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“My Swaraj is to keep intact the genius of our civilization. I want to write many new things, but they must all be written on the Indian slate.”
M.K. Gandhi
Led by Vivek Dhareshwar, Indian Slate is a research platform that takes its inspiration from Gandhi’s conviction that research on India could unearth new insights. At a time when in every domain—economics, politics, environment—it is evident that the structures erected on Western thought have brought us face to face with the ever deepening crisis that has made it difficult if not impossible to conceive of how to live, it would be tragic to further neglect what India and its traditions have to offer as an alternative. Developing these insights through courses, seminars and more, Indian Slate hopes to draw in practitioners from a wide range of backgrounds and become a site of inquiry into the different domains of our world – the natural and built environment, politics, art, social structures and organizations, institutions.
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Publications
The Difficulty of Being Heathen: Essays in De-orientalising India
by Ashwin A.P. Kumar and Vivek Dhareshwar
The Difficulty of Being Heathen aims to radically question colonial descriptions of Indian society. It shows how such descriptions are not factual reports about Indian society, but reflections of the Western culture's experience of Indian social realities. Instead of providing knowledge about the society it tries to describe (that is, India), colonial descriptions refer instead to the experience of the culture that does the describing (that is, the West). Creating a new framework for understanding issues relating to history, politics, law, and community formation in India, this volume challenges such colonial descriptions while providing a theory about the structure of the Western experience of Indian society.
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Sites of Learning and Practical Knowledge: Against Normativity
by Vivek Dhareshwar
Part of the Critical Humanities Across Cultures series, this book examines the relationship between cultural difference and practical knowledge and its implications for the study of humanities and the social sciences. It sketches a meta-theory of Western thought to grasp the conceptual distortions that result when a normatively structured theoretical way of understanding the world seeks to displace practical forms of understanding. The book offers an alternative conceptualization of Indian sociality through the idea of a practitional matrix.
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Courses
Explore courses and seminars led by Dr. Vivek Dhareshwar whose work since the 1980s has spanned literary theory and criticism, cultural studies, political theory, and the philosophy of the social sciences. His current research focuses on the idea of a philosophical life and the concepts of Indian thought.
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Courses are designed to engage participants at various levels, from undergraduate students to seasoned academics.
Course 01
Philosophy of Culture
Pre-requisites: None
Duration: 10 weeks (once per week)
Mode: Virtual
Capacity: 8-10 Participants
Next batch to be announced in 2025.
This course introduces you to the issues involved in understanding cultural difference, colonialism and the difference between practical reflection and theoretical understanding.
Course 02
Normativity & Experience
Pre-requisites: Course 01
Duration: 10 weeks (once per week)
Mode: Virtual
Capacity: 8-10 Participants
Using "sexuality" as a point of departure, this course will take the ontological route to figure out the emergence and peculiar status of moral norms and normativity.
Course 03
The Philosophical Life and The Role of Concepts
Pre-requisites: Course 01 and 02
Course brief and schedule will be provided when participants are ready for this level.
Guided Research
For independent/seasoned researchers
Work one-on-one with Vivek to design a customized 3-month-long Independent Study programme and engage in more intensive research.
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Consultation
For universities and institutions
Consult with Vivek on designing alternative curricula to reconceptualize how the humanities and social sciences are taught at your institution at both the graduate and undergraduate level.
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