Rediff is ranking all of this week's top-ten Hindi films as flops.
It's not that shocking: most films released in India lose money, and studios and producers apparently depend upon the occasional "super-hit" to stay in business. Still, this is the first time I've seen a complete sweep of flops; it must be a real dry spell.
Then again, how reliable is Rediff on this? Hindi film sites generally give very little concrete data on box office returns -- as in Rupee amounts. I gather there isn't a reliable national system for precisely measuring them, so perhaps all this talk of "flop," "average," "hit," and "super-hit" is a bit subjective. Or perhaps I just haven't found a consistently updated website or news source that does this? Neither Rediff nor Yahoo India currently give exact numbers in their weekly summaries.
I still want to see Kisna, which promises to be visually intense. And I'm curious about how they handle the interracial angle (is this the first major bollywood film that puts such a relationship at the center of the film?).
But I'm not at all curious about Black, which just looks melodramatic and overblown.
Seeing is Disbelieving: The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick
Teller -- of Penn and Teller! -- has a review of a new book on the fabulous history of the great, fake, "Indian Rope Trick."
The book is called The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick, and it is by Peter Lamont.
You really have to read the whole article to see how widespread this mythology has been. The persistence of the myth is a sign of the deep roots of Orientalism in America's view of the Indian subcontinent.
The book is called The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick, and it is by Peter Lamont.
You really have to read the whole article to see how widespread this mythology has been. The persistence of the myth is a sign of the deep roots of Orientalism in America's view of the Indian subcontinent.
New View: Texture, Complexity
A slice of the view from the new apartment. I like the texture and complexity...
Manju Kapur's Difficult Daughters. And, Indian food glossaries
Manju Kapur's Difficult Daughters was released in the U.S. in 1998, shortly after Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things. I remember seeing it in U.S. bookstores everywhere; perhaps the publishing house thought they could cash in on the success of Arundhati Roy with something that could be packaged and marketed similarly.
It didn't work, largely for the reason that Difficult Daughters is a different kind of book, a quite sober and in some sense deeply conventional story set in Amritsar and Lahore around 1940. It's about a young woman named Virmati, who falls in love with a young Professor (Harish). He represents modernity and opportunity for her -- enlightenment, education -- but he's a bit of a "rake," in the 18th century sense of the term. He seduces her through culture, sending her Petrarchan sonnets, and casually drops references to Machiavelli and Greek tragedy. Predictably, the relationship goes deeply bad, for reasons that are only too obvious (he's a married rake).
Difficult Daughters is well-plotted and has truly convincing characterization (like many classic English "rake" stories, its villain is in some ways more likeable than its heroine). But it is also interesting for reasons that are not just literary; Kapur has an unusual angle on the involvement of women in Gandhi's Swaraj agitations.
It's one of those strange, contradictory moments in Indian history. The fact is, traditional Indian values had barely modernized at all when, in 1930, Gandhi began to encourage women to participate in civil disobedience actions. By November 1930, 360 out of the 29,000 Indian nationalists imprisoned by the British Raj for expressing their political beliefs were women. The number would grow throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, and a small number of highly educated, independent women were highly visible members of the nationalist movement.
Such progress overlapped with a profound backwardsness -- for the vast majority of Indians, dehumanizing practices such as child marriage, polygamy, and dowry would remain widely practiced (legal until the 1950s). The contradictory progress and non-progress with regards to women and gender roles is one of the great contradictions of Indian modernity, and it's one of Manju Kapur's central preoccupations in Difficult Daughters (just as it was Tagore's preoccupation, nearly 90 years earlier, in novels like The Home and the World and Chokher Bali).
* * * *
As I've been teaching Kapur's novel this spring, I've been noting the Hindi and Punjabi terms I think my students are unlikely to know. Kapur, who is based in Delhi, wrote this novel with Indian readers firmly in mind. The liberal use of Hindi phrases, vegetation, and food here has nothing to do with exoticization (which is often discussed by readers of contemporary Indian literature). If anything, the terminology ("Indian English") is part of Kapur's realism.
I've been surprised to find that many of the fruits and spices mentioned are things I myself don't know (perhaps inevitable growing up in a country where it's easier to get Poblanos than Bhel Puri). So I've been looking them up in some of the following dictionaries and glossaries:
Word Anywhere
Platt's Dictionary (University of Chicago)
An Urdu glossary at the University of Wisconsin
Glossary of "Chai" spices
Spice pages. Polyglossic! You can find out what "Ajwain" is in German!
Mamta’s Kitchen glossary
And here is a short passage from the novel, followed by my own compilation of Kapur's terms:
This is a passage describing the feast for an arranged marriage that the heroine avoids by attempting suicide. I think Kapur is playing the richness of the wedding celebration against the emotional hollowness it surrounds.
