Gandhi and Socrates

Gandhi composed his ‘translation’ of Plato's Apology while he was in South Africa. Gandhi was responding to political restrictions against the Indian community and was also influenced by John Ruskin's Unto This Last. Interestingly, the translation was banned by the British authorities in India. This article explores the background to Gandhi's translation and examines the role of Plato's work in the development of his idea of satyagraha

Akbar’s Dream: The Mughal Emperor in Nineteenth-Century Literature

“The Emperor Akbar”, writes Friedrich Max Müller, “may be considered the first who ventured on a comparative study of the religions of the world”. Akbar’s religious innovation is the subject of several treatments in the nineteenth century, in England and India. Tennyson, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, and Ghalib are, along with Max Müller, a few of the intellectuals who write about the Mughal Emperor and his religious comparatism. This paper explores the reception of Akbar in nineteenth-century colonial contexts and looks in particular at the interest in the emperor’s comparatism

Activin enhances skin tumourigenesis and malignant progression by inducing a pro-tumourigenic immune cell response

Activin is an important orchestrator of wound repair, but its potential role in skin carcinogenesis has not been addressed. Here we show using different types of genetically modified mice that enhanced levels of activin in the skin promote skin tumour formation and their malignant progression through induction of a pro-tumourigenic microenvironment. This includes accumulation of tumour-promoting Langerhans cells and regulatory T cells in the epidermis. Furthermore, activin inhibits proliferation of tumour-suppressive epidermal γδ T cells, resulting in their progressive loss during tumour promotion. An increase in activin expression was also found in human cutaneous basal and squamous cell carcinomas when compared with control tissue. These findings highlight the parallels between wound healing and cancer, and suggest inhibition of activin action as a promising strategy for the treatment of cancers overexpressing this factor

Sound, Rhythm, Body

Coming to Know asks how listening to the past together might transform our sense of the knowledge held in common. It sets aside the visual techniques of the archaeological site, the museum, and the larger project of colonial modernity, and instead constitutes itself as a resonant structure—a future-oriented monument to historically situated listening bodies as well as a dwelling place for community now

Nationalism and cosmopolitanism: on the gods of Greece, Italy, and India

A new form of cultural cosmopolitanism arose in Europe, in the second half of the eighteenth century, partly as a consequence of the enlightenment and partly as the result of an increased colonial presence in Asia. One of its most illustrious and influential exponents was William Jones, the linguist, translator, and judge for the East India Company in Calcutta. His lecture “On the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India”, written in 1784 and subsequently revised, offers a perspective on myth that is supple, flexible, and wide‐ranging. Jones's cosmopolitanism turned on the notion that all human beings, ultimately, derived from a common origin. In this idea, he was not far from Johann Gottfried Herder, whose work, however, inspired nationalist rather than cosmopolitan movements in the nineteenth century. Herder's impact on nationalism should be set against Jones's cosmopolitan approaches to history, literature, and culture

A God in Translation? Dionysus from Lucian to Gandhara

Dionysus’ conquest of India enthralled ancient writers and artists from the Hellenistic period onward. Lucian’s Dionysus is a fascinating text since it offers us a humorous interpretation of Dionysus’s invasion and Indian reactions to the event. The text prompts its readers to reflect on Alexander’s Dionysiac self-fashioning, especially in south Asia, and not least to ask after Indian reactions to Dionysus. It so happens that what we might arguably term “Indian” responses to Dionysus also can be perceived in other ways since “Dionysiac” images survive in some quantity from Bactria and Gandhara, regions that Alexander and the Greeks thought of as India. The images date to a period that is roughly contemporaneous with Lucian’s lifetime and, in their own terms, also explore the relationship between Dionysus and India. These Gandharan images were recovered during the period of British rule in India, and the colonial context of recovery is important. Reflecting on Lucian and the Gandharan images together gives us a worthwhile opportunity to think comparatively about Dionysus and to inquire into the politics of religious “translation.