Open Space Fellowships - Sent by Ammu Joseph

Open Space Fellowships:

Nurturing civil society leadership and action

Open Space is a civil society and youth outreach initiative based in
Pune. OS encourages dialogue, debate and citizens action around social
justice and development issues by engaging urban middle class
citizens– particularly youth -- through films, literature, art,
music, college festivals, lectures, workshops etc.

We are now taking the OS process to other cities through the Open
Space fellowships. On offer are full-time fellowships for a period of
12 months each to be awarded to social entrepreneurs in cities other
than Pune.

We are looking for individuals who are well-informed on – and
committed to -- social justice and development issues, with a
background in the social sciences/human rights/development/media or
allied fields. The Fellows should be dynamic, energetic, resourceful
and good at communications, moderating discussions, training and
capacity-building. A passion for the arts and ideas is required,
since OS programmes and processes centre around popular culture,
literature, cinema etc. Fellows should be well-networked with CSOs,
educational institutions and community groups in their own city.

We're looking for applications from state capitals and the
mini-metros, though applications from the five major metropolitan
cities will also be considered if they focus on unique outreach
processes and suburban and fringe areas of their cities.

Over the 12-month period, several regular networks, partnerships,
processes, activities and forums should have been initiated and
publicised under the fellowship that should continue to operate and
be strengthened on a voluntary basis by citizens after the 12-month
period.

Applicants for the fellowship are invited to send in their CVs and a
detailed concept note expanding on 1) their suitability for, and
interest in, these Fellowships; 2) the social justice/development
issues most integral to their cities which they would like to work on
in the course of this fellowship; 3) strategies they would employ for
outreach, including likely partners and networks in their cities.

Open Space fellowships will be awarded to individuals preferably
below the age of 40.

The fellowship carries a monthly honorarium of Rs 20,000, inclusive
of communication and conveyance costs incurred by the Fellows.

Log on to http://www.openspaceindia.org
for a detailed note on the fellowships and to find out more about
Open Space. Then email your applications, before October 31, 2008, to
openspacefellowships@infochangeindia.org and cc them to
rakesh@openspaceindia.org

Open Space is an initiative of the Centre for Communication and
Development Studies, Pune, a social change resource centre that uses
communications to strengthen civil society and citizens' action for
social justice, human rights, sustainable development and accountable
governance. CCDS also manages http://www.infochangeindia.org
, India's popular and credible online resource base on social
justice and development issues. For more information on CCDS and Open
Space log on to www.openspaceindia.org

, www.ccds.in
and www.infochangeindia.org
.

Open Space
301, Kanchanjunga Building, Kanchan Gully
Off Law College Road,
Pune 411 004
Telephone: 020-26852845/30222156

Blog utilisation

On Aug 30 I put a counter on my blog to see how many visit the blog. In the last 53 days total visits are 7,033. That's almost 132 clicks per day. Out of which 3,959 (about 4,000) are unique clicks.

ISem OE 'An Essay on the Theatre' Oliver Goldsmith extract

Following is the quotation in French found in the essay 'An Essay on the Theatre' by Oliver Goldsmith

"Le comique, ennemi des soupirs et des pleurs, N'admet point dans ses vers de tragiques douleurs."

Following is the translation of the above quotation by Dr Mallika from the Dept of French, Christ University.

"The comic, enemy of sighs and tears, does not admit/allow tragic sorrow in its verses at all."

(I thank Dr Mallika for the translation and Abey from IFEP for reminding me)

Culture Unplugged - Maya Hemanth sent this link

Might interest some of you.

www.cultureunplugged.com

Theatre and Arts Appreciation Course @ Rangashankara

I strongly recommend the following course.

Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival ‘08

Theatre and Arts Appreciation Course

The Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival ‘08 will include the second edition of its very successful Theatre and Arts Appreciation Course, designed on the lines of the well-known Culture Course at Neenasam, Heggodu.

