Monday, April 30, 2012

International Q&A with SiCa-Humanities Center 2011 Arts Writer/Practitioner M.K Raina

By Marie-Pierre Ulloa

Why and how did you become a theatre artist?

M.K. Raina
It all started long back, when I was a school kid of seven years. Our school principal, Mr. Deena Nath Nadeem, a legendary poet of the Kashmiri language, wrote a verse play for the children of the school. The play was about birds, animals, humans, and their inter-relationships. It was a futuristic thing dealing with the co-existence between these two worlds–that is the human and the non-human world, nature. It had lovely songs set to folk melodies that we, as children, sang. Later these became big hit songs over the radio. I had a major role to play, that of an orphan child driven away by evil uncles along with my little sister into a forest full of trees, birds and animals–a microcosm of nature, where these children are taken care of by the inhabitants of this forest.

It is from this experience that I started my journey as a child actor in all sorts of plays, where a child was needed. All these plays were in my mother tongue, Kashmiri.

Now, looking back, I think I perhaps had a hidden desire to perform and organise group activities. In my early years, we had formed a performance group in our locality and we would often create some kind of improvised performances and show it to our friends and some times to our elders. Most of the times, I remember I used to lead such endeavours and my fellow child artists had to follow my instructions. Many a times there would be arguments and showdowns, and the elders would have to intervene. Perhaps this was a part of our very tight-knit community living and also part of our Hindu-Muslim interconnectivity.

During all these growing-up years, I had the privilege of being encouraged by my parents and my grandmother. They never objected to my activities or interfered in any way from my childhood to my college days. My state of Jammu and Kashmir offered me a three-year scholarship to join the National School of Drama, New Delhi, where I got trained as a theatre professional. Along with my theatre activity, I studied biology chemistry up to university level. At one point I had a choice either to become a doctor like my father or become a biochemist, but I followed my heart. This decision surprised my entire clan except my parents, since no one in my family had ever ventured into the world of arts. My parents’ simple encouragement and faith in me has been my inspiration all these years. I have stayed a free-lance theatre person all these forty years working not only in India but also in South Asia both in theatre and films.

What are the three or four seminal plays in a theatre director’s dream repertory, and in yours in particular?

One cannot speak for other directors, since each director works in his own world and under his particular national culture specifics and social conditions. For me, I always had this desire to deal with classics from Sanskrit plays like KALI DASA’S Shakuntla, or Bhasis – urubhangam. Among contemporary plays I love plays that deal with the predicament of a human condition in the present social-political environment. I love themes and concepts developed by me in collaboration with traditional and professional performers, a kind of lab work, which later develops into a major theatre production. The themes one has dealt with in the area of my work are the concepts of displacement of people involving different cultures, beliefs, histories, violence and memory.

Who are your models and mentors, if any?

This is a difficult question, for a person who lost his home, his town, and who has witnessed violence and has escaped death many times, in cross fires. All models and mentors vanished during the many trials one has undergone. It is a sad and lonely state to be in. Hence I always look inwards into myself for inspiration and courage. I have always said that I am like a stream of water flowing down the hill, making its own path around any obstacles and moving on, and one day this stream will naturally dry up and become invisible.

I have no Gurus. I learned from many teachers and some of them have been the poorest of the poor with great wisdom.

Which are the most critical skills in order to become a good theatre director?

The most important skill is experiencing life in all its colours and shades. One can study in the best universities and learn skills from great teachers and masters. But if one does not learn and absorbs the essence of compassion and subsume it into one’s soul, all knowledge and skills will remain a bag of tricks and empty shells. Mahatama Gandhi once said, “If you are in a dilemma about a decision that you have to take, and you do not know what to do, at that moment recall the face of a poorest and most impoverished human being in front of you and think, can this particular action of yours change his life and empower him. Then you will be able to make the right decision.”

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Humanities Center Names 2012-13 Fellows

The Stanford Humanities Center has named 28 fellows for the 2012-13 academic year. Chosen from a pool of over 400 applicants, the 2012-13 cohort comprises scholars from other institutions, as well as Stanford faculty and advanced Stanford graduate students. Fellows will pursue individual research and writing for the full academic year while contributing to the Stanford community through their participation in workshops, lectures, and courses.

Mark Antliff, Marta Sutton Weeks Fellow
Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies, Duke University
Sculpture Against the State: Direct Carving, Gaudier-Brzeska and the Cultural Politics of Anarchism

Marcelo Aranda, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of History, Stanford University
Between Discovery and Enlightenment: Spanish Scientific Culture through Decline, War and Reform, 1670-1735

Oksana Bulgakowa, Marta Sutton Weeks Fellow
Institute of Film, Theater and Cultural Studies, Gutenberg University, Mainz
Voice and the Traces of Time: The Russian Archive of Vocal Memory

James Campbell, Donald Andrews Whittier Fellow
Department of History, Stanford University
Freedom Now: History, Memory, and the Mississippi Freedom Movement

Adrian Daub, Internal Faculty Fellow
Department of German Studies, Stanford University
Dynasties: The Nuclear Family and its Discontents in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Germany

Graciela De Pierris, Violet Andrews Whittier Fellow
Department of Philosophy, Stanford University
Hume, Kant, and the Metaphysical Tradition

Siyen Fei, External Faculty Fellow
Department of History, University of Pennsylvania
Sexuality and Empire: Female Chastity and Frontier Societies in Ming China (1368-1644)

Corisande Fenwick, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of Anthropology, Stanford University
Fashioning State and Subject in Late Antique and early Medieval North Africa (500-800)

Marisa Galvez, Internal Faculty Fellow
Department of French and Italian, Stanford University
Training for Holy War: The Poetics of Crusade Writing

Bruce Hall, External Faculty Fellow
Department of History, Duke University
Bonds of Trade: Slavery and Commerce in the 19th-century Circum-Saharan World

Héctor Hoyos, Internal Faculty Fellow
Department of Iberian and Latin American Cultures, Stanford University
The Commodity as Prism: A Hundred Years of Latin American Things

James Kierstead, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of Classics, Stanford University
An Association of Associations: Social Capital and Group Dynamics in Democratic Athens

Matthew Kohrman, Donald Andrew Whittier Fellow
Department of Anthropology, Stanford University
Making Life and Death in China’s Urban Cigarette Market

Barbara Kowalzig, External Faculty Fellow
Department of Classics, New York University
Gods Around the Pond: Religion, Society and the Sea in the Early Mediterranean Economy

Aida Mbowa, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of Drama, Stanford University
Dialogic Constructions of a New Black Aesthetic: East Africa and African America, 1952-1979

Robert Morrison, External Faculty Fellow
Department of Religion, Bowdoin College
Jewish Scholars in Renaissance Italy

Sara Mrsny, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of Philosophy, Stanford University
Justice, Labor, and the Family: Why We Should Accommodate Caregivers in Workplaces

Harriet Murav, Marta Sutton Weeks Fellow
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Marking Time: The Writing of David Bergelson

Nicoletta Orlandi, External Faculty Fellow
Department of Philosophy, Rice University
Seeing in Practice: Putting Vision in its Place

Padma Rangarajan, External Faculty Fellow
Department of English, University of Colorado, Boulder
Thug Life: The British Empire and the Birth of Terrorism

Byron Sartain, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of Music, Stanford University
François Couperin’s Pièces de clavecin and the Musical Communities of Paris and Versailles

Laura Stokes, Internal Faculty Fellow
Department of History, Stanford University
The Murder of Uly Mörnach: Greed, Honor, and Violence in the Basel Butchers' Guild, 1502

Jennifer Tamas, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of French and Italian, Stanford University
Paradoxical Powers of Declarations in Old Regime and Revolutionary France

Sean Teuton, External Faculty Fellow
Department of English, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Cities of Refuge: Indigenous Cosmopolitan Writers and the International Imaginary

Jennifer Trimble, Ellen Andrews Wright Fellow
Department of Classics, Stanford University
Visual Literacies in Roman Art

Chloe Veltman, Arts Writer/Practitioner Fellow
Writer and Broadcaster
The Communal Voice: Exploring the Metaphorical Significance of Portrayals of Ensemble Singing in Art and Literature

Richard Vinograd, Ellen Andrews Wright Fellow
Department of Art and Art History, Stanford University
Chinese Painting in Theory

Peter Woodford, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of Religious Studies, Stanford University
Religion, Science, and Value: The Philosophy of Life and its Critics

*****************************
The Center's fellowships are made possible by gifts and grants from the following individuals, foundations and Stanford offices: The Esther Hayfer Bloom Estate, Theodore H. and Frances K. Geballe, Mimi and Peter Haas, Marta Sutton Weeks, the Mericos Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the offices of the Dean of Research and the Dean of Humanities and Sciences.

