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Reply Semipreciousme # 392

??but zafarsaab, you?re only as young (or old) as your heart wants you to be, no??btw, am DYING to know what those metallic jeans are for;)??

Who feels it knows it. Jahras.

Tafara..

(I have embraced middle age.

Mere dil ke sabh baal gir gaye.)

Cupsofcoffeecupsofcoffeecupsofcoffee

Michelangelo

There you go young semi, that?s my first ever chowk poem, albeit referential to a fault ? and all in answer to your post! I feel confident that you now understand about the silver jeans.

Regards

Pankaj, et al,

Right guys, I actually understood the para Pankaj posted. Try reading some Sara Sulieri and get back to me...

While I empathize with those who question the academic jargon and impenetrability of certain critical genres, I`d like to remind you that every discipline and field of study has specific, jargon laden languages. IF you are to poke fun at academia, I`d would hope to read a critique poking fun at scientific, medical, and corporate discourses shortly after (can anyone justify the euphemisms ``down sized`` ``voided`` ``restructured`` as opposed to being ``laid off``/fired?)...these are of course fluid industries that want to survive, mutate, and ebb and flow as does the next

Finally, the legacy of certain theorists like Foucault are the vehicles of some pretty ground breaking ideas on how social and economic systems are created and symbolized. I wouldnt knock him until you actually read him-

It feels odd writing about books on a message board about suicide bombers, but then there`s talk of Shankar in a thong (sumo wrestlers, stand back!), and the rare achievement of seeing a Pakistani chick in shorts (gawd, i`d say you were repressed,but somehow, I doubt it!)

So, Chinua Achebe is definitely a must read, but so is Nuruddin Farah. And if you haven`t read Qurratulain Hyder`s `River of Fire` in Urdu, or in English..you`re missing a great part of South Asian literature. I would list a whole lot of other books, but they`re getting ready to kick us out of the computer lab, so it shall have to wait.

I think there should be an separate and ongoing board where we can talk about the books we`re reading..free from the cutters and pasters of the world. These cutters and pasters of world are uniting fast, but for what...is a mystery!

Ciao all, and go Brazil!!!

shankar #399: ``Ahemmm...I just want to humbly comment..at this.uh..juncture..that ..its cuz you havent seen me in a thong..``

I have always wondered what the various interactors on Chowk look like. I believe Chowk does allow scans of photographs within articles. Maybe, you should try that.

Seeing a Pakistani girl in shorts is no doubt a rare achievement, but seeing an Indian guy in a thong would be right up there with spotting the Loch Ness Monster.

re: netnerd #399

{..its cuz you havent seen me in a thong..}

...careful, 12-head`ll probably pinch off a piece of lard while you`re prancing around in your chaddi...

I can`t believe it people still talking about books here!!! (and one more for effect)!

Changa jee, now that we are here people what a show of hands for admirers of R.K.Narayan (not K.R the prez).

The other writer I would really recommend is Raja Rao and while most people consider ``The Serpent & the Rope`` as his best, I`d say read ``Kanthapura`` (hope the spelling is correct), absolutely loved it - lyrical novel set in the South with the independence movement as the backdrop. The story has an awareness of Gandhi (oops sorry the ``G`` word) which I really liked.

The Jyanpeeth Award is India`s premier literary award. The organisation has published some great works in English translated from original.

Bashir Kerala`s premier writer is a great read.

Also recommended Pather Panchali - never saw the movie but if it was half as good as the book then it surely deserves its reputation.

Actually after spending my childhood & teens devouring the classics and the writers of the western world I started discovering the wealth of talent amongst the thirld world writers. Would really recommend Chinua Achebe (even over Wole Soyinka).

And if you can read Munshi Premchand, Sharat Chand (an absolute master of the family drama), Mohan Rakesh, Amrita Preetam, Jayant Dalvi (all these writers available in translation). The other name which I didn`t mention was Manto (my favourite short story writer - speaking of which I will go off tangent and mention my other favourite Issac Singer).

I could go on and on much longer but got a class to write and code to debug :-( so before I go - yes Roohi this hand goes up for reading Haroun & the Sea of Stories - which reminds me how many of you have read Rushdies` first book Grimus?

-

Subroto

anNy,

hon,

I hope you havent flipped your lid over that stupid 12 head`s remark below:

{{Can you name any proud indian girls who has straight legs???they are mostly bow & rickety like AnNys}}

12 head is an embarrassing slur on our teeny tiny medical diaspora on Chowk! I THINK he said he was a doctor, a neurologist, to boot. I mean, granted I`m no prize, but Jeeze, I`m a shrink, for crying out loud! ALL shrinks are SUPPOSED to be at least slightly crazy (btw, there`s a law to that effect--if not, there ought to be one!).

But, this 12 headed creature! .....12 heads, but not ONE properly functioning brain in any ONE of them! I think its because he`s been rejected at least 12,000 times by women from both India & Pakistan.

