Session 1
Keynote:
Christopher Key Chapple, Ph.D., is Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology and founding Director of the Master of Arts in Yoga Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. A specialist in the religions of India, he has published more than twenty books, including the recent Living Landscapes: Meditations on the Elements in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Yogas (SUNY Press). He serves as advisor to multiple organizations including the Forum on Religion and Ecology (Yale), the Ahimsa Center (Pomona), the Dharma Academy of North America (Berkeley), the Jain Studies Centre (SOAS, London), the South Asian Studies Association, and International School for Jain Studies (New Delhi). He teaches online through the Center for Religion and Spirituality (LMU) and YogaGlo.
Abstract:
Yoga in a Post-humanist Era
Yoga views human bodies as in a continuum with animal bodies. Yoga views gender to be fluid and intersectional. Yoga has been claimed by revolutionaries and nationalists, by renouncers and neo-liberal capitalists. This presentation will examine the animality of Yoga practices, in both poses (āsana) and the control of breath (prāṇāyāma). Gender constructions will be examined in light of the Ardhanārīśvara figure that combines Śiva and Śakti as well as in the Yogavāsiṣṭha story of the enlightened Queen Cūḍālā and her dimwitted husband Śikhidvaja. Politically, Gandhi employed Yoga practices (ahiṃsā, satyagraha, tapas) to throw off the shackles of colonialism. Nationalists claim Yoga as the heart and soul of Indian civilization. Renouncers eschew all identities and all attachments, including nationhood. Global for-profit modern Yoga businesses have inspired and perplexed many. By juxtaposing four dissonant Yoga realities, some sense of Yoga’s place within post-humanist discourse will be offered.
Panel: Yoga and Tantra
Subham Dutta is an Assistant Professor at the Department of English Gokhale Memorial Girls’ College Kolkata. He has been working on Sri Aurobindo, Tagore and other Indian and western thinkers. His areas of interest include posthumanities, autobiographical narratives, theories of self and subjectivity etc. He has presented papers at various national and international conferences. Apart from academics, his areas of interest include travelling, listening to music, quizzing.
Abstract:
The Abject Body and the Eternal Consciousness: the Human and the Non-Human Interface in Sri Aurobindo’s Karakahini
The word consciousness has a wider and far-reaching resonance while used in the context of Sri Aurobindo. The central thrust of Sri Aurobindo’s argument remains on the evolution of consciousness. The Aurobindonian framework adopts the model of consciousness in ways significantly different from the Western philosophical and epistemological assumptions and uses it as a fluid space where culturally diverse sensibilities come together. Admittedly, Sri Aurobindo’s model of consciousness is placed within a humanist topos; however, it substantially exceeds this paradigm, exploring a continual synergy between the human and non-human forms of consciousness. The paper focuses on Sri Aurobindo’s autobiographical memoir Karakahini, written in 1909. Karakahini is a significant text in the career of Sri Aurobindo as it re-inscribes his self and subjectivity in the changing contours of Indian politics. This paper seeks to argue that Sri Aurobindo’s Karakahini turns upside down the humanist ontology of the self. Marked by the radical alternity and unfixedness of the ‘I’ narrator, Karakahini unravels a space of synergy and association between the human and non-human, the abject, animalized body and the triumphant self of consciousness. Interestingly, at one level, while Sri Aurobindo explores the ‘abject’ conditions of the prison life at another, he continually supplements this abject depiction with the invocation of cosmic communion between the living and the non-living beings in this prison narrative. Departing from the ontic and the ontological thrust on the humanist self-sufficiency, Sri Aurobindo’s Karakahini depicts how the human self is formed and mediated vis-à-vis its negotiation and interplay with the non-human ‘other’. Thus, Sri Aurobindo’s narrative in Karakahini opens up a metadiscursive space where the categories of the human and non-human continually disrupt and define each other, demonstrating the multiple points of their intersectionality and negotiation.
