Nishant Upadhyay | The University of Texas at Austin (original) (raw)
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Drafts by Nishant Upadhyay
Vegetarianism as a dietary practice has emerged as a site of contestation in the South Asian trad... more Vegetarianism as a dietary practice has emerged as a site of contestation in the South Asian traditions. While vegetarianism remains a politically significant topic today with the rise of Hindutva right-wing politics, in the early period, vegetarianism and dietary practices and ethics around it played a role in boundary-making between Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Jainism. In this paper, the aim is to look how major texts in these three traditions i.e., Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Jainism conceptualize vegetarianism based on the concept of ahiṃsā (non-violence/non-injury) and employ their dietary practices and ethics as a tool of boundary-making.
This paper analyzes Leonid Gaidai's superhit 'Kidnapping, Caucasian Style!' (1967) to assess Gaid... more This paper analyzes Leonid Gaidai's superhit 'Kidnapping, Caucasian Style!' (1967) to assess Gaidai's critique of the Soviet modernism, anthropology, and to assess the definition of 'ritual' presented in this context. Gaidai's portrayal of Shurik as an anthropologist aims to address and highlight the critique of Georgian stereotypes and the Soviet/Russian ethnic treatment of the ethnic minorities. Through his movie - and the specific scenes which are analyzed in this paper - the meaning of 'ritual' and its positionality within the 'modern' is assessed. It is argued that situated in the broader contexts of the Soviet cinematic sphere and anthropology, Gaidai's movies' portrayal of 'ritual' contributes to the fields of ritual studies, anthropology, and ethnography in unique ways.
This paper aims to posit inquiry on the questions of minority and minoritization and homogenizati... more This paper aims to posit inquiry on the questions of minority and minoritization and homogenization of Muslims in India through the theoretical lenses of biopolitics and state power. Using theories by Giorgio Agamben (1998; 2005) and Nicos Poulantzas (1975; 1978a; 1978b), this paper aims to identify the problems that the interventions by the secular Indian law and legislative apparatus produce in the process of re-defining the boundaries and constructing a homogenous, Muslim subject. This paper argues that conceptualizing a homogenous Muslim subject in Indian law – especially, in the Personal Law – enables both biopolitics of exclusion and puts the Indian Muslim communities in a direct conflict with the Indian juridical–political apparatus, which aims to regulate them as one ‘body’, disregarding diversity and multiple identities.
What is it about objects that can really define how an individual is seen and constructed? This p... more What is it about objects that can really define how an individual is seen and constructed? This paper engages Kopytoff's (1986) ideas on objects, commodities, and commoditization with Lacan's theories of language, mind, and objects to synthesize a new understanding of objects, commodities, and how these translate into the ontological semiotics of an individual that Kopytoff explores in relation to the socio-cultural structures from an anthropological perspective. Bringing in psychoanalytic perspective of Lacan provides an alternative and contrasting view of not just objects, desire, and commodities but also of the individual which is object-ified in making objects a subject of his/her desire.
This work uses the theory of Lacanian Othering on medieval Indian texts to assess the multiple la... more This work uses the theory of Lacanian Othering on medieval Indian texts to assess the multiple layers that construct the narrative of Self and Other in texts, such as Padmavata and Prithviraja Rasau. While this method allows this work to transcend existing 'communal versus syncretic' debate in the Indian history, it also lays a ground-work to reduce appropriation of pre-modern works by modern nationalist narratives and see them as historic construction of times when they were penned. This work focuses on selected episodes of conflict between Rajput and Turko-Afghan rulers in the texts and assesses how both poems construct identities which are beyond the categories of 'communal' or 'syncretic'. The aim of this research is to take the study of pre-modern Indian literature and history in an entirely new domain where the connection between ontology, history, and conflict can be established with greater certainty and accuracy.
Conference Presentations by Nishant Upadhyay
One of the significant flaws that a universal image of 'human' is its conflict with the status it... more One of the significant flaws that a universal image of 'human' is its conflict with the status it should be accorded in material realities beyond which it is conceptualized. In this lieu, thinking about a Marxist sarvahārā (lit. One who has lost it all; proletariat) and an Ambedkarite dalit (lit. A broken man) provide two contrasting-yet not completely isolated-ways of thinking about being a political animal in the Indian political and theoretical contexts. While thinking about modernist definitions of 'humans' and their becoming, both categories offer a subtle critique of such a universalized definition and produce new ways of thinking about how a subject is to be a human and how the subject is not. The recent conflicts and critiques by Indian Marxist and Dalit thinkers of each other provide an insight into the faultlines of both the idea of 'liberation' in terms of becoming human and what it is there that is to be. Through such critiques and defenses of their respective ideological positions, the difference which emerges in this process is vital to understand the epistemological difference from a universalized, western conception of Man. In this context, this paper proposes to identify the conceptions of humans as they are and emerge in debates between the Indian Marxist and Dalit thoughts. While the conceptions of sarvahārā and dalit are products of both universal conceptions and local contexts, the epistemological and ontological tensions are evident and accessible through an inquiry, showing us new contours of 'human' that struggles to emerge from non-Western contexts. These new boundaries and the new definition that lurks through the gaps contain a possibility of a new biopolitical definition of human that could-if not necessarily will-contribute to a non-west-centric conception of a post-human human and its being.
