Wendy Doniger How to Escape the Curse
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The Mahabharata Twenty-Five Years Later
THE MAHABHARATA TWENTy-Five YEARS LATER Peter Brook in conversation with Jonathan Kalb t age eighty-five, Peter Brook does all he can to avoid interviews. He has no interest in his own legend, and as for his theatrical ideas, he has said it all before, in his autobiography (Threads of Time), in his other books (The AEmpty Space, The Shifting Point), and in the body of influential productions that established him as one of the giants of twentieth-century theatre. At the request of a common friend, he nevertheless kindly agreed to speak to me on the subject of his magnum opus, The Mahabharata—a focus of the book I was writing at the time (Great Lengths: Seven Marathon Plays from Three Decades, forthcoming). Brook was in New York rehearsing his adaptation of Mozart’s The Magic Flute at Lincoln Center and accompanying the Theatre for a New Audience presentation of Love is My Sin, his staging of Shakespeare sonnets. Although he announced in 2008 that he was giving up day-to-day operation of his theatre in Paris, Bouffes du Nord, he has been notably active. Among his other recent projects have been: Fragments, a program of five short pieces by Samuel Beckett; Athol Fugard’sSizwe Banzi is Dead; The Grand Inquisitor, adapted from Dostoyevsky; and Tierno Bokar, a parable about tolerance and fundamentalism rooted in a spiritual dispute among Sufis. The Mahabharata was Brook’s eleven-hour stage adaptation of the massive, epic cor- nerstone of Hindu literature, religion and culture, originally produced in French in 1985 and performed in English for a 1987 world tour that included the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Majestic Theatre (now The Harvey). -
Dharma and Caste in the Mahabharata
TIF - Dharma and Caste in the Mahabharata RUDRANGSHU MUKHERJEE February 5, 2021 Assembly of Warriors, illustration to the Gemini Ashwamedha of the Mahabharata | Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Francis H. Burr Memorial Fund and Friends of the Fogg Art Museum Fund The Mahabharata is peopled by the ‘higher’ castes but there are important personages from the ‘lower’ castes whose presence gives a radical salience to ‘dharma’ as set out in the epic, to the point of even suggesting a subversion of the dominant ideology. There is a scholarly consensus that below the apocalyptic events---covered in five of the 18 books--- that form the core of the epic, the idea of dharma serves as a principal theme. Many dimensions of the idea are explored through characters, sub-tales and events; even transgressions of dharma illuminate it.1 In comparison, the great book has very little to say explicitly about caste or varna in the sense that it does not address the question of inequality that the operation of the caste system inevitably engenders. It need hardly be emphasized that most of the main characters come from the two top castes and the language of the epic is Sanskrit, the language of these two castes. The second caste, kshatriyas, not surprisingly, dominates the epic. According to one calculation, there are as many as 175 references to kshatriyadharma in the epic (Hiltebeitel: 2014: 528). In contrast, the vaisyadharma and sudradharma receive nine and six references respectively (Hiltebeitel: 2014: 528). Page 1 www.TheIndiaForum.in February 5, 2021 The argument that this essay seeks to present through the narration of certain episodes and characters, is that the lower castes do make significant appearances in the epic and that those appearances are not unrelated to the epic’s approach to dharma—in fact, those appearances give a radical salience to the question of dharma. -
The John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought 1
The John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought 1 The John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought Department Website: http://socialthought.uchicago.edu Chair • Robert Pippin Professors • Lorraine Daston • Wendy Doniger • Joel Isaac • Hans Joas • Gabriel Lear • Jonathan Lear • Jonathan Levy • Jean Luc Marion • Heinrich Meier • Glenn W. Most • David Nirenberg • Thomas Pavel • Mark Payne • Robert B. Pippin • Jennifer Pitts • Andrei Pop • Haun Saussy • Laura Slatkin • Nathan Tarcov • Rosanna Warren • David Wellbery Emeriti • Wendy Doniger • Leon Kass • Joel Kraemer • Ralph Lerner • James M. Redfield • David Tracy About the Committee The John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought was established as a degree granting body in 1941 by the historian John U. Nef (1899-1988), with the assistance of the economist Frank Knight, the anthropologist Robert Redfield, and Robert M. Hutchins, then President of the University. The Committee is a group of diverse scholars sharing a common concern for the unity of the human sciences. Their premises were that the serious study of any academic topic, or of any philosophical or literary work, is best prepared for by a wide and deep acquaintance with the fundamental issues presupposed in all such studies, that students should learn about these issues by acquainting themselves with a select number of classic ancient and modern texts in an inter- disciplinary atmosphere, and should only then concentrate on a specific dissertation topic. It accepts qualified graduate students seeking to pursue their particular studies within this broader context, and aims both to teach precision of scholarship and to foster awareness of the permanent questions at the origin of all learned inquiry. -
Destroying Krishna Imagery. What Are the Limits of Academic and Artistic Freedom? Maruška Svašek
Destroying Krishna Imagery. What are the Limits of Academic and Artistic Freedom? Maruška Svašek [ f i g . 1 ] Pramod Pathak: Wendy’s Unhistory making History, screenshot A photograph published in by Organiser, a weekly magazine based in New Delhi, shows a group of Indian demonstrators holding up various placards. »Don’t insult Hindu Lords« is printed on one of them; »Stop Prejudice Hate Talk Discriminating against Hindus« and »Abuse is not intelligent discourse« are written on others. Another placard addresses the target of the demonstra- tion: »Wendy Doniger Please don’t insult our Hindu Lords.« (Fig. ). An Internet search for »Wendy Doniger« leads to the other side of the globe, to the prestigious University of Chicago Divinity School. The Uni- versity website states that Professor Doniger specializes in Hinduism and Maruška Svašek - 9783846763452 Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 01:19:58AM via free access [ f i g . 2 ] Wendy Doniger’s home page on the University of Chicago’s website, screenshot mythology, has published over forty books on related topics in these fields, and received her postgraduate degrees from Harvard University and the Uni- versity of Oxford. In Chicago, Doniger holds the position of Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions and is associated with the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations and to the Committee on Social Thought (Fig. ). Clearly, she is a highly successful, inter- nationally renowned scholar who is considered an expert in her field. So why the accusations of blasphemy and prejudice? What compelled a group of Hindus to gather and protest against her? Maruška Svašek - 9783846763452 Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 01:19:58AM via free access In Organiser, this photograph was used to illustrate an article by Pramod Pathak, a Vedic scholar based in Goa, entitled »Wendy’s unhistory making history.« The piece was highly critical of Doniger’s latest book, The Hindus. -
Narrative, Public Cultures and Visuality in Indian Comic Strips and Graphic Novels in English, Hindi, Bangla and Malayalam from 1947 to the Present
UGC MRP - COMICS BOOKS & GRAPHIC NOVELS Narrative, Public Cultures and Visuality in Indian Comic Strips and Graphic Novels in English, Hindi, Bangla and Malayalam from 1947 to the Present UGC MAJOR RESEARCH PROJECT F.NO. 5-131/2014 (HRP) DT.15.08.2015 Principal Investigator: Aneeta Rajendran, Gargi College, University of Delhi UGC MRP INDIAN COMIC BOOKS AND GRAPHIC NOVELS Acknowledgements This work was made possible due to funding from the UGC in the form of a Major Research Project grant. The Principal Investigator would like to acknowledge the contribution of the Project Fellow, Ms. Shreya Sangai, in drafting this report as well as for her hard work on the Project through its tenure. Opportunities for academic discussion made available by colleagues through formal and informal means have been invaluable both within the college, and in the larger space of the University as well as in the form of conferences, symposia and seminars that have invited, heard and published parts of this work. Warmest gratitude is due to the Principal, and to colleagues in both the teaching and non-teaching staff at Gargi College, for their support throughout the tenure of the project: without their continued help, this work could not have materialized. Finally, much gratitude to Mithuraaj for his sustained support, and to all friends and family members who stepped in to help in so many ways. 1 UGC MRP INDIAN COMIC BOOKS AND GRAPHIC NOVELS Project Report Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3 1. Scope and Objectives 3 2. Summary of Findings 3 2. Outcomes and Objectives Attained 4 3. -
Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow Volume 11: 11
LANGUAGE IN INDIA Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow Volume 11 : 11 November 2011 ISSN 1930-2940 Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D. Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D. Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D. B. A. Sharada, Ph.D. A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D. Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D. Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D. S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D. G. Baskaran, Ph.D. L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D. Women in Mahabharata: Fighting Patriarchy Maneeta Kahlon, Ph.D. ======================================================== Vyasa’s Portrayal of Women Vyasa casts his women—Kunti, Draupadi, Gandhari, Shakuntala, Devayani, Savitri, Damayanti— both in the heroic mould and as victims and practitioners of elements of patriarchy The image of women in the original stratum of the epic is that which is etched out in the words of Shakuntala, as she upbraids Dushyanta for fickleness, contesting patriarchy and traditions of gender relations. ―A wife is a man‘s half, A wife is a man‘s closest friend; A wife is Dharma, Artha and Karna, A wife is Moksha too . A sweet-speaking wife is a companion in happy times; A wife is like a father on religious occasions; A wife is like a mother in illness and sorrow. The wife is a means to man‘s salvation . Happiness, joy, virtue, everything depends on her.‖ Citation Study of Male Authority and Subordination This paper is a study of the three central characters of Mahabharata and how they deal with male authority and subordination. The characters of Kunti, Gandhari, Draupadi conform to the elements of Stridharma while also manifesting exigent actions. Language in India www.languageinindia.com 11 : 11 November 2011 Maneeta Kahlon, Ph.D. -