Alicia K. Gonzales writes about yoga, South Asian philosophy, and spiritual practice in American life. She completed a master’s in East-West psychology—specializing in India’s wisdom traditions—at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco and practices the integral yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. She also serves as managing editor of Collaboration Journal, publishes a weekend column on Substack, and posts about yoga psychology, history, politics, and practice on social media @theyogapilgrim. Learn more about her yoga workshops, trainings, and editorial services at www.theyogapilgrim.com.
Abstract:
Climate change, yoga and becoming-cosmos
The reversal of climate breakdowns fundamentally calls for a transformation of consciousness in the human. Yet for Earth to realize this possibility, we humans must first reimagine ourselves. “Man” is no longer the measure of all things, and his reliance on shallow ecology to address climate change only perpetuates the catastrophes rocking our geological foundations. Presuming our planet is more than just matter, what does a posthuman reimagining of our evolutionary future look like? Given the symbiotic nature of our psycho-ecosystems, how do we transform these relations so that the “crisis cycles” of modernity no longer plague both planet and people? What role does earth consciousness play, and what technologies of becoming (yogas) already exist to help manifest this vision? Drawing on the darśana of India’s wisdom traditions as well as the integral yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, this paper will respond to these questions from the coexisting plurality of deep ecological and integral perspectives. It will conclude by proposing concrete steps for birthing a new world and a new creation that actualizes climate change reversals, potentialities of planetary existence, and synergetic biospheres of posthuman flourishing.
Asijit Datta, Ph.D., is currently working as Assistant Professor and Head of English at The Heritage College, under Calcutta University. He has previously taught at Presidency University, Vidyasagar University, Ramakrishna Mission, Narendrapur, and Bethune College. He completed his Masters in English from Presidency College in 2009, and received his PhD from the Dept. of Film Studies, Jadavpur University, in 2017. His thesis attempted to locate the vanishing subjects in Ingmar Bergman and Samuel Beckett. His academic interests pertain to Posthumanism, Beckett Studies, Modern European Theatre, World Cinema, and Psychoanalysis. He also has several academic papers published on Beckett, Disability studies, and Film criticism in reputed books and national and international journals.
Abstract:
The Posthuman in the Burial Ground: Unraveling the Headless and the Crematorial Kali
Death in ancient societies was not subsumed into linear time but broadened as part of cyclical/seasonal time. Kali’s evolution in Tantric philosophy works in tandem with post-dualistic posthumanism that erases the rigid symbolic distinctions between life and death. Life, both in its cellular form and as living matter/flesh, perpetually undergoes death and decay. While cells wither and regenerate inside, bodies post-death transform into posthuman compost (Haraway/Ferrando).
Kali, as black night, death, all-destroying time, dissolves all forms into the depthless void. As darkness herself, Kali unifies duality, disintegrates colours, and haunts funeral grounds. The form of Kali as Chinnamasta (one with the severed head) balanced over the copulating Rati and Kama and feeding her blood to her companions Dakini and Varnini, is the figure of self-sacrifice, of destruction, detachment and subsuming, and the necessary corollary to the process of creation. Smashana Kali (the dweller of the cremation grounds) represents the death of ego, the burning and return of all that is human to ashes, sky, earth, and space (where the human breaks down into humus/compost). My paper attempts to locate the essence of the non-dual posthuman through Kali’s post-human reduction of humans into dirt and cinders.
Jonathan Kay is an internationally recognized cross-cultural jazz multi-instrumentalist (saxophone, esraj, shakuhachi), hailing from Toronto, Canada. In search of non-western ways of musical knowing, he moved to Kolkata, India, and for 10 years formally studied North Indian Raga music and innovated its expression on the saxophone. Jonathan has also traveled on two occasion to learn Japanese shakuhachi music in Kyoto. Jonathan is a PhD student in the department of East-West Psychology at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco under the mentorship of Dr. Debashish Banerji. He has been studying East-West philosophies of music, which have facilitated a more integral understanding of his contemplative artistic practices.
