As Iago says in Shakespeare’s Othello, “I am nothing if not critical,” and regardless of what he meant, it applies to me - my intelligence works best at scrutinizing things for their significance. I studied science, worked in the financial sector, read fiction, watched cinema, and developed a sense of the interconnectedness of things. If the connections existed, I thought, there could be no one way of approaching anything; all intellectual paths were valid and the only criterion of value was that it must be intelligent. My book tries to stick to this since a writer may hold any opinions, but he or she must show intelligence.
I wrote
The Writing of the Nation by Its Elite: The Politics of Anglophone Indian Literature in the Global Age
My adult life can be characterized as a quest to make sense of the larger ecosystem around me, chiefly society, politics, and culture, within a single framework since knowledge is power; knowing and relating is what makes me strong.
I was stunned by the connections that Wallerstein makes across so many disciplines, and how his book empowered me in interactions with the culturally educated and politically knowledgeable.
In World-Systems Analysis, Immanuel Wallerstein provides a concise and accessible introduction to the comprehensive approach that he pioneered thirty years ago to understanding the history and development of the modern world. Since Wallerstein first developed world-systems analysis, it has become a widely utilized methodology within the historical social sciences and a common point of reference in discussions of globalization. Now, for the first time in one volume, Wallerstein offers a succinct summary of world-systems analysis and a clear outline of the modern world-system, describing the structures of knowledge upon which it is based, its mechanisms, and its future.
This is the work of a cultural sage with deep wisdom to offer on how political issues affect culture, especially literature.
It illuminated to me how significant cultural artifacts of high modernity like the short story as a phenomenon, the work of Charles Baudelaire in relation to the city, the plays of Bertolt Brecht, and the stories of Franz Kafka - that I had once been uncomfortable with because of their density - mattered and needed to be engaged with to make sense of the intellectual currents of the age.
To take my place among a culturally aware Benjamin is a writer I could not sidestep.
Essays and reflections from one of the twentieth century’s most original cultural critics, with an introduction by Hannah Arendt.
Walter Benjamin was an icon of criticism, renowned for his insight on art, literature, and philosophy. This volume includes his views on Kafka, with whom he felt a close personal affinity; his studies on Baudelaire and Proust; and his essays on Leskov and Brecht’s epic theater. Illuminations also includes his penetrating study “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” an enlightening discussion of translation as a literary mode; and his theses on the philosophy of history.
From the author of Washington’s Spies, the thrilling story of two rival secret agents — one Confederate, the other Union — sent to Britain during the Civil War.
The South’s James Bulloch, charming and devious, was ordered to acquire a clandestine fleet intended to break Lincoln’s blockade, sink Northern…
JL Borges is, in my view, the greatest literary mind of the 20th Century.
This is a book of stories, philosophical essays and parables, but even when he is writing fiction, his favoured form is that of the mock critical essay about a non-existent book or writer.
What I especially love about him is his wit, subtle and easily missed since it often takes the shape of philosophical rumination when he is actually debunking something held very highly. My natural mode of expression is irony, and Borges’s irony is inimitable.
The groundbreaking trans-genre work of Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) has been insinuating itself into the structure, stance, and very breath of world literature for well over half a century. Multi-layered, self-referential, elusive, and allusive writing is now frequently labeled Borgesian. Umberto Eco's international bestseller, The Name of the Rose, is, on one level, an elaborate improvisation on Borges' fiction "The Library," which American readers first encountered in the original 1962 New Directions publication of Labyrinths.
This new edition of Labyrinths, the classic representative selection of Borges' writing edited by Donald A. Yates and James E. Irby (in translations…
An aspect of contemporary criticism I deeply despise is the inability of critics to take independent views of their subjects and be misled by matters like publicity and awards. Criticism is good for the arts but not necessarily for commercial interests and my own approach has been to provoke, even at the risk of becoming unpopular.
Epstein is a less-known writer and critic (in relation to the others) but he is witty and audacious in critiquing the most celebrated writers. The title of his book is provocative since it suggests that prejudices are natural but wanted as long as they are justified though argument, which is my preferred way of expressing myself.
In this collection of essays, the author of "The Middle of My Tether" considers the various influences upon writing in the recent past that have systematically lessened its glory
The Birthright of Sons is a collection of stories centered around the experiences of marginalized people, namely Black and LGBTQ+ men. Although the stories borrow elements from various genres (horror, suspense, romance, magical realism, etc.), they are linked by an exploration of identity and the ways personhood is shaped through…
Theatre is an area that interests me although more as literature than as performance. Bentley's criticism in this book has been one of my role models since my college days because of the unsparing way in which he writes about the most celebrated figures in the field while being deeply sensitive to society, culture, and politics.
I have myself tried to cultivate his kind of approach as a critic of cinema and literature, and perhaps more than the other writers cited, echoes of his style may (hopefully) be found in my book, where I have tried to be as honest and eclectic.
India’s is a postcolonial society in which an Anglophone class has been installed as the cultural elite. With the arrival of the global age its influence has only become stronger. My book examines the writing produced by the Anglophone elite after 2000 through individual writers who have approached new globalised India, giving overarching pictures of it, as an economic power but with socio-political problems besetting it.
To get an interdisciplinary perspective, the book critically examines a whole lot of genres – fiction, history, travel, socio-economic assessments, journalistic exercises, and philosophical investigations by India’s best-known writers and thinkers, including non-Indians living in and writing about India and those of Indian origin living in the West but preoccupied with their ethnic origins.
A Sumerian tale of irrigation, floods, and the creation of man
By
Ken Goudsward,
Contrary to popular belief, the Atrahasis Epic is not merely a flood myth. In some ways it can be called a creation myth. However, it does not concern itself with the creation of the universe or even of the earth. Rather, the created work in question is one of culture…
When Lara was four years old, her father moved from Rochester, New York, to Anchorage, Alaska, a distance of over 4,000 miles. She spent her childhood chasing after him, flying a quarter of the way around the world to tug at the hem of his jacket.
