must read on how the not-so-innocent german indologists imposed their prejudices on us, just a their descendants like witzel and wendy and sheldon pollock are doing today.
bit heavy duty but extremely intriguing.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: kalyan <kalyan97@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, Sep 15, 2017 at 6:45 AM
Subject: Against Occidentalism: A Conversation with Alice Crary and Vishwa Adluri on The Nay Science
To:
From: kalyan <kalyan97@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, Sep 15, 2017 at 6:45 AM
Subject: Against Occidentalism: A Conversation with Alice Crary and Vishwa Adluri on The Nay Science
To:
August 7, 2017
Against Occidentalism: A Conversation with Alice Crary and Vishwa Adluri on The Nay Science
How should we read and interpret texts? And how might the modes through which we read be informed, enriched and revised by our understanding of our cultures of interpretation? These questions have driven the work of Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee, doctoral alumni of the Department of Philosophy at The New School for Social Research.
This winter, Anthem Press will publish their second book, Philology and Criticism: A Guide to Mahābhārata Textual Criticism. To mark the occasion, Research Matters presents excerpts of Adluri's conversation with Philosophy Professor Alice Crary. They talk about Adluri and Bagchee's first book, The Nay Science: A History of German Indology (Oxford University Press), the practice of reading and interpreting texts and a history of Indology.
Indology—the academic study of India—originated in Germany and served as a foundation for western academic interpretations of Indian texts and traditions. The Nay Science charts the history of German Indology to show how the nascent discipline was rooted in troubling philosophical assumptions that generated inaccurate readings of the culture it was studying. Against stubbornly persistent biases, Adluri and Bagchee write in favor of a more sincere reading of ancient and Eastern texts—a kind of "innocent reading" that goes beyond a postcolonial critique—that might enable us to meet texts outside the Western Christian tradition on their own terms.
Pressing beyond a critique of the specific history of Indology and its effects on our understanding and our modes of reading ancient texts, The Nay Science offers vital reflections on philosophical and social scientific methods. Adluri says that the book teaches us to, "read texts carefully but respectfully because, if you read them respectfully, they will talk to you."
Adluri also reflects on his training at The New School. On the practice of philosophy, he says: "You have to read every single thing, struggle your whole life to claim the life of an intellectual. If they are competent—perhaps competent is not the right word—if they can hang on and do the work, there is no greater reward than philosophy."
Alice Crary (AC): The occasion for this interview is your magnum opus, the 2014 monograph written with Joydeep Bagchee, The Nay Science: A History of German Indology. I want to sit with you and talk about its significance and implications. I thought we should get some background first—who you are and what you have done since your time at The New School for Social Research's (NSSR) Philosophy Department. Can you tell us a bit about your life and your intellectual work at NSSR and afterwards?
I just uploaded 'Against Occidentalism' to @academia!
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