univerCity

Madison 2011

by sepoy October 19, 2011

#OccupyMadisonConcourseHotel2011!! Ahem. It is the Annual Awesomeness that is the Madison conference – this is the 40th one! Big times now. I will be on two panels – giving a paper on something I am quite excited about and discussing a set of papers elsewhere. I wish there was a way to link to my [...]

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univerCity

Nauman Naqvi on Sadequain

by sepoy October 17, 2011

We were just talking about the scholastic and the imaginative that underpins some gems of scholarship – such as Ramanujan’s work on the Ramayana (and his work on poetry, in poetry), and here comes another deeply inspiring articulation. Nauman Naqvi, anthropologist, delivers a wonderfully framed, evocative,(and beautifully filmed) lecture ruminating on the art, the poetics [...]

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univerCity

Transformative Texts

by sepoy October 11, 2011

The First out of the four experts termed the text as “appropriate” for the syllabus, second expert congratulated the History Department for including the essay, third expert opined that the contents of the essay are “unexceptional”. Only the fourth expert proposed to incorporate other texts in lieu of Ramanujan’s text, as “anything that goes against” [...]

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WTWFA

Explaining Pakistan

by sepoy October 7, 2011

I did a segment with Jerome MacDonald for Worldview at WBEZ. Please to listen and enjoy. And comment, etc.

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WTWFA

Remember the Rooftops

by sepoy October 7, 2011

Gentle Readers, The book was launched last week. It was lovely, lovely, lovely, to have so many of my dearest friends there. Lovely to talk with new friends and lovelier still to be bathed in so much love. Have I used the word “love” enough yet? But that is the thing which remains with me [...]

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potpurri

That Soot-Besmirched Late Afternoon

by lapata October 1, 2011

I have a new piece up at Caravan on Yashpal’s great Partition novel, Jhootha Sach. It’s very nicely reproduced, though I seem to have missed the weird new title during the editing process (“Night Smudged Light”). My title, “Late for the Party,” must have seemed too cavalier. Here’s an excerpt: Jhootha Sach, first published in [...]

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WTWFA

Why are Roses Red?

by sepoy September 23, 2011

When ships are launched, they pour water or more bubbly stuff to ask the gods to bless it. When Books are launched, the gods are less likely to be pleased if water is poured on it. On Monday, Aug 26th, at 7pm, we will be launching Where The Wild Frontiers Are at The Asian American [...]

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homistan

Meanwhile, Back Home

by sepoy September 15, 2011

Holy Jesus, Moses and Muhammad. The power-points, I urge you to drop everything and just stare at them, are amazing. They really are. They show, quite clearly, the mental acuity of a 12 year old child when confronted with a newspaper. There is reading comprehension, of course, and even retention and maybe some kind of [...]

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imperial watch

If You See Something Say Something III

by sepoy September 15, 2011

I am rather stuck on the fliegender Teppich in the NPD ad. I want to continue the link I made between Hans Schweitzer’s anti-Semitic cartoons and the NPD flying-carpet by focusing on this particular relationship between orientalism and anti-Semitism. The 1926 Lotte Reiniger movie Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed was one of the first “animated” [...]

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univerCity

If You See Something, Say Something II

by sepoy September 14, 2011

Ich bin ein Ausländer doch Berlin ist mein zu Hause meine Heimat meine stadt hier kriegst du auch mal auf die Schnauze – Alpa Gun There is a recessed walkway leading up to the side entrance of a building which bears the plaque that Albert Einstein worked here after moving to Berlin in 1914. Ehrenbergstraße [...]

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univerCity

The end is coming soon

by sepoy September 13, 2011

The wind blows cold outside your door/it whispers words I’ve tried before But you don’t hear me anymore/your pride’s just too demanding The end is coming soon, it’s plain/a warm bed just ain’t worth the pain – Tower Song, Townes van Zandt Two things I know about Houston – my Babu hails from that town [...]

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imperial watch

Prepositional Phrases

by Steve Marlowe September 6, 2011

When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled “made in Germany”; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism;it will be called, of course, “Americanism.”  Halford E. Luccock, Keeping Life Out of Confusion Before Times were good for many Americans—or, at least, times were good [...]

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WTWFA

A Jaundiced Eye

by sepoy September 2, 2011

Jacob Silverman, Where the Wild Frontiers Are: America comes up short in South Asia, Sep 2, 2011, The National: A worthwhile political blogger doesn’t have to always be right, but he or she should be able to remain sober in the emotional maelstrom of politics or amidst national trauma. Ahmed repeatedly does this, particularly when [...]

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homistan

If You See Something, Say Something

by sepoy August 30, 2011

A few weeks ago, I visited Hamburg’s vast harbors and storage houses. There, I saw the faded signs of an old network of traders from Iran, Afghanistan and Kashmir who came to Hamburg in the 1880s and 1890s bearing carpets and artifacts. I loved that part of Hamburg, and I wished I had had more [...]

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imperial watch

Ten Short Years

by sepoy August 25, 2011

The New York Police Department is doing everything it can to make sure there’s not another 9/11 here and that more innocent New Yorkers are not killed by terrorists,” NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said. “And we have nothing to apologize for in that regard.” – “With CIA help, NYPD built secret effort to monitor mosques, [...]

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homistan

All is Well

by sepoy August 24, 2011

I have a more detailed review of Maleeha Lodhi’s edited volume Pakistan: Beyond ‘The Crisis State’ in Dawn’s Books & Authors: All is Well… or is it? I had briefly discussed it in my previous review essay, but this is special care: Pakistan, as a subject of critical analysis, is ill-served when realities are ignored [...]

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imperial watch

The Best of All Possible Care

by lapata August 23, 2011

One thing that the First World really gets right is good dental care. The more money you have, the better the teeth. Unfortunately, despite the fact that we Americans (at least those with good dental insurance) have some of the pearliest, straightest teeth in the world, we are seldom grateful for this gift. The word [...]

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imperial watch

Splinters

by sepoy August 16, 2011

The saying goes that we all have rituals – and the sayer points, often times metaphorically, to baseball players. The raise, the pinch, the shuffle, the swing, the dust-off, the spit, the spit, the spit. Ritual seems a bad word, suddenly. Habit? Superstitious habit? Let us stick with ritual for a second. I don’t think [...]

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imperial watch

Helicopters

by sepoy August 16, 2011

I have a new piece up at The National, Pakistan: why the US must think outside the ‘military’ box: A decade after the events of September 11, we continue to know little and understand even less of Pakistan. This despite the fact that we are entering a golden age of production of knowledge on that [...]

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potpurri

The Goat-Spy Diaries – Black Nipple

by Jassasa August 5, 2011

  Click on Page 1 to read the diary from the beginning Page the Fourth—In which one-half of the face of metropolitan evil is presented to Jassasa who makes small talk and a funny discovery AS I WAS led up the narrow staircase and into the presence of the gang leader, I was already working out [...]

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