Susan Visvanathan | Jawaharlal Nehru University (original) (raw)
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Books by Susan Visvanathan
Think India Quarterly, 2007
This essay looks at the correspondence between Romain Rolland, Madeleine Slade and Gandhi in orde... more This essay looks at the correspondence between Romain Rolland, Madeleine Slade and Gandhi in order to understand the importance of khadi as a symbol in the National Movement or the Freedom Movement. It also attempts to include the contemporary dimensions of khadi as an utilitarian symbol of designer culture
The Children of Nature uses sociological, social anthropological, theological and feminist method... more The Children of Nature uses sociological, social anthropological, theological and feminist methodologies to understand a small town in South India, which is known for thousands of years to be a Saivite town. It analyses daily and annual contexts of ritual in the circumstances of intense belief, and uses autobiography and travel writing to come to terms with both the concepts of rapid urban change in the context of globalisation as well as the aspect of well being and mysticism as understood by the author experientially. In the Conclusion the author highlights the way in which ecological debates and the greening of the Annamalai hills is understood through the materials of a law court case.
Papers by Susan Visvanathan
Society and Culture in South Asia, 2015
Cultural Dynamics, 2017
This article looks at how Palestine has been a trope since 1948 for understanding forced refugee ... more This article looks at how Palestine has been a trope since 1948 for understanding forced refugee status of people who have been evicted from their own homes as a consequence of colonial policy. In this article, I look at the status of Kashmiri Pandits who were evicted by militant forces in the late 1980s. They then proceeded to make new lives elsewhere haunted by their longing for home. The militants are in turn targeted by the police and army, and ordinary bystanders become caught in the crossfire between separatists and Indian army. Using the work of Edward Said, in relation to the writing of Martin Buber and Hannah Arendt, I attempt to present the possibility of dialogue between conflicting groups as an existential problem, where intellectuals can play a mediating role.
Science and Scientification in South Asia and Europe, 2020
Paragrana, 2021
This essay looks at the way in which the end of the world syndrome manifests itself regularly as ... more This essay looks at the way in which the end of the world syndrome manifests itself regularly as a form of human consciousness. It makes us alert to the possibility of our own instant expiry, causing us both to introspect, as well as to imagine the future of the species. Digitalization and digitization of trauma permits us to see the normality of death as an every present occurrence. Within this context, words have tremendous power, showing us that at each moment we are being ushered into a space not necessarily of our own making. While it frightens us, yet the choices we have are limited to the class and ethnic locations of our everyday survival. While we live, we dream. Negation does not end ambition, it only proves the ephemerality of individual existence and makes us seek to use time as best as our imagination and survival capabilities allow. Our sadness about corporeality is mitigated by the dream we have of species continuity.
This paper is concerned with the way energy requirements in the last three decades have seen a re... more This paper is concerned with the way energy requirements in the last three decades have seen a response from local communities who wish to express their love and longing for traditional occupations. Agriculture is a multi-faceted representation , and riverine civilisations have epitomised the relation between land, labour and production not just as a relation with technology and culture, but also in terms of the symbols of the sacred. With large scale over utilisation of resources and a lack of vision, the rivers are polluted. People's movements draw on the work of scientists and those working in the Arts, including the Humanities and the Social Sciences to draw attention to the way in which petitions and protests communicate that politics is not merely about imposing 'the good vision from above' but is an interplay between the political, the legal, the socio-religious, the secular and the economic. In a democracy, politics is essentially about dialogue, and the rate of ...
As a child, struggles with death were frequent; but with the wisdom of someone who suffered night... more As a child, struggles with death were frequent; but with the wisdom of someone who suffered nightmares often, I never spoke about it. It was the struggle to awaken from sleep which had frequently characterised my childhood. Quite like being caught in the talons of a giant bird, and struggling to be free—relief when I was awake and saw that I could breathe and recognise the room around me. The most frightening of these was of course the wild flapping of angels' wings which was fictionalised in one of my stories, in Something Barely Remembered. But there were other episodes too. One of the longest of these sequences began on November 1984 and ended in March 1985, coinciding with the Sikh killings in Delhi and the miasma of those large-scale deaths by torching. It began in the library in late November 1984 with the words in my head which said "Be Still and Know that I am God". My brain felt heavy like a dead mussel in its clam... There were many waking dreams, all of them...
Society and Culture in South Asia, 2021
This article attempts to understand the way in which climate change affects the once dry cold des... more This article attempts to understand the way in which climate change affects the once dry cold desert of Ladakh and how local communities have adapted to these changes by becoming excellent organic gardeners. The contributions of Sonam Wangchuk and his work with regard to water harvesting and alternative education have been recognised by the Ramon Magsaysay Committee for 2018. This will propel Sonam to complete his life mission, which is the construction of a whole new township in Phey, to relieve Leh of the overload it now experiences. The article provides a background to the work of Sonam and his wife Rebecca Norman in the details of everyday life and work, which they bring to their school, SECMOL.
