Three consecutive patriarchs of Esoteric Buddhism were Amoghavajra of India, Huiguo of China, and Kūkai of Japan. This paper foregrounds the usually taken-for-granted but vital historical role of language education and translation in the international spread of religion and culture. There had to be sufficiently educated bilingual or multilingual…[Read more]

This is pre-publication preview introduces the major questions, methods, and insights of my book When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis & the Reproduction of Species (UC Press, 2023).

भारत में फासीवादी नीतियों का नौकरीपेशा मध्यम वर्ग प्रतिरोध नहीं कर रहा। हालांकि, प्रतिरोध की अधिक जिम्मेवारी उन प्राध्यापकों पर है, जो स्वयं को बुद्धिजीवी कहते हैं और जिन्हें लिखने और बोलने के लिए किंचित अधिक नैतिक और कानूनी सुविधा प्राप्त है।

सच यह है कि इनमें से अधिकांश भय से अधिक लोभ के कारण चुप हैं और चुपचाप निजाम बदलने का इंतजार कर रहे हैं…[Read more]

In this short article I argue that the UK government’s decision not to update the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA) is more than a missed opportunity. It weaponises the GRA, now an effective instrument of assimilation and containment. The failure to reform the GRA seems like a maintenance of the status quo, but given that the circumstances have s…[Read more]

In this short article I argue that the UK government’s decision not to update the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA) is more than a missed opportunity. It weaponises the GRA, now an effective instrument of assimilation and containment. The failure to reform the GRA seems like a maintenance of the status quo, but given that the circumstances have s…[Read more]

In this short article, I discuss a form of civil disobedience that emerged during the Covid-19 pandemic: the refusal to comply with lockdown rules. Because such rule-breakers often claim that they are acting to preserve freedom, I ask whether their unwillingness to help prevent the spread of the virus is symptomatic of neoliberal individualism.…[Read more]

These are excerpts from the Forward Press team’s India tour travelogue. Forward Press Consulting Editor Pramod Ranjan, sociologist Anil Kumar and Forward Press Editor (English) Anil Varghese were part of the team that went on the tour from Delhi to Kanyakumari between 5 January and 15 February 2017. The team covered nine states and one union t…[Read more]

This paper explores how Bucharest’s cinema-going public perceived the Nazi influence on Hollywood in the 1930s. The aim is to identify how Nazi propaganda was disseminated and consumed in interwar Bucharest and its similarities to the idea of glamour, relevant both to fashion and cinema. Considering the links between Goebbels’ propaganda mac…[Read more]

भारत में क्या हालत हो चुकी है, इसका अनुमान दिसंबर, 2020 में हुए एक सर्वेक्षण से लगता है। इस सर्वेक्षण के अनुसार भारत की आधी से अधिक आबादी को कोरोना-काल में पहले की तुलना में कम भोजन मिल रहा है। इनमें ज़्यादातर दलित और आदिवासी हैं। लेकिन इन सूचनाओं से भी अधिक भयावह यह है कि भारत का बौद्धिक वर्ग, ग़रीबों के सर पर मँडराते मौत के इस साये से प्राय:…[Read more]

फरवरी, 2010 में प्रकाशित इस लेख में बिहार की तत्कालीन राजनीतिक परिस्थितियों को रेखांकित किया गया है, जिसके कारण वंचित तबकों से आने लोगों का उत्पीड़न हो रहा था। लेख में इसके लिए तत्कालीन नीतीश कुमार की सरकार को दोषी बाताया गया है।

यह आलेख आम आदमी पार्टी की दिल्ली में पहली बार सरकार बनने के बाद लिखा गया था। आलेख में आम आदमी पार्टी की सामाजिक न्याय की अवधारणा पर विचार किया गया है। यह लेख बताता है कि पार्टी दलित, पिछड़ों के हितों की परवाह नहीं करती।

This article explores how public health was transformed in Egypt soon after its occupation by Great Britain in 1882. Over the course of the nineteenth century, the Egyptian state had invested substantially in health to boost the nation’s economic and military strength, and, especially after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, to address E…[Read more]

वर्ष 2009 में प्रकाशित यह लेख बिहार के मुख्यमंत्री रहे नीतीश कुमार के कुनबावाद की पड़ताल करता है।

In August 2019, Prof Avijit Pathak and Prof Apoorvanand have written two poignant pieces on the government-sponsored maligning of JNU and the fall of the university, published in The Wire and the Indian Express, respectively. Taking the discourse forward, Forward Press managing editor Pramod Ranjan emphasizes the need for those fighting to save…[Read more]

इस लेख में यूनिवर्सिटियों में सामाजिक न्याय की अवहेलना के कारण होने वाले नुकासान की चर्चा की गई है। लेख में कहा गया है कि प्राध्यापकों का मुख्य काम शिक्षण, यानी ज्ञान की व्याख्या करना है। ज्ञान का निर्माण एक सतत प्रक्रिया है, जो समाज में घटित होती है, यूनिवर्सिटियां भी इस प्रकिया का उतना ही अंग हैं, जितना किसी किस…[Read more]

Satire, Humor, and Environmental Crises explores how satire and humor can be employed to address and mitigate ecological crises at individual and collective levels.

Besides scientific and technological endeavors, solutions to ecological crises must entail social and communicative reform to persuade citizens, corporations, organizations, and…[Read more]

A goal for language learners is to function in plural languages according to their own needs and purposes. A bilingual perspective starts from that attainable goal. Learners in Japan tend to idealize L2 mastery or becoming bilingual, so it becomes other people’s business. Monolingual teachers tell students by their example, “go where I have not…[Read more]

Like other Eastern Bloc countries, East Germany sought to control even its citizens’ leisure time in the 1960s and 1970s, with the goal of making it useful or at least not subversive to state interests. Certain hobbies, like amateur photography, found support from the state in the form of increased access to equipment and supplies. Other s…[Read more]

Like other Eastern Bloc countries, East Germany sought to control even its citizens’ leisure time in the 1960s and 1970s, with the goal of making it useful or at least not subversive to state interests. Certain hobbies, like amateur photography, found support from the state in the form of increased access to equipment and supplies. Other s…[Read more]

I propose a new interpretation of Plato’s Parmenides. I avoid the assumption of Developmentalism, that Plato is criticising his own ‘middle’ theory of forms. Instead, I read the dialogue as Plato’s serious presentation of the Eleatic position. He shows that Eleatics’s counterintuitive thesis follows from the fundamental assumption of qualitati…[Read more]