The Course, launched at the Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival ‘07, provides a unique opportunity to learn the essence of theatre and arts appreciation by developing new ways “seeing and listening”. Last year’s course was a resounding success, with participants from various walks of life – from students to professors, software professionals to bankers - participating enthusiastically in the highly interactive sessions. The likes of Satyadev Dubey, Girish Karnad, UR Anantamurthy, Ratan Thiyam, KV Akshara, Prakash Belwadi, etc. spent time with the participants discussing their craft.

Renowned culture critic Sadanand Menon will spearhead the Theatre and Arts Appreciation Course ‘08. A well-known writer on critical issues of politics and culture, Sadanand Menon is also a photographer and stage light designer. He has served as the Arts Editor for The Economic Times.

The Course will examine and discuss theatre, cinema, dance, photography and music over six days (spread over two weekends) through lectures, film screenings, plays, as well as interaction with directors and actors. The Course will thus look at, and analyse the formal structures of various works of art as well as consider them in the context of the historical period and cultural framework in which they were produced.

The course is open to public in the age group of 16 to 40 years. The course fee is Rs. 2000 (for six days; the fee includes lectures, film screenings and tickets to plays). A discount of Rs.1000 is being offered to students.

Application available at Ranga Shankara. Please visit the theatre, call on 26493982 or write to us on rsfest08@gmail.com Last date for registrations is 20 October 2008.

Details of the Course

Dates of the Course
(6 days) 31 Oct to 2 Nov AND 7 Nov – 9 Nov (9.30 am – 6.00 pm on all days)
Course Fee Rs. 2000; Student discount of Rs. 1000 offered.
Venue Will be in and around Ranga Shankara; Will be communicated later
Medium of instruction English
Last day for applying 20 October 2008
Mode of application Please send your resume to rsfest08@gmail.com. Ranga Shankara will get in touch with you to confirm your registration. Registrations are also open at Ranga Shankara (36/2, 8th Cross, JP Nagar II Phase, Bangalore 78; from 9.30 am – 6.00 pm) till 20 October 2008
Contact Ranga Shankara office, 26493982

Arvind Adiga's 'The White Tiger' wins Man Booker 2008

1. Wiki on Adiga
2. Adiga's homepage
3. Adiga's Reviews
4. Adiga's articles in Time magazine
5. Interview with Adiga
6. Review of The White Tiger in the Telegraph
7. Response of Urban, Middle class, 'community representative' Indians at Rediff

(Photo taken from Adiga's homepage)

III Sem JPEng English classes - Suggestions, please

Dear III Sem JPEnglishites (2008)
I am informed by the dept that I am to teach you English next semester too.

I have been thinking as to how to go about the next semester classes. Your suggestions on this for next semester will be useful for me to come up with a method that will help you hone your skills/build on your existing knowledge/skills.

Your suggestion could reflect the following

• How do you want Perspectives to be dealt in the class
• What kind of method do you want?
• Are there ares in language (listening, speaking, reading, writing, critical thinking) or communication that you wish inputs and training?
• Any other issue you wish our classes engage with.

You may post your suggestions here or email them to me at ajpinto42 at gmail dot com

Ahtisaari wins Nobel Peace Prize

1. Nobel Announcement
2. BBC Report
3. New York Times Report
4. Livemint Report
5. Ahtisaari Home Page
6. Wiki on Ahtisaari

(Photo reproduced from Wiki)

V Semester Literary Theory and Criticism End Sem exam clarificatoins

Adarsh called me to clarify a few point questihons troubling him and his friends. Here are the clarifications.
1. The first essay of Psychoanalytic criticism is very much there for exam.
2. There would be no questions asking you to apply structuralism to a single piece. (If you can't figure out why you haven't understood structuralism!). Instead questions might be asked on the piece of Levi-Stauss' discussion of Oedipus myth
3. You will not be given any piece to do a decontructive or post structuralist analysis. Instead questions might be asked on the last piece in post structuralism.