Book Reviews by Nishant Upadhyay
E3W Review of Books, 2023
Vegetarianism as a dietary practice has emerged as a site of contestation in the South Asian trad... more Vegetarianism as a dietary practice has emerged as a site of contestation in the South Asian traditions. While vegetarianism remains a politically significant topic today with the rise of Hindutva right-wing politics, in the early period, vegetarianism and dietary practices and ethics around it played a role in boundary-making between Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Jainism. In this paper, the aim is to look how major texts in these three traditions i.e., Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Jainism conceptualize vegetarianism based on the concept of ahiṃsā (non-violence/non-injury) and employ their dietary practices and ethics as a tool of boundary-making.
This paper analyzes Leonid Gaidai's superhit 'Kidnapping, Caucasian Style!' (1967) to assess Gaid... more This paper analyzes Leonid Gaidai's superhit 'Kidnapping, Caucasian Style!' (1967) to assess Gaidai's critique of the Soviet modernism, anthropology, and to assess the definition of 'ritual' presented in this context. Gaidai's portrayal of Shurik as an anthropologist aims to address and highlight the critique of Georgian stereotypes and the Soviet/Russian ethnic treatment of the ethnic minorities. Through his movie - and the specific scenes which are analyzed in this paper - the meaning of 'ritual' and its positionality within the 'modern' is assessed. It is argued that situated in the broader contexts of the Soviet cinematic sphere and anthropology, Gaidai's movies' portrayal of 'ritual' contributes to the fields of ritual studies, anthropology, and ethnography in unique ways.
This paper aims to posit inquiry on the questions of minority and minoritization and homogenizati... more This paper aims to posit inquiry on the questions of minority and minoritization and homogenization of Muslims in India through the theoretical lenses of biopolitics and state power. Using theories by Giorgio Agamben (1998; 2005) and Nicos Poulantzas (1975; 1978a; 1978b), this paper aims to identify the problems that the interventions by the secular Indian law and legislative apparatus produce in the process of re-defining the boundaries and constructing a homogenous, Muslim subject. This paper argues that conceptualizing a homogenous Muslim subject in Indian law – especially, in the Personal Law – enables both biopolitics of exclusion and puts the Indian Muslim communities in a direct conflict with the Indian juridical–political apparatus, which aims to regulate them as one ‘body’, disregarding diversity and multiple identities.
What is it about objects that can really define how an individual is seen and constructed? This p... more What is it about objects that can really define how an individual is seen and constructed? This paper engages Kopytoff's (1986) ideas on objects, commodities, and commoditization with Lacan's theories of language, mind, and objects to synthesize a new understanding of objects, commodities, and how these translate into the ontological semiotics of an individual that Kopytoff explores in relation to the socio-cultural structures from an anthropological perspective. Bringing in psychoanalytic perspective of Lacan provides an alternative and contrasting view of not just objects, desire, and commodities but also of the individual which is object-ified in making objects a subject of his/her desire.
This work uses the theory of Lacanian Othering on medieval Indian texts to assess the multiple la... more This work uses the theory of Lacanian Othering on medieval Indian texts to assess the multiple layers that construct the narrative of Self and Other in texts, such as Padmavata and Prithviraja Rasau. While this method allows this work to transcend existing 'communal versus syncretic' debate in the Indian history, it also lays a ground-work to reduce appropriation of pre-modern works by modern nationalist narratives and see them as historic construction of times when they were penned. This work focuses on selected episodes of conflict between Rajput and Turko-Afghan rulers in the texts and assesses how both poems construct identities which are beyond the categories of 'communal' or 'syncretic'. The aim of this research is to take the study of pre-modern Indian literature and history in an entirely new domain where the connection between ontology, history, and conflict can be established with greater certainty and accuracy.
One of the significant flaws that a universal image of 'human' is its conflict with the status it... more One of the significant flaws that a universal image of 'human' is its conflict with the status it should be accorded in material realities beyond which it is conceptualized. In this lieu, thinking about a Marxist sarvahārā (lit. One who has lost it all; proletariat) and an Ambedkarite dalit (lit. A broken man) provide two contrasting-yet not completely isolated-ways of thinking about being a political animal in the Indian political and theoretical contexts. While thinking about modernist definitions of 'humans' and their becoming, both categories offer a subtle critique of such a universalized definition and produce new ways of thinking about how a subject is to be a human and how the subject is not. The recent conflicts and critiques by Indian Marxist and Dalit thinkers of each other provide an insight into the faultlines of both the idea of 'liberation' in terms of becoming human and what it is there that is to be. Through such critiques and defenses of their respective ideological positions, the difference which emerges in this process is vital to understand the epistemological difference from a universalized, western conception of Man. In this context, this paper proposes to identify the conceptions of humans as they are and emerge in debates between the Indian Marxist and Dalit thoughts. While the conceptions of sarvahārā and dalit are products of both universal conceptions and local contexts, the epistemological and ontological tensions are evident and accessible through an inquiry, showing us new contours of 'human' that struggles to emerge from non-Western contexts. These new boundaries and the new definition that lurks through the gaps contain a possibility of a new biopolitical definition of human that could-if not necessarily will-contribute to a non-west-centric conception of a post-human human and its being.
E3W Review of Books, 2023