But -- at the risk of sounding a little silly -- she's also describing a lot of tasty food, clearly with no small pleasure at the specificities. The density of the references to food suggests that she's interested in the food items themselves... Here's a mini-glossary:
Barat (“buh-RAAT”): Groom’s wedding party. These are usually quite large affairs, with dozens of people dancing in the street for hours while approaching the bride’s family’s house.
Halwai: Sweets seller
Khas: Probably poppy-seed extract (sweet); usually "Khas-khas"
Kewra: Sweet, rosy flower, used as sweetener (in English, this is called “Pandanus”)
Morabbas: Dried fruit dipped in sugar
Amla: Olive (UPDATE: Wrong! See comments)
Godown: Factory, warehouse
Pista: Pistachio
Dhingri: Mushroom (mushrooms are rare in India, so it makes sense that Kapur would mention them as food for a wedding feast)
Guchchi: A kind of wild mushroom
Paneer: Indian-style cheese
Anything wrong in my glossary?
It didn't work, largely for the reason that Difficult Daughters is a different kind of book, a quite sober and in some sense deeply conventional story set in Amritsar and Lahore around 1940. It's about a young woman named Virmati, who falls in love with a young Professor (Harish). He represents modernity and opportunity for her -- enlightenment, education -- but he's a bit of a "rake," in the 18th century sense of the term. He seduces her through culture, sending her Petrarchan sonnets, and casually drops references to Machiavelli and Greek tragedy. Predictably, the relationship goes deeply bad, for reasons that are only too obvious (he's a married rake).
Difficult Daughters is well-plotted and has truly convincing characterization (like many classic English "rake" stories, its villain is in some ways more likeable than its heroine). But it is also interesting for reasons that are not just literary; Kapur has an unusual angle on the involvement of women in Gandhi's Swaraj agitations.
It's one of those strange, contradictory moments in Indian history. The fact is, traditional Indian values had barely modernized at all when, in 1930, Gandhi began to encourage women to participate in civil disobedience actions. By November 1930, 360 out of the 29,000 Indian nationalists imprisoned by the British Raj for expressing their political beliefs were women. The number would grow throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, and a small number of highly educated, independent women were highly visible members of the nationalist movement.
Such progress overlapped with a profound backwardsness -- for the vast majority of Indians, dehumanizing practices such as child marriage, polygamy, and dowry would remain widely practiced (legal until the 1950s). The contradictory progress and non-progress with regards to women and gender roles is one of the great contradictions of Indian modernity, and it's one of Manju Kapur's central preoccupations in Difficult Daughters (just as it was Tagore's preoccupation, nearly 90 years earlier, in novels like The Home and the World and Chokher Bali).
* * * *
As I've been teaching Kapur's novel this spring, I've been noting the Hindi and Punjabi terms I think my students are unlikely to know. Kapur, who is based in Delhi, wrote this novel with Indian readers firmly in mind. The liberal use of Hindi phrases, vegetation, and food here has nothing to do with exoticization (which is often discussed by readers of contemporary Indian literature). If anything, the terminology ("Indian English") is part of Kapur's realism.
I've been surprised to find that many of the fruits and spices mentioned are things I myself don't know (perhaps inevitable growing up in a country where it's easier to get Poblanos than Bhel Puri). So I've been looking them up in some of the following dictionaries and glossaries:
Word Anywhere
Platt's Dictionary (University of Chicago)
An Urdu glossary at the University of Wisconsin
Glossary of "Chai" spices
Spice pages. Polyglossic! You can find out what "Ajwain" is in German!
Mamta’s Kitchen glossary
And here is a short passage from the novel, followed by my own compilation of Kapur's terms:
The preparations in Sultanpur began. There would be fifty to sixty people in the barat to house and feed at regular and steady intervals. Some of the barat intended to stay at least a week because they meant to make a holiday of the whole expedition. Lala Jivan Das pored over the menus, consulting for hours with the halwais. He was a wholesale merchant who dealt in spices such as black pepper, cinnamon, and cumin; sherbets of kewra, rose and khas; dry fruit, especially almonds, pista, cashews, walnuts, raisins, figs, and apricots; pickels, mainly mango and lemon; sweet morabbas in huge jars containing carrots, amla, mangoes, apples, pears and peaches preserved in sticky sugar syrup. His godown was now ransacked for the best it had to offer. There were to be at least four varieties of barfi in different colours -- green pista, white almond, brown walnut and pink coconut -- for the guests to eat as a side dish with every meal. The freshest spices, rose leaves, and saffron were to flavour the daily glasses of milk they would drink, Special feasting things like dhingri and guchchi to put in the rice and paneer were ordered from the Kashmiri agent in Sultanpur.
This is a passage describing the feast for an arranged marriage that the heroine avoids by attempting suicide. I think Kapur is playing the richness of the wedding celebration against the emotional hollowness it surrounds.
But -- at the risk of sounding a little silly -- she's also describing a lot of tasty food, clearly with no small pleasure at the specificities. The density of the references to food suggests that she's interested in the food items themselves... Here's a mini-glossary:
Barat (“buh-RAAT”): Groom’s wedding party. These are usually quite large affairs, with dozens of people dancing in the street for hours while approaching the bride’s family’s house.
Halwai: Sweets seller
Khas: Probably poppy-seed extract (sweet); usually "Khas-khas"
Kewra: Sweet, rosy flower, used as sweetener (in English, this is called “Pandanus”)
Morabbas: Dried fruit dipped in sugar
Amla: Olive (UPDATE: Wrong! See comments)
Godown: Factory, warehouse
Pista: Pistachio
Dhingri: Mushroom (mushrooms are rare in India, so it makes sense that Kapur would mention them as food for a wedding feast)
Guchchi: A kind of wild mushroom
Paneer: Indian-style cheese
Anything wrong in my glossary?
The Joy of Moving
1. Joy: Driving a big truck for a couple of hundred miles, even an under-powered rental with automatic transmission.
2. Not a joy: While turning a sharp corner in the big truck mentioned above, I scratched a parked Mazda Protege. Being a citizen of the world (and not a libertarian), I placed a note under the wiper. Luckily, I think the truck rental company's policy should cover things.
3. Joy: Having a new place in which to hang out. A change of scenery.
4. Not a joy: Doing endless amounts of packing, planning, carrying, stuffing, taping, stuffing, trying-not-to-break, breaking-anyways, and getting everything of importance mysteriously misplaced. Wearing down one's back carrying a few too many boxes of books.
5. Joy: Hanging out with friends in new location, soon after moving.
6. Not a joy: Losing access to a world-class library at the old place, and all the walkable cafes and used bookstores.
7. Joy: Having a large window with trees to look at in the new place (yes, there are still some trees in New Jersey). A bit more peace and quiet overall.
8. Not a joy: Spending six hours with two different cable guys over two days, who couldn't find the mysterious "box" that would bring the new apartment internet access, TV, and VOIP service. (We are joining the VOIP revolution.)
9. Joy: Discussing Iraq politics with one cable guy, a Puerto Rican Jerseyite who served in the first Gulf War. He had vivid stories about the "big bluff" and the highway of death, in which many civilians were killed as well as retreating soldiers. He says he's pretty sure he saw the bodies (charred skeletons, really) of children in the bombed-out cars on the side of the highway.
Ok, this wasn't exactly joyful, but it's yet another bit of anecdotal evidence in support of the mystique of The Cable Guy.
10. Not a joy: The temptation of cable TV when one has numerous articles to write, a book to finish, and classes to teach.
11. Joy: Jon Stewart, without having to download him from Lisa Rein. (Did anyone catch his take-down of "The Gates"?)
12. Not a joy: Utter exhaustion.
2. Not a joy: While turning a sharp corner in the big truck mentioned above, I scratched a parked Mazda Protege. Being a citizen of the world (and not a libertarian), I placed a note under the wiper. Luckily, I think the truck rental company's policy should cover things.
3. Joy: Having a new place in which to hang out. A change of scenery.
4. Not a joy: Doing endless amounts of packing, planning, carrying, stuffing, taping, stuffing, trying-not-to-break, breaking-anyways, and getting everything of importance mysteriously misplaced. Wearing down one's back carrying a few too many boxes of books.
5. Joy: Hanging out with friends in new location, soon after moving.
6. Not a joy: Losing access to a world-class library at the old place, and all the walkable cafes and used bookstores.
7. Joy: Having a large window with trees to look at in the new place (yes, there are still some trees in New Jersey). A bit more peace and quiet overall.
8. Not a joy: Spending six hours with two different cable guys over two days, who couldn't find the mysterious "box" that would bring the new apartment internet access, TV, and VOIP service. (We are joining the VOIP revolution.)
9. Joy: Discussing Iraq politics with one cable guy, a Puerto Rican Jerseyite who served in the first Gulf War. He had vivid stories about the "big bluff" and the highway of death, in which many civilians were killed as well as retreating soldiers. He says he's pretty sure he saw the bodies (charred skeletons, really) of children in the bombed-out cars on the side of the highway.
Ok, this wasn't exactly joyful, but it's yet another bit of anecdotal evidence in support of the mystique of The Cable Guy.
10. Not a joy: The temptation of cable TV when one has numerous articles to write, a book to finish, and classes to teach.
11. Joy: Jon Stewart, without having to download him from Lisa Rein. (Did anyone catch his take-down of "The Gates"?)
12. Not a joy: Utter exhaustion.
Comments mess.
The comments on this page weren't working for the past few days. I also couldn't post.