Do spread the word around to beat the ....

I Semester Optional English End Semester Model Question Paper

End Semester Examination 2008

I Semester B.A.

Optional English

Course Code: OEN 131 Time: 3 Hours

Max Marks: 100

Model Question Paper

Section A

I. Answer any 5 of the following: (5x5=25)

1. What are the characteristics of Metaphysical poetry?
2. What supernatural elements does Pope use in “Rape of the Lock”.
3. Compare and contrast the settings and language of Blake’s “The Lamb’ and “The Tyger”.
4. What are the images of Egypt that Shelly describes through “Ozymandias”?
5. What is comedy of manners?
6. What are the different stations of life that a person could choose to live in that Robinson Crusoe’s father speaks about?
7. What are the salient features of Elizabethan theatre?

II. Section B

Answer any 3 of the following in 250-300 words. (3x10=30)

1. How is Milton's invocation in Paradise Lost different from the invocation in classical Greek and Latin epics?

2. Analyze the role of the supernatural elements in Macbeth. How do they help in the progress of the play?

3. How does Addison comment on the economic conditions of young men in England through his essay “The Character of Will Wimble”?

4. The conflicts of marriage for love and marriage for property is one of the primary themes of Northanger Abbey. Discuss.

III. Section C

Answer any 3 of the following in 350-400 words (3x15=45)

1. Attempt a critical appreciation of Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan”.

2. Discuss the features of Shakespearean tragedy with reference to Macbeth.

3. What is Gothic fiction? Explain how Northanger Abbey is a satire on the Gothic novel.

4. Discuss The Way of the World as a comedy of manners.

French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio awarded Nobel Prize for Literature 2008

1. BBC report
2. Wiki on Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio
3. Newyork Times report
4. Nobel Prize in Literature - list so far- wiki
5. Countrywise nobel

Sudhir Kakkar on 'Parenting Violence'

Following is one of the most fascinating articles I read in Times of India recently.

Teach your children that compassion is above justice
In the opening piece, celebrated psycho-analyst Sudhir Kakar says we need to free ourselves from the ancient curse of humankind


Violence, we must admit, is as Indian as aam ka achar, as American as apple pie, as Japanese as sushi rolls. Odd as it may sound, the two biggest causes of violence all over the world, identified by psychologists such as Roy Baumeister, are the two we admire as positive qualities and encourage in our children: high self-esteem and moral idealism. On the collective level, we give high self-esteem, the narcissism of a community, the high sounding name of izzat, honour, and justify any number of acts of cruelty and murderous violence in its name. But there is even a greater source of violence that bedevils our individual and collective lives: moral idealism.

Once you believe that your violence is a means to a moral end, the floodgates to brutality are opened. As long as the perpetrator of violence maintains his moral commitment, to his faith, to his religious community, to the oppressed, or whatever else is the ‘cause’, he rarely displays guilt or shame for his murderous actions, something which is not true of the same actions as a member of other kinds of groups. We know that most major atrocities of the last century, and I have no doubt the trend will continue in the present one, were carried out by men believing they were creating utopias or defending their faith or idealised community from attack. Idealism is dangerous because it is inevitably accompanied by the belief that the end justifies the means. If you are fighting for God, for the oppressed or your religious community, then what matters is the outcome, not the path. Once you feel you have a moral mandate, you care much less for rules and legalities; the quest for ‘justice’ tends to be contemptuous of the notion of fairness.