Scapegoat, Sacrifice, Or Saviour: an Examination of the Outsider in The
Scapegoat, Sacrifice, or Saviour: An Examination of the Outsider in the Mahābhārata by © Micheline Hughes A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Religious Studies Memorial University of Newfoundland May 2014 St. John’s Newfoundland and Labrador Abstract This thesis examines part of the cultural history of social exclusions through a study of the portrayal of the Niṣādas, a tribal group, in the Hindu epic, the Mahābhārata. Three factors contribute to the social exclusion of the Niṣādas in the epic: social construction of identity, caste and dharma, and geography and liminality. The three Mahābhārata narratives that are the focus of the thesis’s analysis (the narratives of Ekalavya, the House of Lac, and Nala and Damayantī) portray six Niṣādas, and one king, Nala, who undergoes a period of social exclusion. Outsiders are portrayed as scapegoat, sacrifice, and/or savior for the epic’s heroes. However, when Niṣādas fulfill these roles, they are either exterminated or mutliated as a result of acts of those very heroes. The thesis argues that the factors of social exclusion work together to accomplish marginalization, and that violence facilitates the process of social exclusion in the epic. ii Acknowledgements I would like to express my very great appreciation to Dr. Patricia Dold, my thesis supervisor. Her invaluable guidance, immense patience, unfailing support, kindness, and sense of humour were extremely helpful to me as I researched, wrote, and edited this thesis. I have learned a great deal from her and will carry these lessons with me into my future academic work. -
Mahabharata Tatparnirnaya
Mahabharatha Tatparya Nirnaya Chapter XIX The episodes of Lakshagriha, Bhimasena's marriage with Hidimba, Killing Bakasura, Draupadi svayamwara, Pandavas settling down in Indraprastha are described in this chapter. The details of these episodes are well-known. Therefore the special points of religious and moral conduct highlights in Tatparya Nirnaya and its commentaries will be briefly stated here. Kanika's wrong advice to Duryodhana This chapter starts with instructions of Kanika an expert in the evil policies of politics to Duryodhana. This Kanika was also known as Kalinga. Probably he hailed from Kalinga region. He was a person if Bharadvaja gotra and an adviser to Shatrujna the king of Sauvira. He told Duryodhana that when the close relatives like brothers, parents, teachers, and friends are our enemies, we should talk sweet outwardly and plan for destroying them. Heretics, robbers, theives and poor persons should be employed to kill them by poison. Outwardly we should pretend to be religiously.Rituals, sacrifices etc should be performed. Taking people into confidence by these means we should hit our enemy when the time is ripe. In this way Kanika secretly advised Duryodhana to plan against Pandavas. Duryodhana approached his father Dhritarashtra and appealed to him to send out Pandavas to some other place. Initially Dhritarashtra said Pandavas are also my sons, they are well behaved, brave, they will add to the wealth and the reputation of our kingdom, and therefore, it is not proper to send them out. However, Duryodhana insisted that they should be sent out. He said he has mastered one hundred and thirty powerful hymns that will protect him from the enemies. -
Annual Report 2020 1
ACLS Annual Report 2020 1 AMERICAN COUNCIL OF LEARNED SOCIETIES Annual Report 2020 2 ACLS Annual Report 2020 Table of Contents Mission and Purpose 1 Message from the President 2 Who We Are 6 Year in Review 12 President’s Report to the Council 18 What We Do 23 Supporting Our Work 70 Financial Statements 84 ACLS Annual Report 2020 1 Mission and Purpose The American Council of Learned Societies supports the creation and circulation of knowledge that advances understanding of humanity and human endeavors in the past, present, and future, with a view toward improving human experience. SUPPORT CONNECT AMPLIFY RENEW We support humanistic knowledge by making resources available to scholars and by strengthening the infrastructure for scholarship at the level of the individual scholar, the department, the institution, the learned society, and the national and international network. We work in collaboration with member societies, institutions of higher education, scholars, students, foundations, and the public. We seek out and support new and emerging organizations that share our mission. We commit to expanding the forms, content, and flow of scholarly knowledge because we value diversity of identity and experience, the free play of intellectual curiosity, and the spirit of exploration—and above all, because we view humanistic understanding as crucially necessary to prototyping better futures for humanity. It is a public good that should serve the interests of a diverse public. We see humanistic knowledge in paradoxical circumstances: at once central to human flourishing while also fighting for greater recognition in the public eye and, increasingly, in institutions of higher education. -
