugurated in a world witnessing the Anthropocentric apocalypse caused by our arrogant sense of human supremacy. In a restructuring attempt, we try to “think through” the Earth and the Earth Others, so as to expose the inherent violence in our normative nonchalance when it comes to our atrocities against animals or our colonization of non-humans. Perceived through post-Anthropocentric optics, the normative binary of human/non-human assumes larger significance as we endeavor to think through other fellow species to salvage the damage of our “common home”- the planet Earth, inhabited equally by humans and non-humans. Human-centric epistemic trajectories are premised on power bound binaries of inside/outside, human/non-human, etc and such divisions remind us of Derrida`s notion of the “parergon” that problematises the frame/content, or inside/outside binaries to tease out a bridge between the divided realms. We therefore, argue for an eco-sophical parergonal suturing of the human/non-human, the Earth/Earth-others to constitute a holistic frame of co-living. Borrowing Claire Colebrook, Tom Cohen and J Hillis Miller`s ideas in their Twilight of the Anthropocene Idols (2016), we intend to work for alternative philosophems – something Rosi Braidotti and Cary Wolfe named as anti-humanism or posthumanism. We propose to deepen such post-humanist approaches in the humanities and social sciences so that a better critique of Anthropocentric humanism can be actualized

Tympanising Philosophy: Luxating the Disciplinary Margins through a Derridean Reading of the Mahabharata

This paper argues for a coalition of ‘embattled adversaries’, namely philosophy and literature and it does that by referring to Derrida`s seminal work, Margins of Philosophy. To deepen our thesis about the alliance of philosophy and literature, we also allude to Indian philosophy and the great Indian philosophico-literary epic, the Mahabharata. Foundational Indian philosophic texts such as the Vedas and the Upanishads were articulated through poetic hymns which exude rich literary inflexions. This literary inscape of Indian philosophical texts testifies the close kinship or non-duality of philosophy and literature. The Mahabharata is both philosophy as literature as well as philosophy and literature simultaneously. We would establish this claim by foregrounding the philosophical theme of cosmography or cosmological time/ deep time/kala or what we call thick time as enunciated in the Mahabharata.. Derrida used the term ‘tympanum’ to signify the divisive borderlines that constitutes epistemic and disciplinary boundaries. Derrida called for de-tympanising all margins that distances philosophy from its alienated Other such as literature. Such acts of de-tympanisation or deconstruction are the ways by which Derrida sought to bridge philosophy with its ‘suppressed outside’. In fact Mahabharata is a classic example of Derridean non-site that blurs the boundaries between literature and philosophy

Fyataru and Subaltern War Cries: Nabarun Bhattacharya and the Rebirth of the Subject

Nabarun Bhattacharya, the radical literary voice of Bengal demonstrates notions of dissidence and aesthetic Bolshevism. His fictive dissenting subjects, the fyatarus typify rebellious roles in a post-ideological era when complicity and conformity are rewarded as the norm. Nabarun`s  literary crusade interrogates the status quo and composes counter-currents of subjectivities. As a revolutionary saboteur he redefined the mode of subaltern representation by scripting the prose of counter insurgency through literature. The present excursus pays homage to this noted maverick writer of dissidence and attempts an analysis of the singularity of Nabarun`s fictional domain with specific references to some of his best known fictional works which constitute and explicate his prototypical subaltern anti-heroes such as fyatarus and Choktars who emerge as brilliant metaphorisation of dissent and disgust at our contemporary socio-political praxis. While the popular literary trends of the day have colluded with the hegemonic narrative of global capital that prevents the litterateur to coronate revolutionary anarchism or insurgency, Nabarun has consistently caused epistemic tremors through his overt advocacy of radical violence and systemic change.   Keywords: Nabarun Bhattacharya; Author as Saboteur; Subaltern; radical    violence; literary Bolshevism

One earth, one species history and one future: planet justice and indigenous resistance in the Anthropocene

Presented at the Environmental justice in the Anthropocene symposium held on April 24-25, 2017 at the Lory Student Center, Colorado State University, Fort Collins Colorado. This symposium aims to bring together academics (faculty and graduate students), independent researchers, community and movement activists, and regulatory and policy practitioners from across disciplines, research areas, perspectives, and different countries. Our overarching goal is to build on several decades of EJ research and practice to address the seemingly intractable environmental and ecological problems of this unfolding era. How can we explore EJ amongst humans and between nature and humans, within and across generations, in an age when humans dominate the landscape? How can we better understand collective human dominance without obscuring continuing power differentials and inequities within and between human societies? What institutional and governance innovations can we adopt to address existing challenges and to promote just transitions and futures

Bashabi Fraser, Transnational Writer, based in Edinburgh, Scotland speaks to Writers in Conversation

Bashabi Fraser is a transnational writer who has lived in London, Kolkata and Darjeeling and now lives and writes in Edinburgh. She is a poet, editor, children's writer, translator and critic. Her recent publications include Ragas & Reels (poems on migration and diaspora, 2012), Scots Beneath the Banyan Tree: Stories from Bengal (2012); From the Ganga to the Tay (an epic poem, 2009); Bengal Partition Stories: An Unclosed Chapter (2006; 2008), A Meeting of Two Minds: the Geddes Tagore Letters (2005) and Tartan & Turban (poetry collection, 2004). Her awards include the Women Empowered: Arts and Culture Award in 2010 and the IAS Prize for Literary Services in Scotland in 2009. Her research and writing traverse continents, crossing borders and boundaries with ease. Bashabi is an executive committee member of the Writers in Prison Committee (Scotland) and the Poetry Association of Scotland and has been on the Scottish PEN committee for two terms. She is a Trustee of the Kolkata Scottish Heritage Trust, Associate Member of the Patrick Geddes Trust and has been a Consultant Advisor for the Kolkata British Council's Kolkata-Scotland Connection program. Bashabi is a Professor of English and Creative Writing and Joint Director of the Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies (ScoTs, which she has helped to establish) at Edinburgh Napier University. Bashabi is also a Royal Literary Fund Fellow based at the University of Dundee. Bashabi Fraser spoke on her books and other issues to Anindya Sekhar Purakayastha & Dhritiman Chakrabarty for Writers in Conversation, when she came to deliver an invited lecture in Visba Bharati University, India in August 2013

Virus as a figure of geontopower or how to practice Foucault now?:A conversation with Elizabeth A. Povinelli

Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Franz Boas Professor at Columbia University, is a philosopher and anthropologist who has critically engaged with Michel Foucault’s ideas as well as scholarship inspired by his works. Povinelli has been dedicated to research on colonialism within liberalism and is also a filmmaker and founding member of The Karrabing Film Collective. The film collective is part of a larger organization of Aboriginal peoples and artists living in the Australian Northern Territory that refuses ‘fantasies of sovereignty and property’.[1]As Povinelli shares with us during the interview, her trajectory was constituted in the middle of the 1980s following her life-changing encounter with the elders in Belyuen in the Australian Northern Territory. In the wake of that encounter, and with urgent issues raised about indigeneity due to changes in Australian law, Povinelli has been working even closer with her Karrabing family. The changes in law both acknowledged Aboriginal peoples' rights to their territory and imposed certain ideas of identity, family and culture, producing an entanglement between rights and government. These efforts to manage differences – cultural, race, gender – are problematized and deciphered in Povinelli’s ethnographic work with a focus on how late settler liberalism has been reconfigured with novel expressions of colonialism and imperialis