It had something to do with Blogger's "archive" function. The error message I was getting was something like "[Archive file] is currently in use."
I couldn't figure it out, so I just changed the archiving from weekly to monthly, and a burst of comments from the past three days miraculously appeared!
Weird & annoying, but whatever.
It had something to do with Blogger's "archive" function. The error message I was getting was something like "[Archive file] is currently in use."
I couldn't figure it out, so I just changed the archiving from weekly to monthly, and a burst of comments from the past three days miraculously appeared!
Weird & annoying, but whatever.
"Love means never having to wear your sari"
Just one other thing.
From the San Jose Mercury News, probably the drollest line I've seen on Bride and Prejudice:
Actually, it's not true -- the reviewer is exaggerating. But it's a nice line!
At any rate, the mixed reviews on this (and the especially harsh review in the Times), suggest possible flop-dom. It may not be hopeless: the Rotten Tomatoes index has Chadha in net positive territory overall. We'll see.
But after several years of crappy Bolly/Holly crossover attempts (The Guru; Bollywood/Hollywood, etc.), I'm ready to let Bolly be Bolly and Holly be Holly.
From the San Jose Mercury News, probably the drollest line I've seen on Bride and Prejudice:
But through a series of wardrobe changes -- from bikinis to tight-fitting tops, all meant to accentuate Rai's remarkable figure -- Lalita remains defiant. She wears her heart on her sleeve, even when she hasn't got a sleeve. In "Bride & Prejudice," love means never having to wear your sari.
Actually, it's not true -- the reviewer is exaggerating. But it's a nice line!
At any rate, the mixed reviews on this (and the especially harsh review in the Times), suggest possible flop-dom. It may not be hopeless: the Rotten Tomatoes index has Chadha in net positive territory overall. We'll see.
But after several years of crappy Bolly/Holly crossover attempts (The Guru; Bollywood/Hollywood, etc.), I'm ready to let Bolly be Bolly and Holly be Holly.
Moving house
We're moving this weekend, to someplace near the following interesting intersection.
That is New Jersey for you, according to Google Maps.
Hope to see you in a few days.
That is New Jersey for you, according to Google Maps.
Hope to see you in a few days.
Online Literature Quiz -- Norton style
The Norton Anthology of English Literature Quiz (via Bookish)
I scored a miserable 7/10 on the 10 question version of the 20th century literature quiz. I could have reasonably gotten 8, but I forgot the publication date of The Way of All Flesh. The other two I got wrong were, I think, pretty obscure, and I forgive myself.
These might be useful quizzes to try if you're thinking of doing graduate work in English literature, and need to take the GRE English subject test. And for my English prof. colleagues out there, it might just be fun to take it.
I scored a miserable 7/10 on the 10 question version of the 20th century literature quiz. I could have reasonably gotten 8, but I forgot the publication date of The Way of All Flesh. The other two I got wrong were, I think, pretty obscure, and I forgive myself.
These might be useful quizzes to try if you're thinking of doing graduate work in English literature, and need to take the GRE English subject test. And for my English prof. colleagues out there, it might just be fun to take it.
UK softens religious hatred/incitement bill
Times Online
It seems like the distinction is between religious "incitement" (the original phrasing of the bill), and the harder "hatred" (in the new phrasing). The goal is to prevent the law from being invoked against comedians, parodists, and Salman Rushdie:
I'm still a little confused as to what is current British law. These paragraphs, for instance, are hard to parse:
Wait, it applies to Jews and Sikhs, but not Muslims or Christians? How does that make sense?
It seems like the distinction is between religious "incitement" (the original phrasing of the bill), and the harder "hatred" (in the new phrasing). The goal is to prevent the law from being invoked against comedians, parodists, and Salman Rushdie:
Performers and writers, including Rowan Atkinson and Salman Rushdie, have helped to force a government climbdown over new legislation which bans incitement to religious hatred.
The Government is to rename the offence “hatred against persons on racial or religious grounds” to make clear that it is not religious jokes, beliefs or ideas that are being targeted.
I'm still a little confused as to what is current British law. These paragraphs, for instance, are hard to parse:
Ms [Pamela] Mactaggart said: “The Government has put down an amendment which is changing the title in order to clarify something that I think has created some anxiety.
"It is hatred against people rather than hatred of ideas that we are trying to prohibit. The name of the offence has helped to create a context in which some of this confusion has flourished."
The law against inciting racial hatred protects Jews and Sikhs but not Muslims, Christians or other religious groups. The Board of Deputies of British Jews believes that the incitement to racial hatred offence has reduced the amount of anti-Semitic literature.
The Government believes that the new religious hatred offence will have a symbolic impact, particularly in reassuring Muslim communities that have felt vulnerable since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Wait, it applies to Jews and Sikhs, but not Muslims or Christians? How does that make sense?