Unfortunately, there have been eloquent voices that have defended violence in service of justice. In her Reflections on Violence, the philosopher Hannah Arendt writes “...under certain circumstances violence, which is to act without argument or speech and without reckoning with consequences, is the only possibility of setting the scales of justice right again...In this sense, rage and the violence that sometimes, not always, goes with it, belong to the ‘natural’ emotions, and to cure man of them would mean nothing less than to dehumanise or emasculate him’’. (Arendt on Violence)

The problem with this position is that such ‘hot’ violence inevitably turns into a ‘cold’ carnage characterised by planning and calculation. Moreover, violence that begins with a clear purpose acquires a life of its own, fulfilling obscure wishes more than its consciously stated goals. It begins to exercise a dangerous fascination, a “terrible beauty’’ from which too we cannot avert our eyes. We get a glimpse of this fascination in many kinds of collective violence, especially of the revolutionary kind. This violence has been described by Franz Fanon, in his The Wretched of the Earth, as one that “binds men together as a whole, since each individual forms a violent link in a great chain, a part of the great organism of violence which has surged
upwards’’. He might well have been speaking of the orgasm of violence.

No, what we need is a blanket rejection of violence, no matter what the cause. Justice is extremely important but we need to hold and teach our children that the value of compassion is above that of justice. When Gandhiji, in contrast to revolutionaries of the left and right, insisted on the priority of means over ends, he was intuitively aware of the malignant violence inherent in the other position.

What can we do? In the short term, there is no alternative to a firm resolve of the state that violence, no matter what the stated cause, will not be permitted. We know, for instance, that in ethnic/communal riots there is a window of about 24 hours in which the tension between the opposing groups is very high but violent acts have not yet taken place. Firm police action in this crucial time period can prevent the outbreak of violence which will otherwise spiral out of control. How to isolate responsible police officers from political interference in this 24-hour period (switching off all mobile contact?) is an issue needing urgent attention. In the longer term, we need to focus our educational efforts on emphasising the value of compassion, of which fairness and tolerance are important constituents, as much as of justice, of re-dedicating ourselves to the priority of means over ends. This is not an idealistic choice but is based on our evolutionary reality as human beings. We need to awaken our natural human compassion to counteract our perhaps equally natural propensity to violence and not just cede the battleground to the latter.

Indeed, compassion is as natural as violence. We now know from experiments using brain imaging that watching the suffering of someone who appears to be a victim of violence, activates a similar ‘pain network’ in our brains, the so-called ‘mirror neurons’. Showing the sufferings of victims of terror attacks or other forms of collective violence, as part of our educational curriculum in schools and colleges is an obvious next step in the long term combating of violence. We need to use all our available knowledge on social violence to begin freeing ourselves from this ancient curse of humankind.

(Times of India. 2 Oct 2008, Page 16)

Here is another one from The Hindu on workplace violence

(P.S.:In the last three years that I have been experimenting with blogs in education, I have kept the 'personal' and matters 'unrelated' to curricula out of this space. This is the first time that I am posting an article 'unrelated' to formal curricula that I engage with. It's an indication of some of the fundamental questions arising in me about teaching and education, more on this sometime....)

My Replies

I am glad to see that this blogspace is put to good use. While I appreciate your questions, due to my other academic work I am unable to respond immediately. I wish to deffer all my responses till 13. Hope that is fine.

In the mean time others can respond to the questions directed towards me in this blog.

All the best for your practicals and theory exams.

a

'Way of the World' and other material

Aishwarya has asked for material on 'Way of the World'
Here is what I found. May be some of you should check for annotated version in the library as well.

1. Good ol' Wiki!
2. Pink Monkey. For better effect do not click on the links but click on next button at the bottom of the page
3. From Answers.Com
4. From Faculty.Goucher!

Many of the poems and at least one of the essays are available with annotations (i.e. explanations of words and meanings!) in the Macmillan edition on various poets in the library. There is a book called 'Explorations' which was the textbook for Optional English a few years ago when the institution was under Bangalore university. You will find it in one the last rows of the UG English racks. It has material for many of your poems and at least one Essay. I think it's on Will Wimble.

Cheers!

Literary Theory questions - FEP and PSEng

III year FEP and PSEng students may post their questions here and also try to answer/respond to the questions of other discussants.

In this blog I have posted on postmodernism, feminism and related topics in the past two years. Those of you who wish to have a peak into them can type the keyword/s in the search box left-hand-top corner of this blog.