We had a classmate in medical school like him. He thought he was the catch of the century just because he was going to be a doctor. Whats worse, he thought he looked like Dilip Kumar or something. He was rejected by every single woman he tried to line marao--heck, he tried & tried..classmates, nurses & even nursing students. Even the UGLIEST nurse would groan sarcastically ``Hai Ram, Sapnon Ka Raaja AAya!`` when they saw him approaching:))!

Know something..come to think of it..the last I heard of ``Dilip Kumar`` was that he was in the US doing a neuro residency...OMIGOD!!! coulditbe?!!!nah...

Yo! 12 head, didya go to med school in Bombay?

Romair,

{{while they look better than Indian guys in shorts (a traumatizing sight, that I may never recover from :-))}}

Ahemmm...I just want to humbly comment..at this.uh..juncture..that ..its cuz you havent seen me in a thong..

Anyo Hishimika!

Korea All The Way, Baybees!!! Don`t forget to wear your red....

semi, scout,

yes it is the legs and the hair and the utter lack of accoutrements...just some boys, a field and a ball...almost Zen, nahin?

semi,

I`ve havent read Theroux in ages...he`s got a famous hissy spat with Naipaul, I believe...but you are right, the book club looks interesting. I`ve been reading the various interacts. Perhaps the lovely and talented Chowk staff could set aside another board and call it Harpo`s Book of the Month?...ah, who`d ever thought that Harpreet would be following in Miss Oprah`s size 9`s?

Did somebody say meow?

Zafar:363

I`m trying for a long time now to de-educate myself and I know now what an ardous task it is.Please do not do me the `honour` to deport me back to the university-types.

For a fleeting moment(basked?-glowed!) you placed me in the company of Ramanujan-----(who thought he had discovered calculas & was thoroughly embarrased to find out that someone called Newton has already been there.

I am thankful to Allah that now I can afford to shun the company of intellectuals,academics, or the scholastic kind. Now just trying to enjoy the zestful company of the street ``urchins`` & ``goondas`` who,in my not so humble opinion anymore, really carry these pygmies on their shoulders and never even let them REALISE who the REAL ``guide`` is in ``REALITY``--sorry Derrida,Sokol & Foucault.

Do they really matter as much as we worry about them?------If universities were not the factories churning out brain-omellettes then would they have any value other than the chess-games & mahjongs for increasing intellect or kite-flying to improve vision.

``Mehfilain barham karay hai ganjfaa baaz e khayaal

Hain vraq gardani e nairang e yek buut khaana hum``

Ghalib

tr:The mind,as a chess-master plays disturbs the prevailing ethos

We are,but,the browsers of the ONE & ONLY Gallery``

__________________________________________________

Thu, 25 Feb 1999 13:40:41 -0500

Louis Proyect (lnp3@panix.com)

Yes, I have indeed written at length about my objections to the grossly

overpraised Foucault, in a 78-page review-essay, ``Junk Bonds and Corporate

Raiders: Academe in the Hour of the Wolf,`` published in 1991 by the

classics journal Arion and reprinted in my first essay collection, ``Sex,

Art, and American Culture.`` One of my observations was that Foucault`s

works are oddly devoid of women. Shouldn`t that concern you as a feminist?

It is simply untrue that Foucault was learned: He was at a loss with any

period or culture outside of post-Enlightenment France (his later writing

on ancient sexuality is a garbled mishmash). The supposedly innovative

ideas for which his gullible acolytes feverishly hail him were in fact

borrowed from a variety of familiar sources, from Friedrich Nietzsche,

Emile Durkheim and Martin Heidegger to Americans such as sociologist Erving

Goffman.

Foucault`s analysis of ``power`` is foggy and paranoid and simply does not

work when applied to the actual evidence of the birth, growth and complex

development of governments in ancient and modern societies. Nor is

Foucault`s analysis of the classification of knowledge particularly

original -- except in his bitter animus against the Enlightenment, which he

failed to realize had already been systematically countered by Romanticism.

What most American students don`t know is that Foucault`s commentary is

painfully crimped by the limited assumptions of Saussurean linguistics

(which I reject). As I have asserted, James Joyce`s landmark modernist

novel ``Ulysses`` (1922) contains, chapter by chapter, far subtler and more

various versions of language-based ``epistemes`` inherent in cultural

institutions and epochs.

I`m afraid I bring rather bad news: Over the course of your careers, your

generation of students will slowly come to realize that the

Foucault-praising professors whom you respected and depended on were

ill-informed fad-followers who sold you a shoddy bill of goods. You don`t

need Foucault, for heaven`s sake! Durkheim and Max Weber began the stream

of sociological thought that still nourishes responsible thinkers. And the

pioneers of social psychology and behaviorism -- Havelock Ellis, Alfred

Adler, John B. Watson and many others -- were eloquent apostles of social

constructionism when Foucault was still in the cradle.

