This is a reading of Spivak as an heir to Sri Avinavagupta and Sri Ramakrishna. We ignore the fact that Spivak is a Shakta in her corpus. This review corrects/revises our understanding of Spivak and reinstates her as she really deserves to be read: she is within the traditions of Tantra. Spivak, in her own writings and interviews, has long spoken of her Tantric roots. This review in Prabuddha Bharata, which is the mouthpiece of the Ramakrishna (...) Mission whose disciple Spivak is, published this review because it carries on, as it were, the cultural work of analysing the precomprehensible in Spivak. There is a typo in the review since nothing in this world is or can be, perfect! (shrink)

A review of Francoise Laruelle's General Theory of Victims, which places Laruelle's theory in the context of post-colonial theories of the subaltern subject after Gayatri Spivak and Edward Said. The review questions whether Laruelle's General Theory of Victims really allows the so-called victims to speak for themselves, or simply represents another attempt by Western (French?) intellectuals to speak to/through the victims, for their own political and theoretical purposes.

The word theology and Hinduism as a lived religion often do not go together. Moreover anything to do with theology or with Hinduism in India today might be construed as right wing rhetoric. Through this article, the author revisits Patristics, Catholic theologians like Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan. This essay is supposed to be read with the preceding essay which appeared in this issue of Prabuddha Bharata. That was written by Gayatri Spivak. The Editor put Spivak ahead (...) of this essay to emphasize the cosmopolitan nature of Hindu praxes. This essay also touches upon Liberation Theology. (shrink)

This chapter explores the anti-colonial narrative potential of certain works of cinema taking Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Caché as a case in point. To do so, this chapter first and mainly draws upon the theoretical and normative lens put forward by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak on the representation of the colonized other and her resulting political and intellectual call for self-reflection on one's privileged Western intellectual positioning. This lens has many normative implications for the ways in which (...) the colonized subject and colonial history are discussed and represented. The partial lack of representation of the colonized other in Aguirre, the Wrath of God leaves the subjectivity of the colonizer in crisis and madness. Second, the narrative of Caché is explored and it is suggested that it resembles the rhetoric of Foucauldian disciplinary power of surveillance turned upside-down thus enforcing the complicit of colonialism to question her privilege. (shrink)

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak asked a question in 1988: ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ That question was the expression of a lifetime of observation of the marginalised and witnessing of attempts to civilise the ‘aborigine’. Eventually, this question led to A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (CPR) in 1999. A seminal work, this book unsettled and reoriented the thoughts of scholars, brought up new questions and insights, and the very construct of civilisation and culture (...) was challenged. In 2000 a group of scholars, of whom many were Gayatri’s students—the first name of the celebrated thinker is being used in this review in keeping with her radical spirit—came together as a panel in the annual meeting of the International Association for Philosophy and Literature at Stony Brook University in Long Island, New York, to deliberate on CPR. The panel discussions were engaging and elicited extraordinary response. This encouraged the publication of the proceedings as a special symposium in 2002 in the journal Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies. The present book is a result of further working on these proceedings for more than a decade. (shrink)

This is a rudimentary paper written to claim my connection that the American and the erstwhile Indian modes of psychoanalysis are more authentic modes vis-à-vis the French mode. Some of the claims I make in this paper have been already published in Prabuddha Bharata and some are forthcoming. For instance, I have written on Ritalin which is pertinent to this discussion yet I have avoided mentioning this since my contention regarding Ritalin is pending publication in Prabuddha Bharata. Addition : 2020, (...) my comments on the efficacy of Ritalin have been published last year in Prabuddha Bharata. (shrink)

El texto evalúa una de las maneras predominantes de la recepción de Gilles Deleuze. Establece una crítica de los desencuentros y misreadings en torno a la filosofía de Deleuze. Muestra esos desencuentros como un proceso sin contexto ni densidad histórica, sin unos mínimos elementos que permitan comprender los complejos procesos de su recepción. Mucho menos su genealogía. Para ello, el texto evalúa la lectura de Deleuze que hace Jacques Ranciere, a la luz de la recepción de ambos en el contexto (...) universitario norteamericano. (shrink)

The question of authenticity centers in the lives of women of color to invite and restrict their representative roles. For this reason, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Uma Narayan advocate responding with strategic essentialism. This paper argues against such a strategy and proposes an epistemic understanding of the question of authentic- ity. The question stems from a kernel of truth—the connection between experience and knowledge. But a coherence theory of knowledge better captures the sociality and the holism of experience (...) and knowledge. (shrink)

The article regards the age peculiarities of the development of personality’s self-consciousness in youth. -/- The conducted theoretical analysis and empirical research contribute to the definition of the following features of the formation of personality self-consciousness in youth: -/- – strengthening the integrative tendency in this process, which leads to an increase in the level of cognitive complexity, differentiation, integrity, and hierarchy of the “Self-image”, as well as the emergence of a holistic, integrated “I”; -/- – the ability of self-awareness (...) as the highest form of self-knowledge, due to the higher level of development of intelligence and the individuals thinking; -/- – increase of the level of awareness of the personality of their own experiences, self-attitude, and selfesteem, which contributes to the growth of interest in his/her “I”; -/- – actualization of the process of development of personal and social self-identity (self-determination) of youth; -/- – intensification of formation of the system of value orientations as a psychological basis for the development of personality’s self-consciousness; -/- – an ability to make informed decisions in various spheres of life (social, professional, personal, etc.), which is the evidence of becoming a socially mature person; -/- – psychological mechanisms for the development of the youth’s self-consciousness is self-reflection, identification, and separation; -/- – a pivotal object of self-reflection is the relationship with significant others and their own life position; the object of identification presents socially valuable qualities of others, which promotes the assimilation of social norms; due to separation of the acquired norms of behavior, value orientations and motives become individualized. -/- The identified features are important for the psychological and pedagogical theory and practice. (shrink)

In this paper, through the example of Antonii Radyvylovskyi’s work, I examine the impact of Seneca’s texts on the philosophical component of Ukrainian church sermons from the Baroque period. The objective of this study is to investigate Radyvylovskyi’s use of Seneca’s texts in his own writing. The result should help better understand the ideological influence of ancient philosophy on the formation of the national philosophical tradition of the Baroque epoch. The contents of ideological borrowings from Seneca’s texts and the mechanisms (...) of their use are traced. A list of Seneca’s texts from which Radyvylovskyi quotes is provided. It is also shown that Radyvylovskyi uses Seneca’s authority in his moral teachings and philosophical thinking about the characteristics of human nature. We conclude by commenting on Radyvylovskyi’s creative use of Seneca’s ideas and the significant philosophical component of his written legacy. (shrink)

The syllables and series of sounds composing Gayatri Mantra, and the sense and meaning attached to them are analyzed using Upanishadic Wisdom, Advaitha Philosophy and Sabdabrahma Siddhanta. The physical structure of mind as revealed by this analysis is presented. An insight of various phases of mind, their rise and set, their significance and implications to cognitive sciences and natural language comprehension branch of artificial intelligence are discussed. The possible applications of such an insight in the fields of cognitive sciences, (...) modeling of human mental processes and language learning/communication processes are hinted. (shrink)

Spivak translates Derrida’s “il n’y a pas de hors-texte” as “there is nothing outside the text.” By considering how the aphorism works within his study of Rousseau on sexual and textual supplements, and by reviewing related expressions in French, a mistranslation is revealed. This is not a simple error, however. The distortion is generated by Derrida’s own broader context. We must not only distinguish signification from reference but also place the aphorism within Derrida’s allusion, in the first part of (...) Of Grammatology, to an all-embracing arche-writing. The paper ends in thus opening out the discussion of a textual “inside” or “outside.”. (shrink)

This article revisits, analyzes and critiques Bruce Chatwin’s 1987 bestseller, The Songlines,1 more than three decades after its publication. In Songlines, the book primarily responsible for his posthumous celebrity, Chatwin set out to explore the essence of Central and Western Desert Aboriginal Australians’ philosophical beliefs. For many readers globally, Songlines is regarded as a—if not the—definitive entry into the epistemological basis, religion, cosmology and lifeways of classical Western and Central Desert Aboriginal people. It is argued that Chatwin’s fuzzy, ill-defined use (...) of the word-concept “songlines”2 has had the effect of generating more heat than light. Chatwin’s failure to recognize the economic imperative underpinning Australian desert people’s walking praxis is problematic: his own treks through foreign lands were underpropped by socioeconomic privilege. Chatwin’s ethnocentric idée fixe regarding the primacy of “walking” and “nomadism,” central to his Songlines thématique, well and truly preceded his visits to Central Australia. Walking, proclaimed Chatwin, is an elemental part of “Man’s” innate nature. It is argued that this unwavering, preconceived, essentialist belief was a self-serving construal justifying Chatwin’s own “nomadic” adventures of identity. Is it thus reasonable to regard Chatwin as a “rogue author,” an unreliable narrator? And if so, does this matter? Of greatest concern is the book’s continuing majority acceptance as a measured, accurate account of Aboriginal belief systems. With respect to Aboriginal desert people and the barely disguised individuals depicted in Songlines, is Chatwin’s book a “rogue text,” constituting an act of epistemic violence, consistent with Spivak’s usage of that term? (shrink)

Ramayan Through Kundalini Yoga Shodasi is an ideal read for Sanskrit-literate readers who are open to eclectic yogarthas and connotative meanings -------- So you thought Vyasa was before Valmiki, Mahabharat was before Ramayan, Rama a Vishnu avatar, and tantrism distinct from vedism? Think again. In Shodasi: Secrets of the Ramayana, Telugu poet Seshendra Sharma re-reads the Ramayan to come up with a number of new conclusions. Much of the book sets out to prove that Ramayan was written before the Mahabharat. (...) Sharma discusses how Indra is cited more often than Vishnu, thus placing the context of the Ramayan closer to Vedic than Puranic thought. He quotes from the Mahabharat to show how it follows descriptions of hills, rivers from the Ramayan. The Mahabharat has some prose, and therefore, it must have been composed after Ramayan, which is entirely in poetry. These are only some of the numerous reasons that Sharma offers to suggest a new sequence of our itihasas. Sharma’s book is also an experimental reading of the Ramayan through the interpretive lens of what he calls Kundalini yoga. Hanuman’s flight to Sri Lanka gets a new interpretation. “Charana Charite Pathi” is interpreted as the path of Kundalini, and the first verse of the Sundara Kanda “Tatho Ravana Nithayah” is interpreted by Sharma to refer to Hanuman traversing the sushumna nadi of the Kundalini. Trijata’s dream becomes the Gayatri mantra through an imaginative recasting of words as numbers. Gaja (elephant) means eight, danta (teeth) means thirty-two, and maha-gaja-chaturdantam somehow also adds up to 32 syllables, which is the number of syllables in the Gayatri mantra. That Trijata’s dream is halfway through the Ramayan also becomes significant for Sharma, he calls it the ‘central bead’ in the Ramayan garland of 24,000 beads. Identifying 32-syllables as the Gayatri follows a convention, for mantras are referenced by the number of syllables; however, it is the “secret” yogartha—or mystical, anagogical translations—derived by Sharma that becomes problematic, unless he is considered an authority in his own right. conclude that the name Sundarakand is unrelated to any descriptions of beauty of any of the main characters in the Ramayan. However, Soundarya and Tripura-Sundari are well-known conventions in the tantric tradition and hence, Sharma concludes that Sundarakand derives its name from Shakti’s beauty, and “Sundara-Hanuman” means “Hanuman who is a devotee of Devi” (117). A coda in this book is about the benedictory verse in Kalidasa’s Sakuntalam which has traditionally been understood to refer to Ishwara. Sharma re-interprets this verse highlighting the “eight forms” of the last line as the eight forms of Devi that please Ishwara. This book is suitable for a reader who is Sanskrit-literate and open to eclectic yogarthas and connotative meanings. Sharma cites substantially from the Ramayan in roman but without diacritics, this is difficult to follow; and he does not always include translation. Sharma often cites commentators without citing names and sources. It is not clear why the book is called Shodasi—readers may note, this book is not about the Srividya tradition. Even if the reader is unconvinced by Sharma’s reasoning or methodology, the free flow of references may prove absorbing for a reader interested in the subject. This could also be an eclectic reference for a scholar researching tantric elements in the Ramayan. - Mani Rao The Sunday Standard Magazine The New Indian Express 29th November 2015 . (shrink)