Today's FBI
An unusual FBI ad, starring a turbaned Sikh FBI agent. (My brother sent me the link)
I'm trying to figure this out...
I'm trying to figure this out...
Another panel on blogging
Both Chuck Tryon and Tim Burke have recently been asked to be on panels on blogging at their home institutions. Today was my turn. The organizer, a colleague of mine in the English department, asked me to talk about why I blog for 8-10 minutes as part of a series for Lehigh Lab.
8-10 minutes! How about 8 to 10 hours?
For lack of a better organizational system, I used (attributively) Tim's 5 points, since they are pretty similar to my own:
The most interesting questions in the Q&A revolved around the problem of how information is organized in the blogosphere. How are things verified? If blogging really blurs the line between professional journalism and idiosyncratic opinion (or, closer to home: between formal scholarship and half-digested chatter), doesn't that pose problems of legitimation?
In an anarcho-libertarian world-view, it's no problem at all if the flow of information and opinion is completely democratized: who cares whether people get their news from Daily Kos or the Times?
But in the real world, it's not so simple. The "reality-based community" needs some sources of legitimation. In my response to the questions, I was perhaps a little too flippant in dismissing the established order. No one knows whether the cacophony of the blogosphere is really going to lead to a paradigm shift in the World Information Order. But for now I actually feel pretty strongly that we need a conceptual and practical division between what one would call professional journalism (and analogously to academia, formal scholarship), and the informal space of blogs. It is necessary for the same reason as it is necessary to know absolutely whether 1 million people died or not during India's Partition. Every community must have norms and standards, as well as a shared version of the general sweep of history. Without it, conversations don't work.
I probably should have said something to that effect. But it sounded much cooler to say "screw the Times..."
* * * *
And below are some things I said (amplifying Tim's five points, or personalizing them). They are pulled from a few pages of notes I culled together before the panel. I've taken out introductory material that I thought would be highly redundant to readers. Sorry if the resulting points are a little discontinuous:
1. New ways of thinking, new sources. I'm a little disaffected by the patterns of thought that characterize scholarly work in my general field (literature) as well as within my sub-fields (postcolonial studies, British modernism). It seems like quite a number of major paradigm shifts –- the ideas that people were especially passionate about –- were hashed out 15 to 30 years ago. There are quite a number of very smart people who are saying versions of something that was already said, pretty well, by other scholars. Where are new ideas going to come from? Sometimes I get new ideas from really excellent conference talks or public lectures; sometimes I get it from journals. But more often the experience resembles something out of a Scott McLemee essay.
Blogging, in contrast, offers access to worlds considerably beyond one's own. Potentially, it can pose a new model for internet-assisted learning, and a new way of modeling ideas and information in the humanities.
2. International readers. About 40 percent of the readers of my blog are reading me from outside the U.S. I have made contacts with bloggers and readers in places like Germany and Denmark, and quite a number in the UK. I've also got -- no surprise here -– some readers in India, most of whom find me through Indian bloggers based in India who link to me. (Journalists Dilip D'Souza, Jai Arjun, and Amit Varma are particularly culpable for the growth of my Indian readership). I also got nominated for an award or two -- “Best India Blog,” and so on. I didn't win, but the attention probably didn't hurt. And did I mention the readers in Japan, Australia, Singapore (ok, just John Holbo there)?
Amongst this international readership there are academics, to be sure. But I'm not entirely sure what it means. Most of the people who are reading this are people I'll never meet, and who will likely have little or no actual impact on my career or my personal life. What is really at stake for me either personally or professionally in blogging? I'm not 100% sure.
3. Brevity is the soul of blogging. Long historical disquisitions generally get skimmed or skipped. Few readers will stick with you for more than 500 words (how many of you are still left, even here?), and most will start skimming after 250. Some tricky nuances or complex evaluations might get sidelined, but the overriding principle is, can you make yourself understood by everyone, and hold their interest? Can you be smart without being pompous?
Trying to meet all those demands leads to a level of discourse somewhere between formal writing and verbal conversation. Many of the skills one uses to get and hold student interest in the classroom also apply to blogging, except in blogging you should always expect that someone who knows as much or more than you do on a given subject is reading what you write. People reading you are quicker to challenge you than people who are talking to you face to face.
4. Blogging is Conversational. Most blog posts work on the principle of the integration of information dissemination, your own critique, and your readers' responses to your critique. Blogging is thus inherently conversational (much more so than either the traditional media or traditional academic scholarship), which means it relies on a pretty highly developed system of etiquette.
The particulars of that system are quite complex. For one thing, if you quote someone else, you have to be quite clear about it, because on the internet, it's pretty easy to figure out whether something might be plagiarism. Also, if you put someone down, expect them to hear about it pretty quickly (even if the person in question doesn't read blogs). Published writers are habitually googling themselves; they'll find what you said. If you say something harsh about the new novel of a well-respected writer, expect to get a nasty note from that person at 2 in the morning (this has happened to me!). One learns what to do and not to do, mainly through trial and error. And one helps other people learn the ropes.
