Speaking Otherwise is an academic podcast on the Contemporary, hosted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi.
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Episode 9: Afterlives of Modernism
Ravi Sundaram and Ashish Rajadhyaksha speak to the art critic and curator Geeta Kapur. The long twentieth century produced powerful movements that shaped politics, aesthetics and the idea of the contemporary. (Click for Details)
Episode 8: The Economy as Governing Imaginary
Prathama Banerjee speaks to Ritu Birla on how economic thinking operates as the language of governance in our contemporary. What is the relationship between law, economics and culture? (Click for Details)
Episode 7: The World and the Planet
Baidik Bhattacharya speaks to Martin Puchner on the relationship between world literature and climate change. Is literature at all relevant in our attempt to address climate change? Does world literature as a transhistorical archive allow one to engage with events like climate change with greater clarity? (Click for Details)
Prathama Banerjee speaks to Faisal Devji on the post Cold War phenomenon of Islamism. What is the historical relationship of Islamism with colonialism, liberalism, anarchism, communism, nationalism? (Click for Details)
Prathama Banerjee speaks to Veena Das on the changed nature of daily life in our contemporary. Is the nature of everyday life different in post-Covid times? Has the everyday ever been a site of stability or security? (Click for Details)
Episode 4. Translation and the Untranslatable
Baidik Bhattacharya speaks to Emily Apter on translation, untranslatability, comparative literature, and the future of the humanities in a post-pandemic world. It covers issues like the status of humanistic knowledge in the contemporary world (Click for Details)
Episode 3. The Material Witness
Ravi Sundaram speaks to Susan Schuppli, artist and researcher, about the themes raised by her recent book Material Witness (2020) on how Media technologies have transformed aesthetic and political questions around testimony and witnessing. (Click for Details)
Episode 2. Politics and Passions
Prathama Banerjee speaks to Udaya Kumar on the place of passion, emotion and affect in contemporary public life. The conversation meanders around questions of self, body, sensory, sensation, intensity and conditions of political existence today. (Click for Details)
Episode 1. Secularism and Post-Secularism
Prathama Banerjee speaks to Rajeev Bhargava on the place of religion in contemporary public life. It revolves around practices of secularism in India, the relationship between religion and caste, ancient and medieval histories of religious conflict and co-existence in the subcontinent. (Click for Details)