Kerala is always green, edged by sea and mountains. The rains come to Kerala for long months at a... more Kerala is always green, edged by sea and mountains. The rains come to Kerala for long months at a time. One can sometimes sense the rain forest planning its return. In this nad or country there live a people who believe that St. Thomas, the apostle of Jesus, came and baptised their ancestors. They like to believe that they are really the descendants of those early Christians, who accord ing to legend were once brahmins. The legend allows them to retain upper caste status; it explains to them in socially legitimate ways why they are elite. The oral tradition of Kerala is a living tradition, unlike the apocryphal Acts of Thomas. The sources of this oral tradition in Kerala include written and unwritten songs and stories. The most famous of these are ceremonial songs performed at marriages and feast days. The Thomas Ramban Pattu is claimed to have been originally composed by the first disciple of the Apostle in Malabar. 1 In its present design it is possibly a 16th century reinterpreta...
Global Journal of Human-Social Science Research, 2016
The two, detachment and faith, seem contradictory, and yet theologians know that every one of us ... more The two, detachment and faith, seem contradictory, and yet theologians know that every one of us lives parallel existences, contributing not to the dilemma of compulsory choice, but engaging with co-existence as a principle of rationality. This relativism is something that sociologists have accepte as compartment alisation. The debate goes back in Indian Sociology, at least to the work of M.N. Srinivas (1996) and Milton Singer (1972), and fore grounded by Robert Redfield and his classic work on Mexico (1973). In the 60s of the last century, it was understood that when scientists went to the laboratory, they took off their traditional identities and put on their scientific roles, and nothing was lost. Renny Thomas, in a recent work, has argued that the scientists in India see no disjunction between their acceptance of religious beliefs and the practice of them, as these are cultural idioms of the society in which they live (Thomas 2015). Existentially, how do human beings live in dis...
Think India Quarterly, 2007
This essay looks at the correspondence between Romain Rolland, Madeleine Slade and Gandhi in orde... more This essay looks at the correspondence between Romain Rolland, Madeleine Slade and Gandhi in order to understand the importance of khadi as a symbol in the National Movement or the Freedom Movement. It also attempts to include the contemporary dimensions of khadi as an utilitarian symbol of designer culture
The Children of Nature uses sociological, social anthropological, theological and feminist method... more The Children of Nature uses sociological, social anthropological, theological and feminist methodologies to understand a small town in South India, which is known for thousands of years to be a Saivite town. It analyses daily and annual contexts of ritual in the circumstances of intense belief, and uses autobiography and travel writing to come to terms with both the concepts of rapid urban change in the context of globalisation as well as the aspect of well being and mysticism as understood by the author experientially. In the Conclusion the author highlights the way in which ecological debates and the greening of the Annamalai hills is understood through the materials of a law court case.
Society and Culture in South Asia, 2015
Cultural Dynamics, 2017
This article looks at how Palestine has been a trope since 1948 for understanding forced refugee ... more This article looks at how Palestine has been a trope since 1948 for understanding forced refugee status of people who have been evicted from their own homes as a consequence of colonial policy. In this article, I look at the status of Kashmiri Pandits who were evicted by militant forces in the late 1980s. They then proceeded to make new lives elsewhere haunted by their longing for home. The militants are in turn targeted by the police and army, and ordinary bystanders become caught in the crossfire between separatists and Indian army. Using the work of Edward Said, in relation to the writing of Martin Buber and Hannah Arendt, I attempt to present the possibility of dialogue between conflicting groups as an existential problem, where intellectuals can play a mediating role.
Science and Scientification in South Asia and Europe, 2020
Paragrana, 2021
This essay looks at the way in which the end of the world syndrome manifests itself regularly as ... more This essay looks at the way in which the end of the world syndrome manifests itself regularly as a form of human consciousness. It makes us alert to the possibility of our own instant expiry, causing us both to introspect, as well as to imagine the future of the species. Digitalization and digitization of trauma permits us to see the normality of death as an every present occurrence. Within this context, words have tremendous power, showing us that at each moment we are being ushered into a space not necessarily of our own making. While it frightens us, yet the choices we have are limited to the class and ethnic locations of our everyday survival. While we live, we dream. Negation does not end ambition, it only proves the ephemerality of individual existence and makes us seek to use time as best as our imagination and survival capabilities allow. Our sadness about corporeality is mitigated by the dream we have of species continuity.