A massive work like W.E.B. DuBois` ``The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study``

(1899) shows the kind of respect for empirical fact-gathering and

organization of data that is completely missing from Foucault, who

selectively tailors his material to fit a monotonous, rigidly dualistic a

priori thesis. For those in the humanities, where anti-aesthetic British

cultural studies (shaped by the out-of-date Frankfurt School) has become

entrenched, I recommend ``The Social History of Art`` (translated into

English in 1951), an epic work by the Marxist scholar Arnold Hauser that

influenced me in graduate school. No one in British or American cultural

studies has Hauser`s erudition, precision and connoisseurship.

Foucault-worship is an example of what I call the Big Daddy syndrome:

Secular humanists, who have drifted from their religious and ethnic roots,

have created a new Jehovah out of string and wax. Again and again -- in

memoirs, for example, by trendy but pedestrian uber-academics like

Harvard`s Stephen Greenblatt and Brown`s Robert Scholes -- one sees the

scenario of Melancholy, Bookish, Passive, Insecure Young Nebbish suddenly

electrified and transfigured by the Grand Epiphany of Blindingly Brilliant

Foucault. This sappy psychodrama would be comic except for the fact that

American students forced to read Foucault have been defrauded of a genuine

education in intellectual history and political analysis (a disciplined

genre that starts with Thucydides and flows directly to the best of today`s

journalism on current events).

When I pointed out in Arion that Foucault, for all his blathering about

``power,`` never managed to address Adolph Hitler or the Nazi occupation of

France, I received a congratulatory letter from David H. Hirsch (a

literature professor at Brown), who sent me copies of riveting chapters

from his then-forthcoming book, ``The Deconstruction of Literature:

Criticism After Auschwitz`` (1991). As Hirsch wrote me about French behavior

during the occupation, ``Collaboration was not the exception but the rule.``

I agree with Hirsch that the leading poststructuralists were cunning

hypocrites whose tortured syntax and encrustations of jargon concealed the

moral culpability of their and their parents` generations in Nazi France.

American students, forget Foucault! Reverently study the massive primary

evidence of world history, and forge your own ideas and systems.

Poststructuralism is a corpse. Let it stink in the Parisian trash pit where

it belongs!

(From Salon magazine archives)

Louis Proyect

Romair #379



``Do the Indian IT ladies and the Indian show business ladies come from different casts, different families, different gene pools? ``

Gene pool ka pata nahiN but don`t you know most of our beauty queens are ex-army brats ???!!! and don`t you have pools in your army mess or Gymkhana clubs uus paar ?!!

Fuzair and other anti-postmodernists

You guys would love the following article by one of my favourite authors Richard Dawkins. The title is ``Postmodernism Disrobed``. To pique the interest of people, I am posting the first few lines.

http://www.freethought-web.org/ctrl/archive/postmodernism/dawkins_impost.html

``Suppose you are an intellectual impostor with nothing to say, but with strong ambitions to succeed in academic life, collect a coterie of reverent disciples and have students around the world anoint your pages with respectful yellow highlighter. What kind of literary style would you cultivate? Not a lucid one, surely, for clarity would expose your lack of content. The chances are that you would produce something like the following:

We can clearly see that there is no bi-univocal correspondence between linear signifying links or archi-writing, depending on the author, and this multireferential, multi-dimensional machinic catalysis. The symmetry of scale, the transversality, the pathic non-discursive character of their expansion: all these dimensions remove us from the logic of the excluded middle and reinforce us in our dismissal of the ontological binarism we criticised previously.

``

anNy...glad you replied (akhirkaar!!!), but oh no, I hope it`s not malaria..being peeli peeli made me think it could be something else, but whatever it is, I hope it`s not serious! I remember I had something like malaria when I was up in Murree for summer vacation, many suns ago..bura haal tha, aankhon ke samne deewaren hil rahe thay..had I looked out the window, the hills would have been moving too!!! But I digress...take good care of you!

Thanks for the compliment on my writing...I`ve written a couple of things for Chowk, but nothing they`ve considered worthy of posting :(...oh well..i`m doing some writing this summer, I`ll let you know if anyone accepts it! be well luv! a.

I`m definitely rooting for Brazil..either Turkey or Korea can be matched up against them as long as Brazil emerges victorious!

re: booktalk

…..finally!….smt else besides the usual hindu-kafir-muslim-terrorist-kashmir’s ours-no-it’s-ours spiel…have just started paul theroux’s the black house…looks promising….

re: world cup

…who would’ve believed s.korea and turkey would be in the semis?…i’m rooting for both all the way….and scout, who’s this i hear about having great legs and amazing hair?….share, share:)….

zafarsaab:

“Vaisai at the advanced age of 37, whippersnapperdom seems like a distant dream.”

…but zafarsaab, you’re only as young (or old) as your heart wants you to be, no?…btw, am DYING to know what those metallic jeans are for;)…

re Fuzair #384

I have read Sokol`s essay and a few of the replies from postmodernists to it. Most of it went way over my head.

If you like jokes on post-modernism you might like this site which randomly generates post-modernist bs.

http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern/