SynTalk

Do you (only) like people like you? Is belonging ‘necessary’? Are communities homogeneous? How do communities become political actors from being social entities? Are community identities a way of becoming legible for the State? Does the idea of nations pre-suppose the idea of communities? Conversely, how do countries or communities fall apart? Are societies modern, & communities pre-modern? Can communities self-determine themselves as such? How much can communities scale? How is the community enacted, & what keeps it going? Are they all kept together by (filial) feelings? What is the interplay between blood, language, religion, ‘culture’, trade, and subsequent social formations? ‘Where’ are self-interested strangers civil to each other? Is the State natural to human beings? Does language make us human? Are (all) individuals, therefore, social? Are all women a community? &, call centre employees? Do you want to be on the winning side? Are utopias scary? What happens when we turn within? Will communities persist in the future? Or, is the future unhomely and infinitely lonely? Would there be new modalities of drawing connections? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from political theory (Prof. Neera Chandhoke, ex-University of Delhi, Delhi), anthropology (Dr. Mathangi Krishnamurthy, IIT Madras, Chennai), & history (Prof. Gyan Prakash, Princeton University, Princeton). Listen in...

What would you have bought – an air pump, or a printing machine? What can you read? Does the idea of ‘writing’ automatically lead to the idea of ‘book’? Do you worship books? But, also immerse them in rivers? ‘Who’ has written the divine texts, & why? Do you (still) read aloud? Does the nature of support (say, clay tablet…) determine the writing style (…cuneiform)? Are media effects deterministic? What made paper cheap? What made/makes it to books? Why did the printing press not take off in Goa in the 16th century? Can there be complex societies without writing systems? Did print revolutionize both the Word and the Image? Why are full old books now often dismembered? Do ur-objects exist? Do books ‘want’ to be edited and ‘re-read’? Was copy always an antonym of original? Does writing have to be read to be effective? Can you play Bach just by reading an early 18th century music sheet? Are machines making impossible books possible again? Will physical books always remain a highly political object? Will we be able to read against the grain in the future? &, will writing/reading always be there (even if books disappear)? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from book history & literary studies (Prof. Swapan Chakravorty, Presidency University, Kolkata), art history (Dr. Yael R. Rice, Amherst College, Amherst), & heritage conservation (Anupam Sah, CSMVS Museum, Mumbai). Listen in...

Have you ever touched the feet of a dead body? Who will you die in the company of? Where do dogs go to die? Do they grieve others’ death? Is fear of death universal? What causes delirium? What role does religion play in dying? When do children first begin to understand that death is permanent, & that even they would die someday? Is every dying person also a living person? Could grieving turn into a disease? How ‘complicated’ can grief be? Do people who deny death often have horrible ends? Does suffering cease to be suffering when it has meaning? Are you good at saying ‘final’ goodbyes? Do the dying (humans, dogs, cats, …) know that they are going to die? Is it (so) difficult to say whether a person is dying? Do people sometimes almost come back from the dead? What are ICU ‘Rules’ for? How does Oscar the Cat know who is going to die next? Do freshly dead people smell different? Can heart continue to beat in a dead person? Do you feel ‘connected’? Are you looking to attain salvation? Will we die good deaths in the future? How ‘distributed’ or centralized would dying be? Can death make one understand Life? &, would death remain a stranger? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from animal care (Abodh Aras, The Welfare of Stray Dogs, Mumbai), psychiatry (Prof. Santosh Chaturvedi, NIMHANS, Bangalore), & palliative care (Dr. M. R. Rajagopal, Pallium India, Thiruvananthapuram). Listen in…