This paper is concerned with the way energy requirements in the last three decades have seen a re... more This paper is concerned with the way energy requirements in the last three decades have seen a response from local communities who wish to express their love and longing for traditional occupations. Agriculture is a multi-faceted representation , and riverine civilisations have epitomised the relation between land, labour and production not just as a relation with technology and culture, but also in terms of the symbols of the sacred. With large scale over utilisation of resources and a lack of vision, the rivers are polluted. People's movements draw on the work of scientists and those working in the Arts, including the Humanities and the Social Sciences to draw attention to the way in which petitions and protests communicate that politics is not merely about imposing 'the good vision from above' but is an interplay between the political, the legal, the socio-religious, the secular and the economic. In a democracy, politics is essentially about dialogue, and the rate of ...
As a child, struggles with death were frequent; but with the wisdom of someone who suffered night... more As a child, struggles with death were frequent; but with the wisdom of someone who suffered nightmares often, I never spoke about it. It was the struggle to awaken from sleep which had frequently characterised my childhood. Quite like being caught in the talons of a giant bird, and struggling to be free—relief when I was awake and saw that I could breathe and recognise the room around me. The most frightening of these was of course the wild flapping of angels' wings which was fictionalised in one of my stories, in Something Barely Remembered. But there were other episodes too. One of the longest of these sequences began on November 1984 and ended in March 1985, coinciding with the Sikh killings in Delhi and the miasma of those large-scale deaths by torching. It began in the library in late November 1984 with the words in my head which said "Be Still and Know that I am God". My brain felt heavy like a dead mussel in its clam... There were many waking dreams, all of them...
Society and Culture in South Asia, 2021
This article attempts to understand the way in which climate change affects the once dry cold des... more This article attempts to understand the way in which climate change affects the once dry cold desert of Ladakh and how local communities have adapted to these changes by becoming excellent organic gardeners. The contributions of Sonam Wangchuk and his work with regard to water harvesting and alternative education have been recognised by the Ramon Magsaysay Committee for 2018. This will propel Sonam to complete his life mission, which is the construction of a whole new township in Phey, to relieve Leh of the overload it now experiences. The article provides a background to the work of Sonam and his wife Rebecca Norman in the details of everyday life and work, which they bring to their school, SECMOL.
Kerala is always green, edged by sea and mountains. The rains come to Kerala for long months at a... more Kerala is always green, edged by sea and mountains. The rains come to Kerala for long months at a time. One can sometimes sense the rain forest planning its return. In this nad or country there live a people who believe that St. Thomas, the apostle of Jesus, came and baptised their ancestors. They like to believe that they are really the descendants of those early Christians, who accord ing to legend were once brahmins. The legend allows them to retain upper caste status; it explains to them in socially legitimate ways why they are elite. The oral tradition of Kerala is a living tradition, unlike the apocryphal Acts of Thomas. The sources of this oral tradition in Kerala include written and unwritten songs and stories. The most famous of these are ceremonial songs performed at marriages and feast days. The Thomas Ramban Pattu is claimed to have been originally composed by the first disciple of the Apostle in Malabar. 1 In its present design it is possibly a 16th century reinterpreta...
Global Journal of Human-Social Science Research, 2016
The two, detachment and faith, seem contradictory, and yet theologians know that every one of us ... more The two, detachment and faith, seem contradictory, and yet theologians know that every one of us lives parallel existences, contributing not to the dilemma of compulsory choice, but engaging with co-existence as a principle of rationality. This relativism is something that sociologists have accepte as compartment alisation. The debate goes back in Indian Sociology, at least to the work of M.N. Srinivas (1996) and Milton Singer (1972), and fore grounded by Robert Redfield and his classic work on Mexico (1973). In the 60s of the last century, it was understood that when scientists went to the laboratory, they took off their traditional identities and put on their scientific roles, and nothing was lost. Renny Thomas, in a recent work, has argued that the scientists in India see no disjunction between their acceptance of religious beliefs and the practice of them, as these are cultural idioms of the society in which they live (Thomas 2015). Existentially, how do human beings live in dis...
I oan exists. She changes in form but not in substance from one century to another to suit the ne... more I oan exists. She changes in form but not in substance from one century to another to suit the needs of her readers, appearing I as witch in one and saint in another. The story is so familiar— Ifyoung maid who heard voices and went on to lead soldiers into war and victory, and then to support the coronation of the Dauphin at Rheims; then betrayed, to die by fire. The story, sketched like that sounds simple, and there has never been any doubt from the perspectives of nationalism and patriotism that Joan was a Saint. Why did it take so long then, for this fact to be realised? It lay in the ambiguity of her being: a woman, dressed like a man, serving to unite through warriorhood a France that was severed. She heard voices—what manner of