Sociologists have begun to study this system of etiquette (Henry Farrell and Daniel Drezner have been publishing papers on it, which I responded to here, some time ago).
5. Collective process. The conversational quality of blogs means that many key problems are worked out in what might be called a collective process. It's ironic, because most bloggers are also intensely individualistic when it comes to their tastes and social configuration. Quite a number of academic bloggers are a bit alienated at their home colleges and universities.
How can blogging be at once driven by an individualist ethos, and such an intensely collective/reciprocal universe, where you depend -- completely -- on other people linking to you? That's another one I'm still thinking about.
8-10 minutes! How about 8 to 10 hours?
For lack of a better organizational system, I used (attributively) Tim's 5 points, since they are pretty similar to my own:
1) Because I want to introduce some unexpected influences and ideas into my intellectual and academic work. I want to unsettle the overly domesticated, often hermetic thinking that comes with academic specialization. I want to introduce a “mutational vector” into my scholarly and intellectual work.
2) Because I want a place to publish small writings, odd writings, leftover writings, lazy speculations, half-formed hypotheses. I want a place to publish all the things that I think have some value but not enough to constitute legitimate scholarship. I want a chance to branch into new areas of specialization at a reduced level of intensity and seriousness.
3) Because I want to find out how much of my scholarly work is usefully translatable into a wider public conversation. A lot of my writings on Iraq, for example, are really a public working-out of more scholarly writing I’m doing in my current monograph, a translation of my academic engagement with the historiography of imperialism.
4) Because I want to model for myself and others how we should all behave within an idealized democratic public sphere. I want to figure out how to behave responsibly but also generatively, how to rise to the better angels of my communicative nature.
5) Because I’m a compulsive loudmouth.
The most interesting questions in the Q&A revolved around the problem of how information is organized in the blogosphere. How are things verified? If blogging really blurs the line between professional journalism and idiosyncratic opinion (or, closer to home: between formal scholarship and half-digested chatter), doesn't that pose problems of legitimation?
In an anarcho-libertarian world-view, it's no problem at all if the flow of information and opinion is completely democratized: who cares whether people get their news from Daily Kos or the Times?
But in the real world, it's not so simple. The "reality-based community" needs some sources of legitimation. In my response to the questions, I was perhaps a little too flippant in dismissing the established order. No one knows whether the cacophony of the blogosphere is really going to lead to a paradigm shift in the World Information Order. But for now I actually feel pretty strongly that we need a conceptual and practical division between what one would call professional journalism (and analogously to academia, formal scholarship), and the informal space of blogs. It is necessary for the same reason as it is necessary to know absolutely whether 1 million people died or not during India's Partition. Every community must have norms and standards, as well as a shared version of the general sweep of history. Without it, conversations don't work.
I probably should have said something to that effect. But it sounded much cooler to say "screw the Times..."
* * * *
And below are some things I said (amplifying Tim's five points, or personalizing them). They are pulled from a few pages of notes I culled together before the panel. I've taken out introductory material that I thought would be highly redundant to readers. Sorry if the resulting points are a little discontinuous:
1. New ways of thinking, new sources. I'm a little disaffected by the patterns of thought that characterize scholarly work in my general field (literature) as well as within my sub-fields (postcolonial studies, British modernism). It seems like quite a number of major paradigm shifts –- the ideas that people were especially passionate about –- were hashed out 15 to 30 years ago. There are quite a number of very smart people who are saying versions of something that was already said, pretty well, by other scholars. Where are new ideas going to come from? Sometimes I get new ideas from really excellent conference talks or public lectures; sometimes I get it from journals. But more often the experience resembles something out of a Scott McLemee essay.
Blogging, in contrast, offers access to worlds considerably beyond one's own. Potentially, it can pose a new model for internet-assisted learning, and a new way of modeling ideas and information in the humanities.
2. International readers. About 40 percent of the readers of my blog are reading me from outside the U.S. I have made contacts with bloggers and readers in places like Germany and Denmark, and quite a number in the UK. I've also got -- no surprise here -– some readers in India, most of whom find me through Indian bloggers based in India who link to me. (Journalists Dilip D'Souza, Jai Arjun, and Amit Varma are particularly culpable for the growth of my Indian readership). I also got nominated for an award or two -- “Best India Blog,” and so on. I didn't win, but the attention probably didn't hurt. And did I mention the readers in Japan, Australia, Singapore (ok, just John Holbo there)?
Amongst this international readership there are academics, to be sure. But I'm not entirely sure what it means. Most of the people who are reading this are people I'll never meet, and who will likely have little or no actual impact on my career or my personal life. What is really at stake for me either personally or professionally in blogging? I'm not 100% sure.