Abstract:
Becoming-Raga: North Indian Raga Music as a Technology of Integral Posthuman Becoming
This paper will analyze North Indian classical raga music through the lens of Deleuzian metaphysics, and argue that the sonic ritual-space of traditional raga music can be understood as a heterogenous site of becoming in which one enters into transductive exchange between individual, universal and transcendent affective singularities.
I will theorize Raga-space as a plan(e) of composition (transcendence), or organization, and a plan(e) of immanence, or composition, and develop a theory of how Raga sono-genesis can function as a mystico-immanent hermeneutic. From this perspective I will develop thoughts on how this process can be seen as a praxis of developing an integral consciousness, in which through a process-relational aesthetic lens, one can taste (rasa) integral knowledge (vijnana) of the being-in-becoming. This paper necessarily critiques the traditional poise of a Raga connoisseur as a detached consumer of spiritual flavours of rasa, and rather posits an immanent field of becoming in which all participants in the ritual-space can be opened to an aesthetic rupture and mystical encounter with the Being-in-Becoming
Session 2
Keynote:
Ritu Sen Chaudhuri, Ph.D., teaches Sociology at the West Bengal State University. She did her doctoral research from the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. Her interest and expertise traverse the fields of feminist theories, sociological theories, post-modern thought, women in India, and the interfaces of sociology literature and film. She has delivered many lectures at a number of universities and research institutes in national and international conferences. Her publication includes articles on issues concerning women’s writing, women’s movement, feminist theory, Tagorian novels and film texts in academic journals and edited books. Currently, she is working on two book projects. She has recently co-edited a book on Feminist Theory in Bangla.
Abstract:
Some Observations on Feminist Post-Humanism
Panel: Queer Subjects
Abhishek Lakkad, Ph.D., is a movie enthusiast. He received his Ph.D. in Science, Society & Development from the Centre for Studies in Science, Technology & Innovation Policy (CSSTIP) under the School of Social Sciences at the Central University of Gujarat, Gandhinagar. His current research interests include Science Fiction Studies, Film Studies, Science, Technology and Society (STS) Studies, Cultural Studies of Science and Technology (CSST) and Posthuman Studies. His upcoming paper about cyberpunk and posthumanism in Bollywood SF cinema has been adjudged as the winner of the Peter Nicholls Essay Prize 2021. He can be reached at abhishek.lakkad@gmail.com.
Abstract:
Queer Terror! Techno-science and the Heteronormative Nation in Iru Mugan
Posthumanism and transhumanism are concepts that deal with debates regarding the boundaries of human embodiment and subjectivity. This paper will use insights from posthumanism and transhumanism to do a textual analysis of the Indian science fiction (SF) film Iru Mugan (Anand Shankar 2016 Tamil) that depicts its antagonist as a queer-gendered genius scientist who develops a capacity-enhancing drug. This paper hopes to foreground the film’s ambivalence in that India is imagined as a country whose genderqueers can pursue and excel at techno-science, while it also paradoxically promulgates the view that the heterosexual public of India are its authentic citizens for whose welfare and protection the state deploys its techno-scientific establishment. The analysis will also dwell upon the depiction of techno-science in the context of the military-industrial complex – a major motif in the film. The film uses the trope of human enhancement along with the imperative of national security to veil its queerphobic stance. It reasserts heteronormative sexuality as an essence of human life while queer sexuality is precluded as a posthuman/transhuman deviant trait. Overall, this paper aims to highlight an instance where Indian cinema fails to actualise the potential of the SF genre and posthumanist depictions to critique/undermine dominant practices and ideologies.
Jaya Sarkar is pursuing her Ph.D. in Cultural Studies at BITS Pilani (Hyderabad Campus), India. Her proposed thesis examines the aesthetics of the posthuman and disabled bodies, posthumanist literature, hyper-narrative interactive films, and interactive story applications. Her research areas include Posthumanism, Disability Studies, Postmodernism, Feminist Studies, and Digital Humanities. She has edited a book titled Industrial Melanism: An Evolutionary Reverse Swing which was published in April, 2019. Her research article “Reading Hypertext as Cyborg: The Case of Patchwork Girl” is published in the Web of Science and Scopus-indexed Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities.