What came first – the nuclear power plant or the nuclear bomb? Do you fear nuclear power(s)? What was our experience of encountering coal? What is the relationship between energy consumption and well-being? What drives demand? Is more (always) better? Why did human population grow steeply from c. 1698? Where did the muscular Uncle Sam come from? Does pollution kill more people than wars? Is nuclearization value-neutral? How are human beings a part of nuclear power systems? How does (any) technology become a political or cultural artefact? What was the first official publicity like? Can ‘something’ be an instrument of peace ‘and’ an absolute weapon of destruction? Is nuclear energy ‘sublime’? Is it democratic? Is it green? Why aren’t nuclear power plants located within cities if they are not risky? Do more plants risk more weapons? Where does spent fuel go? Can the political economy of a nuclear power plant be separated from its engineering? Why the ‘secrecy’ (?)? What is the future of nuclearity? Is industrialization necessary? Will we beam energy down from satellites? &, will we have to continue to live with (military) radioactivity? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from nuclear engineering (Prof. R. B. Grover, HBNI, Mumbai), development studies (Dr. Manu V. Mathai, Azim Premji University, Bangalore), & cultural studies (Dr. Dibyadyuti Roy, IIM Indore, Indore). Listen in...

Are ‘things’ (truly) suppressed? What does it mean to act? (How?) is the fan in your computer doing something to you? Are there many kinds of intentionalities in the world? Do animals and machines also act? Are language, metaphysics, politics, agency – all – reserved only for us? Could politicization of the material world be thought of as depoliticization of the human society? What cannot interact? Is mediation a sub-species of action? Are definitions also actions? Is a detailed description identical to an explanation? Is there a depth dimension to Reality? Are things contained in space, or does space exist ‘because’ things exist? Does the form of ‘spacing out’, then, lead to the possibilities of voluntary or involuntary actions? Does the subject always contain the predicate? Is your worldview dualistic? What is hidden within ourselves? Might action be caused by disembodied intention? What makes crowds mobs? Does the material non-human world permeate our social lives via (say) language and behaviour? Is social change, therefore, not so easy? Is capital the real actor? &, are the possibilities of the future a given, or can the world be acted upon (endlessly)? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from anthropology (Prof. Arjun Appadurai, NYU, New York), philosophy (Dr. Enakshi Ray Mitra, University of Delhi, New Delhi), & East Asian studies (Dr. Christian Uhl, Ghent University, Ghent). Listen in...

Are nomads free? Are nations stable? Do you take the ground for granted? Where are your ancestors from? Why did modern humans leave Africa? Are empires and nations products of circulatory processes? What circulates, & how? Have you heard of nomadic empires? Do nomads make good citizens? Is their relationship with the settled often symbiotic? Are the nomads not settled because the animals (that they live off) are not settled? Does culture reproduce the spaces of circulation via (say) music, houses, culinary practices, & marriages? Is anything static dead? Do different entities (from earth to individuals) and phenomena (from droughts to mutations) have different criss crossing temporalities? What does endogamy result from/in? Do genes flow like rivers or oceans, & when? How are the Andamanese unique? How might certain diseases ‘hide’ within isolated communities? What circuits does capital need to circulate freely? What does it replace? Is history a planetary thing, & not exclusive to a sovereign sub-part? What is the future of marriages? What is the future of vagabonds? Can human life ever be fully de-territorialized? &, would the nomadic ethos ever fully go away? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from history (Prof. Prasenjit Duara, Duke University, Durham), sociology (Dr. Subir Rana, Bangalore), & genetics (Dr. K. Thangaraj, CCMB, Hyderabad). Listen in...

Why is that body heading the other way? Do different objects fall differently? Is it a mystery why bodies attract each other? What is the ontology of gravity? Did Newton find his own idea of universal gravitation absurd? When was Space first believed to be unlimited? Do belief systems and knowledge systems always influence each other? Does experience form intuition? Is a simultaneous process of falling in and falling out always ongoing in the Universe? What is it like to fall into black holes? Are they empty inside? Are their horizons smooth? Are black holes fuzzballs (or ‘string stars’)? How do they then ‘emit’ entangled radiation? Is floating a ‘kind’ of falling? Is gravity a matter related phenomenon, & not a force at all? Or, are all forces aspects of (geometric) space? How limited is our own experience of the physical world? Does reality sometimes mask itself in other ‘dimensions’? ‘How’ will you take a free kick from 30 metres outside the goal post? How much of gravity is cognizable? Can (dual) objects that appear identical in form be very different in substance? Do we also need the things we cannot explain for our existence? What is the future of our Universe? &, will we find the ‘angels’…? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from black hole physics and string theory (Prof. Samir Mathur, The Ohio State University (OSU), Columbus), & philosophy (Prof. Babu Thaliath, JNU, New Delhi). Listen in...