3. Brevity is the soul of blogging. Long historical disquisitions generally get skimmed or skipped. Few readers will stick with you for more than 500 words (how many of you are still left, even here?), and most will start skimming after 250. Some tricky nuances or complex evaluations might get sidelined, but the overriding principle is, can you make yourself understood by everyone, and hold their interest? Can you be smart without being pompous?
Trying to meet all those demands leads to a level of discourse somewhere between formal writing and verbal conversation. Many of the skills one uses to get and hold student interest in the classroom also apply to blogging, except in blogging you should always expect that someone who knows as much or more than you do on a given subject is reading what you write. People reading you are quicker to challenge you than people who are talking to you face to face.
4. Blogging is Conversational. Most blog posts work on the principle of the integration of information dissemination, your own critique, and your readers' responses to your critique. Blogging is thus inherently conversational (much more so than either the traditional media or traditional academic scholarship), which means it relies on a pretty highly developed system of etiquette.
The particulars of that system are quite complex. For one thing, if you quote someone else, you have to be quite clear about it, because on the internet, it's pretty easy to figure out whether something might be plagiarism. Also, if you put someone down, expect them to hear about it pretty quickly (even if the person in question doesn't read blogs). Published writers are habitually googling themselves; they'll find what you said. If you say something harsh about the new novel of a well-respected writer, expect to get a nasty note from that person at 2 in the morning (this has happened to me!). One learns what to do and not to do, mainly through trial and error. And one helps other people learn the ropes.
Sociologists have begun to study this system of etiquette (Henry Farrell and Daniel Drezner have been publishing papers on it, which I responded to here, some time ago).
5. Collective process. The conversational quality of blogs means that many key problems are worked out in what might be called a collective process. It's ironic, because most bloggers are also intensely individualistic when it comes to their tastes and social configuration. Quite a number of academic bloggers are a bit alienated at their home colleges and universities.
How can blogging be at once driven by an individualist ethos, and such an intensely collective/reciprocal universe, where you depend -- completely -- on other people linking to you? That's another one I'm still thinking about.
Getting Down in Addis Ababa
The New York Times has a story on the mixed reaction of local Ethiopians to the influx of foreign Rastafarians on the occasion of Bob Marley's 60th birthday (can you believe he would just be 60?).
Rastafarianism originated in Jamaica in the 1930s. As most readers probably know, Rastafarians worship Ethiopia's King/Emperor Haile Selassie (known as Ras Tafari before he became Emperor). Selassie seems to have been singled out in this way because Ethiopia was Africa's only un-colonized state, and was led by a ruler who (with help) managed to defeat European armies. Selassie was emperor between 1930-1936, and then for a very long period, 1941-1974. He was a controversial leader, to say the least. And he didn't understand the thousands of Jamaicans who had turned him into a figure of reverence. He was a little freaked when he first visited Jamaica, and saw thousands of followers waiting there for him: "There is a problem in Jamaica.... Please, help these people. They are misunderstanding, they do not understand our culture.... They need a church to be established and you are chosen to go."
I like Bob Marley's music, and I respect the Rastafarians. A religion is a religion, after all; it's power is measured in what it does for its followers, and it doesn't need to justify itself to anyone. There are supposedly a million Rastafarians worldwide.
That said, I find this whole spectacle kind of crazy. Here are thousands of followers, some from places like Japan, coming into a poor country, whose ruler's deification became, in some sense, obsolete when the rest of Africa became independent around 1960 (and he was never all that great a leader to begin with). They've come to the place that is theologically defined for them as the "promised land," though only a few hundred of them have ever actually tried to live there (this is a promised land that is desperately short of resources). Meanwhile, the local Ethiopians, many of whom are devout Protestant Christians, are complaining about the pot-smoking foreigners, and walking through the crowd with flyers for their Church.
It's a little like something out of a book by Caryl Phillips (especially The Atlantic Sound), or a V.S. Naipaul travelogue.
* * *
Somewhat unrelatedly, Ethiopia has its own amazing music fusion scene, which was especially active in the 1970s (though it may be still going on, for all I know). You can hear some really interesting jazz/fusion music on a series of CDs called Ethiopiques. One can hear a (very short) sample of the sound here. If anyone can find longer samples or streams of Ethiopian jazz on the web, let me know.
There's something about this music that I find really compelling. It's at once swinging and experimental. It's at once distinctively African, and cosmopolitan and progressive...