Abstract:
Indian Supercrip Cyborg: Deconstructing Normativity through Feminist Posthumanism
This paper demonstrates how Indian feminine cyber-identities stands beyond the imaginary identifications and frames of mirrored wholeness and antagonism. In the postcolonial scenario, both the biological and the technological female bodies are categorized as the Other. Consequently, the female cyborg in Haraway and Braidotti’s sense is considered to be a cultural and technological transgressor whose politics is not viewed as a simple mind/body opposition. The aim here is to trace the prominent shift in the ontology of the cyborg and to map out how the female cyborgs assumed the role of the ever-present Other- the oppressed and the exploited servants. Having examined the Cartesian mind-body split and Heidegger’s concept of Dasein, this paper argues that the feminine cyber-identities strive to transcend the embodiment constraints and proceed to their individualism and free will. This is not just liberation of the feminine against the clutches of Western domination, but also that of the cyber-identities against the capitalist society on a whole. Using posthumanism as a framework, this paper demonstrates how the humanist foundations of Western thoughts are transformed in the Indian context by restoring the Other into the process of identity formation. The paper argues how Indian feminine cyber-identities interrogate the historical exceptionalism given to human “man” and critiques the unequal social stratifications privileging few human and nonhuman bodies, modes of being, and knowledge over others.
Envisioning Posthumanist Futures:
Md. Monirul Islam, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of English at Presidency University, Kolkata. He is keenly invested in different trajectories of posthumanist thought, but his special interest lies in exploring the interface between potshumanism and postcolonialism. When it comes to India, he is particularly interested in the issue of colonial anthropocentrism in the policy decisions of the post-colonial Indian governments and its implications for the human and non-human forms of life in the tribal areas.
Samrat Sengupta, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor and Head of the Dept. of English at Sammilani Mahavidyalaya under University of Calcutta. His co-edited volume on Bengali experimental writer Nabarun Bhattacharya titled Nabarun Bhattacharya: Aesthetics and Politics in a World after Ethics has been published this year from Bloomsbury. He has co-edited a special issue of the international journal Sanglap on “Caste in Humanities”. His first Bengali monograph on Pratibader Pathokrom (Syllabi of Resistance) will be published in 2021. His important publication includes a book chapter and a journal article on Technology and Power relating to the philosophy of Bernard Stiegler. He published a couple of articles on human/non-human relationship in the works of the Bengali author Nabarun Bhattacharya.
Francesca Ferrando, Ph.D., teaches Philosophy at NYU-Liberal Studies, New York University. A leading voice in the field of Posthuman Studies and founder of the Global Posthuman Network, she has been the recipient of numerous honors and recognitions, including the Sainati prize with the Acknowledgement of the President of Italy. She has published extensively on these topics; her latest book is Philosophical Posthumanism (Bloomsbury 2019). In the history of TED talks, she was the first speaker to give a talk on the topic of the posthuman. US magazine “Origins” named her among the 100 people making change in the world.
Debashish Banerji, Ph.D. is the Haridas Chaudhuri Professor of Indian Philosophies and Cultures and the Doshi Professor of Asian Art at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), San Francisco. He is also the Program Chair for the East-West Psychology department at CIIS. His academic interests lie in postcolonial, cross-cultural and posthuman approaches to Indian philosophy, psychology and culture. He has authored and edited around ten books and art catalogs on major figures of “the Bengal Renaissance” such as the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, the artist Abanindranath Tagore and the spiritual thinker Sri Aurobindo; on Critical Posthumanism, Yoga Psychology andon a variety of creative and art-related projects. He has curated several exhibitions of Indian and Japanese art and has written and produced a documentary film, Darshan: The Living Art of India (2018).