Letter from the Dean
CIRCA News from the University of Chicago Divinity School AS YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED, THE RECENT UPDATE TO THE DESIGN OF THE Divinity School’s website includes a “virtual” faculty bookcase that loads when you click on the “Faculty” tab. It is indeed (as I have been asked) meant to replicate online the glass fronted wooden bookcase of “Recent Faculty Publications” that is the focal point for anyone entering the Swift Hall lobby from the main quadrangle, the hearth of the Divinity School. Faculty research and publications that which an historian is and is not a diagnos- shape their fields of inquiry remain at the tician of her own age were keen in the heart of what the School is about—its work, discussion of Schreiner’s book, Are You purpose, values, fundamental significance Alone Wise? Debates about Certainty in the and impact. Letter Early Modern Era, even as in conversation One of the ways that this is enshrined on Kevin Hector’s Theology without Meta- in the life of the Divinity School is a long- physics: God, Language, and the Spirit of standing tradition of the Dean’s Forum, a from the Recognition and Kristine Culp’s Vulnerability conversation at a Wednesday lunch in the and Glory: A Theological Account, studies Common Room (immediately behind the of theological language, referentiality and bookcase in the foyer, a room that contains Dean metaphysics and the theology of suffering, an actual hearth). Each Dean’s Forum focuses respectively, the measured responsibilities on a single recent faculty book or other to traditions and voices both past and publication; the usual format includes a present were pressed and engaged. -
Chapter Iv Data Analysis
CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS Ramayana and Mahabharata are Wiracarita, the heroic stories which are well – known from one generation to another. These two great epics are originally written in Sanskrit. The author of Ramayana is Walmiki, and the author of Mahabharata is Bhagawan Wyasa. Ramayana and Mahabharata have been translated into various languages. In Indonesia, these two great epics have been retold in various versions such as Wayang kulit performance, dance, book, novel, and comic. For this research, the writer chooses the Mahabharata novel by Nyoman. S. Pendit. With the focus of the research on the heroic journey of Arjuna in this novel. In this chapter, the writer would like to answer and to analyze three problem formulations of this research. First, the writer would like to retell Arjuna‟s journey based on the twenty parts selected in the Mahabharata novel. After that, as the second problem formulation, the writer would like to compare to what extent the journey of Arjuna on the twenty parts selected in the Mahabharata novel fulfills the criteria of the Hero‟s Journey theory proposed by Joseph Campbell. The Hero‟s Journey theory itself consists of seventeen stages divided into three big stages: Departure – Initiation – Return. It can be seen from the journey of Arjuna in the Mahabharata novel by Nyoman. S. Pendit. After going through the several archetypal journey process framed in the Hero‟s Journey theory, Arjuna gets or shows the life virtues in himself. Therefore, as the third problem formulation, the 34 writer would like to mention what kind of life virtues showed by Arjuna on the twenty parts selected in the Mahabharata novel. -
2. a Superhit Goddess
Ganesh, lord of auspicious beginnings and father of goddess Santoshi Ma. A Superhit Goddess Jai Santoshi Maa and Caste Hierarchy in Indian Films Part One Philip Lutgendorf “Audiences were showering coins, perennials of its vast output, yet they quarter of national cinematic output) flower petals and rice at the screen constitute one of the least-studied enjoys the largest audience in appreciation of the film. They aspects of this comparatively under- throughout the Indian subcontinent entered the cinema barefoot and set studied cinema. Indeed, I will venture and beyond. Sholay (“Flames”) and up a small temple outside…. In that for scholars and critics, Deewar (“The Wall”), were both Bandra, where mythological films mythologicals have generally been heavily-promoted “multi-starrers” aren’t shown, it ran for fifty weeks. It “hard to see.” Yet DeMille’s words belonging to the then-dominant genre was a miracle”. —Anita Guha, also belie the fact that most sometimes referred to as the masala (actress who played goddess mythologicals—like most commercial (“spicy”) film: a multi-course cinematic Santoshi Ma; cited in Kabir films of any genre—flop at the box banquet incorporating suspenseful office. The comparatively few that drama, romance, comedy, violent 2001:115). have enjoyed remarkable and action sequences, and song and Genre, Film & Phenomenon sustained acclaim hence merit study dance. Both were expensive and Cecil B. DeMille’s famously both as religious expressions and as slickly made by the standards of the cynical adage, “God is box office,” successful examples of popular art and industry, and both featured Amitabh may be applied to Indian popular entertainment.