Friday, April 13, 2012

International Scholars in Residence at the Humanities Center 2012-13

By Marie-Pierre Ulloa

The Stanford Humanities Center and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) are pleased to announce that four international scholars have been chosen to come to Stanford in 2012-13 as part of a jointly sponsored international program entering its fourth year. Nominated by Stanford departments and research centers, the international scholars will be on campus for four-week residencies. They will have offices at the Humanities Center and will be affiliated with their nominating unit, the Humanities Center, and FSI.

A major purpose of the residencies is to bring high-profile international scholars into the intellectual life of the university, targeting scholars whose research and writing engage with the missions of both the Humanities Center and FSI.

The following scholars have been selected for the upcoming academic year:

Maha Abdel-Rahman (April 2013) is a Lecturer in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge, and an Egyptian academic and activist. She holds a PhD from the Dutch Institute of Social Studies. While at Stanford, she will research the relationship between social movements and civil society in Egypt, and will give seminars based on her book project, On Protest Movements and Uprisings: Egypt’s Permanent Revolution. She was nominated by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.

Mohamed Adhikari (May 2013) is an Associate Professor in the Historical Studies Department at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He will explore the relationship between European settler colonialism and genocide in hunter-gatherer societies, and will bring to campus a comparative perspective on genocide, race, identity and language. His latest publication, The Anatomy of a South African Genocide: The Extermination of the Cape San Peoples (2010) was the first to deal with the topic of genocide in the South African context. He will also present from his edited book, Invariably Genocide?: When Hunter-gatherers and Commercial Stock Farmers Clash, due for publication in 2013. He was nominated by the Center for African Studies.

Nuray Mert (October 2012) is an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Istanbul University. She is a political observer and contributor to Turkey’s major newspapers (Milliyet and Hûrriyet Daily News), one of the few contemporary Turkish public intellectuals with an academic background and a journalist’s investigative mind. An outspoken critic on sensitive issues in the Turkish context such as rights of minorities (the Kurdish Question), freedom of religion and of press, she will lecture on the geopolitical implications of the Arab Spring for Turkey and the Middle East, and on Turkey’s accession to the European Union in light of the financial crisis of the Euro-zone. She was nominated by the Mediterranean Studies Forum.

Te Maire Tau (February 2013) is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. His work explores the role of myth in Maori culture, the resolution of boundaries between the Maori and the New Zealand government, and where tribal/indigenous knowledge systems fit within the wider philosophy of knowledge. During his residency, he will examine how Pacific peoples adapted western knowledge systems, not just with regard to western technology but in more theoretical areas such as the pre-Socratic philosophers and the 19th century scientists. He will also focus on the migration of traditions from the Tahitian-Marquesas Island group to the outer lying island of Polynesia (New Zealand, Hawaii). He was nominated by the Woods Institute for the Environment.

In addition to the jointly-sponsored program with FSI, the Humanities Center will also bring international visitors from France and India as part of the international programs at the Humanities Center.

Denis Lacorne (January 2013) is a prominent French public intellectual and Professor of Political Science at CERI (Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales) Sciences Po in Paris. Lacorne will give presentations on French and American notions of religious toleration, deriving from his latest book on US and French secularism which demonstrates that, despite some striking similarities between US secularism and French laïcité, the secularization of French society has followed a different path from that of American society. He was nominated by the French Culture Workshop and the History Department.

Himanshu Prabha Ray (May 2013) is an historian of Ancient India at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, where she works in the fields of ancient India and maritime archaeology. During her residency, she will discuss and finalize her current book project, Return of the Buddha: Ancient Symbols for Modern India, as well as her research on the creation of a public discourse around Buddhism in the colonial and post-colonial period in India. The Buddha, in her account, is not statically located in history, but rather contested within settings of colonialism, post-colonialism and nation-building. She was nominated by the Classics Department, with the support of the Department of Religious Studies, the Center for South Asia, the Ho Center for Buddhist Studies, and the Archaeology Center.

While at Stanford, the scholars will offer informal seminars and public lectures and will also be available for consultations with interested faculty and students. For additional information, please contact Marie-Pierre Ulloa.