This was also a seminar paper, long while ago. However, this one became a conference paper (which I gave at Madison) and then I thought of trying to turn it into an article but never managed to do it. If any enterprising editors reading this, want it, I would be happy to send it. Law [...]
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Gordon S. Wood. In Defense of Academic History Writing, Perspectives on History, April 2010. Academic historians have not forgotten how to tell a story. Instead, most of them have purposefully chosen not to tell stories; that is, they have chosen not to write narrative history. Narrative history is a particular kind of history-writing whose popularity [...]
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Like few others, Judt has been a model for a long time, and his passing fills me with sadness. However, I take solace in the fact that his deeds and words will ever illuminate. POSTWAR: An Interview with Tony Judt, conducted by Donald A. Yerxa, Historically Speaking: The Bulletin of the Historical Society, January/February 2006 [...]
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Life is rather hectic, gentle readers, and I cannot promise anything here for another ten days or so. However, I promise that once life is returned to me, I will return to you with reports, opinions, excitement of various sorts. I lead you on, because I know you still have feelings for me. In the [...]
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This is too important to ignore so y’all should go read UNESCO’s World Social Science Report 2010. The whole thing. Still a quote for the peanut gallery, from Venni V. Krishna and Usha Krishna, “Social sciences in South Asia”, pp. 77-81. There seems to be consensus among social scientists that, with a few exceptions, the [...]
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Gentle readers, a state of perpetual bizzzie-ness is about to descend on me.1 I will, however, post – on twitter or here – thoughts, words, links, expressions relating to a project that I am lucky enough to start with some excellent people. Details and participants are available here and, below the fold, some description and [...]
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Jacqueline Rose. “‘J’accuse’: Dreyfus in Our Times” London Review of Books, Vol. 32 No. 11 · 10 June 2010. And yet, what is crucial about Lazare – and the reason he brings my journey to its end – is that he demonstrates so clearly that to fight for justice as a Jew, against a pseudo-universalism [...]
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Religion gone global: an interview with Reza Aslan NS: How do you think scholars can learn to take part in broader conversations? RA: It’s often a total waste of time. You can’t be trained to speak to the media in a weekend seminar before going on Anderson Cooper. You have to be immersed in the [...]
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A.J. Arberry. British Orientalist. (London: William Collins Sons & Co, 1943): 7-11 What is Orientalism, and what constitutes an Orientalist? … The original connotation of the term orientalist was, in 1683, “a member of the Easter or Greek Church”: in 1691 Anthony Wood described Samuel Clark as “an eminent orientalian,” meaning that he knew some [...]
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It is with great pleasure that I link to an interview of my advisor, Prof. Fred M. Donner, at Boston Ideas, Islam’s Beginnings, on his new book, Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam. IDEAS: Are your ideas particularly threatening to literalists because you question the Islamic narrative without attacking the faith? DONNER: [...]
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This was written a little while ago, and with an eye to comment on a report on Pakistani higher education. I think it suffers a bit, thus decontextualized, but hey. The citation for the 2009 report I mention is (I don’t know why the footnote or hyper-link didn’t make it into the column): Athar Osama, [...]
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Recently, I have started reading again. Just finished Hans Fallada, Alone in Berlin – which was profoundly sad and completely human. An email prompted me to make a shortlist of books I would like to tackle next. The following list is of Arabic (largely Egypt-centric) literature in translation. Some I read a while back and [...]
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I am headed to Philadelphia, my fav. other-Chicago, for the annual Association for Asian Studies meeting. I am on a panel on Thursday: 7:30pm-9:30pm. National Culture and Belonging in Pakistan, chaired by A. Sean Pue, Michigan State University. Grand Ballroom Salon J – “Chale Chalo ke Voh Manzil Abhi Nahin Aai”: Progressive Writers Attempt to [...]
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I am putting together a reading list for next term, and thought it might be fun (under this whole rejuvenated CM lately) to post some more primary source reading. Below is an editorial from NYT. It is quite a remarkable document for a number of reasons, not least that it was written in NY- the [...]
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I have now discovered Do not get angry, Dude in Germany along w/ a commemorative stamp. It was invented by the clerk Josef Friedrich Schmidt (1871-1948) for his three children and then commercialized in 1914. [originally published Aug 30, 2005 @ 9:03] This falls squarely in the well-established tradition, here at CM, of wasting time. [...]
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Barbara D. Metcalf, the president of the AHA, is a wonderful historian of Islam in South Asia. I recommend reading her short note, Historians and Chemical Engineers, in the February 2010 issue of Perspectives on History. History may in some ways be primarily the purview of professionals, but it is also an intimate part of [...]
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Very Promising new collection of essays on Pakistan. It will make a fine addition to this. Beyond Crisis: Re-evaluating Pakistan Edited by Naveeda Khan Published by: Routledge India Publication Date: 23/02/2010 Pages: 544 About the Book Through the essays in this volume, we see how the failure of the state becomes a moment to ruminate [...]
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[Acknowledgments: This paper was part of a conference panel; I want to thank my fantastic co-panelists: Abhijeet Paul and Anis Ahmed who wrote about Bengali literature; and the unfailingly insightful Aditya Adarkar, our discussant. I want to especially thank Richard Delacy, whose many keen insights into the use and abuse of Manto have most definitely [...]
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[Sepoy notes: I have badgered Lapata to release some of her academic writings here on CM. They are excellent bits of research and analysis - which deserve a wide, global audience - also because we are talking about a revolution. This paper, Particularities of Partition Literature: Looking Beyond the Master Narratives of Partition Studies, was [...]
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How is it that it would not occur to a learned person that the theoretical school of Botulism was a hoax?
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