Rastafarianism originated in Jamaica in the 1930s. As most readers probably know, Rastafarians worship Ethiopia's King/Emperor Haile Selassie (known as Ras Tafari before he became Emperor). Selassie seems to have been singled out in this way because Ethiopia was Africa's only un-colonized state, and was led by a ruler who (with help) managed to defeat European armies. Selassie was emperor between 1930-1936, and then for a very long period, 1941-1974. He was a controversial leader, to say the least. And he didn't understand the thousands of Jamaicans who had turned him into a figure of reverence. He was a little freaked when he first visited Jamaica, and saw thousands of followers waiting there for him: "There is a problem in Jamaica.... Please, help these people. They are misunderstanding, they do not understand our culture.... They need a church to be established and you are chosen to go."
I like Bob Marley's music, and I respect the Rastafarians. A religion is a religion, after all; it's power is measured in what it does for its followers, and it doesn't need to justify itself to anyone. There are supposedly a million Rastafarians worldwide.
That said, I find this whole spectacle kind of crazy. Here are thousands of followers, some from places like Japan, coming into a poor country, whose ruler's deification became, in some sense, obsolete when the rest of Africa became independent around 1960 (and he was never all that great a leader to begin with). They've come to the place that is theologically defined for them as the "promised land," though only a few hundred of them have ever actually tried to live there (this is a promised land that is desperately short of resources). Meanwhile, the local Ethiopians, many of whom are devout Protestant Christians, are complaining about the pot-smoking foreigners, and walking through the crowd with flyers for their Church.
It's a little like something out of a book by Caryl Phillips (especially The Atlantic Sound), or a V.S. Naipaul travelogue.
* * *
Somewhat unrelatedly, Ethiopia has its own amazing music fusion scene, which was especially active in the 1970s (though it may be still going on, for all I know). You can hear some really interesting jazz/fusion music on a series of CDs called Ethiopiques. One can hear a (very short) sample of the sound here. If anyone can find longer samples or streams of Ethiopian jazz on the web, let me know.
There's something about this music that I find really compelling. It's at once swinging and experimental. It's at once distinctively African, and cosmopolitan and progressive...
Boing Boing
I got a mention in Boing Boing. It's kind of buried, but hey, it's Boing Boing.
Punk rock Boing Boing readers might want to check out my post on Fugazi.
Punk rock Boing Boing readers might want to check out my post on Fugazi.
Ward Churchill on CNN
Ward Churchill, talking to Paula Zahn on CNN (Windows Media). It came into my box via Blogdigger.
Warning: it's a trainwreck!
Normally, I hate the Cable News Interview With A Controversial Subject -- the kind of interview where the journalist wields the word "sir" with such a level of ferocity that its victims ought to consider sueing for libel. I almost always side with the person getting yelled at, generally a hapless leftist whose view is being distorted or manipulated by the opportunistic "journalist" with an agenda to stick to, and no qualms about beating down interviewees until they say uncle. There is also often a severe cognitive dissonance between the interviewer and the interviewee, especially if the latter is a soft-spoken academic. For instance, I remember being horrified at the way Michael Hardt was often completely misunderstood in his appearances on TV after the publication of Empire four years ago.
But in this case it's impossible not to be sympathetic to Paula Zahn. Churchill just seems unable to answer any questions directly, or to face what he's saying honestly. He makes some outrageous reversals, and seems completely affectless and immovable throughout -- completely robotic. The effect isn't so much "wouldya take a look at this moonbat?" (Bill O'Reilly's trademark) or "I hope you bleed to death on a rock" (Chris Matthews). With Zahn, it's more a kind of awe that this guy really seems to mean what he says.
But I did lose sympathy with Zahn towards the end -- when she started talking about whether Churchill is going to get fired or not. That's the kind of thing O'Reilly gets off on. But for normal human beings, it's in poor taste.
Warning: it's a trainwreck!
Normally, I hate the Cable News Interview With A Controversial Subject -- the kind of interview where the journalist wields the word "sir" with such a level of ferocity that its victims ought to consider sueing for libel. I almost always side with the person getting yelled at, generally a hapless leftist whose view is being distorted or manipulated by the opportunistic "journalist" with an agenda to stick to, and no qualms about beating down interviewees until they say uncle. There is also often a severe cognitive dissonance between the interviewer and the interviewee, especially if the latter is a soft-spoken academic. For instance, I remember being horrified at the way Michael Hardt was often completely misunderstood in his appearances on TV after the publication of Empire four years ago.
But in this case it's impossible not to be sympathetic to Paula Zahn. Churchill just seems unable to answer any questions directly, or to face what he's saying honestly. He makes some outrageous reversals, and seems completely affectless and immovable throughout -- completely robotic. The effect isn't so much "wouldya take a look at this moonbat?" (Bill O'Reilly's trademark) or "I hope you bleed to death on a rock" (Chris Matthews). With Zahn, it's more a kind of awe that this guy really seems to mean what he says.
But I did lose sympathy with Zahn towards the end -- when she started talking about whether Churchill is going to get fired or not. That's the kind of thing O'Reilly gets off on. But for normal human beings, it's in poor taste.
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