The Snowden Question: Espionage and Ethics
Edward Snowden, renowned for letting the genie out of the US top secret bottle, remains to be one of the legends of modern IT era. The US government apparently had no excuse – though lame – to offer in its defense. To the shock of right minded people all over the world the computer […]
The Shadows of Muslim Men
A confession. In case you did not know I am a man. A generic, universal entity about which the seventeenth century French aristocrat Madame de Sevigne knew a thing or two. ‘The more I see of men’, she declared, ‘the more I admire dogs’. Knowing myself as well as I do, I appreciate her preference. […]
A Filmmaker’s Novel Idea
Mostly filmmakers are cocooned in the world of cameras and visuals. They take a pen only to make necessary corrections in the screenplay to be shot. Some geniuses like Kieslowski and Chaplin have written memoirs. Novelists usually become screenwriters. Masters like William Faulkner, John Steinbeck and Truman Capote have are examples. Others stuck to the […]
Hur Adam: Tale of a Stoic Fortitude
BediuzzamanSaid Nursi (1877-1960), the Turkish mystic, can be considered as the spiritual founder of modern Turkey. At a time when scorn for tradition and faith was considered as the founding principle of Turkish nationalism in the country’s embrace of authoritarian modernity and secularism under Ataturk, Nursi revived faith in the tradition by leadinng people to […]
Modiano’s Fictions: The Political Landscape
There is a question Edward W Said reserves for Jewish intellectuals who write about Holocaust and atrocities against Jews: How do they read and respond to the similar genocide that the Zionist government orchestrates against Palestinians. Their answer would be the proof of their radical politics not being sectarian. Sadly, Modiano is silent about Palestine. This […]
Hamlet and his Kashmirian Odyssey
Touchstones by which a Hamlet adaptation is measured are the ghost and the play within the play. Though these two appear only minimally on the stage, they drive the tempo of the play. Ghost is nothing but Hamlet’s subconscious which brings his hidden fears and oedipal angst out into his (as well as ours) conscious, […]
Slow Rebellion in the Age of Hyper-parenting
Carl Honore has been compared backhandedly to Karl Marx. According to the Financial Times Honore’s book In Praise of Slowness is to slow movement what Das Capital is to Communism. It’s not wrong to say that the book named as slow movement sporadic incidents of protests against quick, fast paced lives by bringing lives to […]
Najla Edward Said: On the Otherness Where We Belong
The reason why most people read Najila Said’s memoir: Looking for Palestine: Growing up Confused in an Arab-American Family might be that she is Edward Said’s daughter. There are other reasons why she must be read. Her prose is riveting; she recounts more about the process by which she grapples with her many identities than about her […]
“A Bitter Disppointment”, Edward Said on his encounter with Sartre, De Beauvoir and Foucault
In 1979, Edward Said was invited by Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir to France for a conference on Middle East peace. It was in the wake of the Camp David Accords that ended the war between Egypt and Israel, that the author of “Orientalism” and ardent supporter of the Palestinian people, was invited to contribute with […]
Remembering a Phenomenon
On 24th September this year, we have completed the eleventh year of sheer intellectual poverty. On a fateful day like this in the year 2003, Edward Said, the organic intellectual who spoke out to power in a clear, lucid, evocative and all the while daring manner, died. The issues he fought hard against- aggression of […]
Connect
Connect with us on the following social media platforms.