Can you do whatever you want at home? Do you own private property? Do you hold (private) opinions? ‘What’ do you care for? Why & how do boundaries shift between the private and public realms? Do you have a right to health (& to smoke?)? Does economic development influence how public-private distinction is thought of? Is the process of drawing lines always political? Does increasing GDP always work automatically for publicly desired outcomes? Must private property also (eventually) be seen as enhancing publicness? Do cities get made by plans? Are urban realms continuums of spaces and energies? How do practices create temporary private spaces? Is ownership necessary? Do you often cross into others’ private spaces? Why not? Is the modern State the only public mode? Are individuals at a technical disadvantage against the collectives? How might social and individual goals be aligned? Will we remain more hung up on our differences? Will we continue to become more cellularized? How will public norms (& Laws) change? &, is the future likely to be both highly cellularized and regulated (by public norms)? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from law (Prof. Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Azim Premji University, Bangalore), urban planning (Prasad Shetty, School of Environment and Architecture (SEA), Mumbai), & economics (Prof. Sebastian Vollmer, The University of Göttingen, Göttingen). Listen in...

Of what womb are you born? Are there good & bad animals? ‘Where’ is there no Law? Are the outlawed animal-like? Who gets to be a citizen of the polis? Are Pandavas princes in the forest? Are the freer nobler? Does the wolf look down upon the dog? Are animals truly in the open? Are humans, in a sense, the most abandoned? Is the jungle still within us? Did our ability to exchange (& imagine) enable us to curb our animal instincts and establish ‘humanity’? Where do Gods and demons come from? Is divinity empathy? What exactly is tiger-man? Does hunger lead to evil? Is empathy required in the jungle? Did peasantry play a role in reconfiguring human-animal relationships? Can (all) animals be sacrificed for humans? Do animals have to be attributed with a Being? What do they have in common with us? How do we turn Other humans into animals? Why are inter-species social relationships possible? Do you understand how insects suffer (or, how larvae wait to be captured)? Are we overwhelmingly anthropomorphic? Must species barriers be blurred? Would we, in the future, have everything we desire? Are the werewolves here to stay? &, would the repressed always return? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from comparative literature (Prof. Peter Arnds, Trinity College, Dublin), philosophy (Dr. Prasenjit Biswas, NEHU, Shillong), & mythology (Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik, Mumbai). Listen in...

Are you in (deep) passionate love? Or, have passions calmed down? Do revolutions happen spontaneously, & what maintains them? How do we keep various commitments? Do you imagine yourself as an object? What bores you? Could we, sometimes, experience boredom in a deep kind of way? Can human relationships be authentically mediated by objects? Is consumerism itself a revolution? Do most of us not have a systematic view of the world? Do (only) individuals fall in love? Do we become more revolutionary merely if we suffer more? What role do narratives play? What is the future of – the idea of – pure love? ‘Should’ a sense of moral duty be invoked to keep marriages together? Would anything be lost if we are found to be superficial beings? Is the appeal for individualized consumption less in societies that have collective social aims? Does consumerism work because it taps into our ability to love? Do consumer culture and religiosity go together? Do we need both theory and memory? Would the sites of boredom keep changing? &, would the notion of commitment become more flexible in the future, even as we continue to fall in love? But why? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from cultural theory & intellectual history (Prof. Craig Brandist, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield), philosophy (Prof. Raja Halwani, SAIC, Chicago), & sociology (Prof. Sanjay Srivastava, IEG, New Delhi). Listen in...