The Routledge Companion to Global Comparative Literature , 2023
Pre-publication version of a chapter, forthcoming in Zhang Longxi and Omid Azadibougar eds., The ... more Pre-publication version of a chapter, forthcoming in Zhang Longxi and Omid Azadibougar eds., The Routledge Companion to Global Comparative Literature (2023). It examines the possibilities of literary machine translation, and their bearing on the practice of literary translation and concepts of comparative literature.
Chapter 24 in Zoltán Boldizsár Simon and Lars Deile eds., Historical Understanding: Past, Present... more Chapter 24 in Zoltán Boldizsár Simon and Lars Deile eds., Historical Understanding: Past, Present and Future (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), ISBN 978-1-3501-6861-9
This paper explores the emergence of and policies and practices underpinning ‘social enterprise’... more This paper explores the emergence of and policies and practices underpinning ‘social enterprise’ in Britain: that is, the concept that businesses could provide social services and benefits while returning profits to those who have invested in them. This paper argues that, in Britain, the concept was massaged into existence and adopted as a business and policy model at a particular historical juncture, in the later 1990s and early 2000s. The process involved a careful interweaving of linguistic maneuvers with financial calculations both at the level of specific businesses and at that of political regimes. This process is traced here with reference to a specific organization, the Big Issue, and a particular policy regime, introduced by the New Labour government between 1997 and 2005. For the former, the transition from business activity focused on the Big Issue magazine to brokering activities for the “social enterprise” sector generally is tracked. The New Labour government’s concurrent focus on “social exclusion” and rearticulation of terms denoting sectors providing public services are traced. Thus, light is thrown on the relationship between the strategic terminology deployed at the ground-level of business operations and the top-down level of governmental policy and welfare restructuring in this period.
Brazil under President Bolsonaro is an extreme case of multiple system failures that bring the co... more Brazil under President Bolsonaro is an extreme case of multiple system failures that bring the country to the brink of collapse. It has a tremendous heuristic potential as a prefiguration of what the "post-pandemic world" could be like. It is "good to think with". Experimentally, the article submits current events to a disjuncture analysis that gathers various perspectives and fragments into a literary montage.
Slovenian version of the paper 'The University as Political Site: 1968 and Now', in Med majem '68... more Slovenian version of the paper 'The University as Political Site: 1968 and Now', in Med majem '68 in novembrom '89: Transformacije sveta, literature in teorije (2021), edited by Marko Juvan.
In recent years a number of firms offering political campaigning and fundraising services have cl... more In recent years a number of firms offering political campaigning and fundraising services have claimed that AI is used to maximise the opportunities of their clients. News media have reported on high profile cases where AI capacities have allegedly influenced elections and referendums; publications on the threat posed thereby to democratic procedures are proliferating. This paper take a somewhat sceptical view of such claims. Focusing on the practice of voting events, an argument is presented in six sections. First, the received principles of procedural democracy in relation to voting events are outlined. Second, the kind of services offered by firms ostensibly employing AI capacities are considered. These consist mainly in data mining and targeted message delivery, the means and rationale for which are enumerated. Third, to what extent these services actually involve 'AI'i.e. call upon some degree of autonomous electronic agencyis pondered. Fourth, the ways in which the use of such technological capacities may underpine the tenets of procedural democracy underpinning voting events are raised. Fifth, it is argued that it is unlikely that those tenets are indeed significantly undermined in practice. And sixth, this paper concludes by considering the implications of it being proven that such technological capacities do play a decisive role in voting events.
This article offers a polemical comparison between conceptualizations of the University in the la... more This article offers a polemical comparison between conceptualizations of the University in the late 1960s and now. It has two main sections. The first and more substantial of these sections focuses on the left-wing student movements of the 1960s. These were underpinned by an understanding of the University as a political site: that is, an institutional formation and space structured by the ruling order. As such, the University was considered a locus of social contradictions, and could be occupied, extended and opened up, reformed, performed against the ruling order, and even abandoned or left behind. These different agendas are exemplified by drawing opportunistic lines from May 1968 in Paris to student movements in other contexts – Belgrade, Berlin, Berkeley, Tunis, Beijing, Kolkata – and back. A short section then comments on how the University has fared as a political site since. The entrenchment of managerialism, removal of policy-informing research to non-University centres, and dispersal of the University between material and digital spaces are some of the developments that are noted.
This paper presents some conceptual observations on how the condition of poverty is brought to pu... more This paper presents some conceptual observations on how the condition of poverty is brought to public attention and discussed, i.e. on mediations of poverty. It is proposed that such mediation is largely monopolised by those who are not-poor, though attempts to describe the not-poor as a category call for circumspection. As such, mediations are based on preconceptions which are seldom examined carefully. These preconceptions are dubbed phenomenal bases here, and three are outlined in general terms: poverty as experience, visible poverty, and poverty in abstract. A final section considers 'fear of poverty' as a pervasive idea, and speculates on the possibility of approaching political economy accordingly.
Creative Writing programmes in universities now offer both an education for and employment to lit... more Creative Writing programmes in universities now offer both an education for and employment to literary writers. This papers asks how literary writers apprehend their relatively recently institutionalised position, as university staff and students. The concept of 'patronage', it is argued, offers a useful way into reflecting upon such academic institutionalisation. The argument is presented in three parts. The first outlines some of the conceptual nuances of patronage. The second examines the oft made claim that universities extend patronage to literary writers by enabling employment as Creative Writing staff. The third part engages with a question: what precisely does a student expect to gain from a Creative Writing programme and what does the degree validate? It is suggested that Creative Writing programmes are designed principally to offer supportive patronage, with a promise-but without guarantees-of entry into a financial patronage system. A brief conclusion considers the bearing of these arguments on Creative Writing as a school subject.
This article examines how "resilience" appeared and became embedded as a keyword in Arts Council ... more This article examines how "resilience" appeared and became embedded as a keyword in Arts Council England's (ACE) policy discourse from 2010, initially in response to the financial crisis in Britain and the government's call for austerity. The general dynamic of what we call policy keywords here is thereby exemplified, while throwing light on Arts policy making at a specific historical juncture in Britain. Some of the features of such policy keywords are considered here: in terms of connotative ambiguities and associations, definitions, and naming or branding practices. Their distinctive purchase in ACE's "resilience" policies is analysed in the process. The policies were designed to reduce public spending by appealing to normative agendas which, in this instance, seemed contingent on a larger and immediate impetus and were derived from the field of "ecological economics".
Student protests in Indian universities in 2018; the future of UGC and the Higher Education Fundi... more Student protests in Indian universities in 2018; the future of UGC and the Higher Education Funding Agency's (HEFA) function.
This paper discusses the wider relevance of recent, 2014 and onwards, student protests in Indian ... more This paper discusses the wider relevance of recent, 2014 and onwards, student protests in Indian higher education institutions, with the global neoliberal reorganisation of the sector in mind. The argument is tracked from specific high-profile junctures of student protests toward their grounding in the national/state level situation and then their ultimate bearing on the prevailing global condition. In particular, this paper considers present-day management practices and their relationship with projects to embed conservative and authoritarian norms in the higher education sector.
"The Receptive Field during Socialism through the Case of Zlatyu Boyadzhiev" by Milena Katsarska ... more "The Receptive Field during Socialism through the Case of Zlatyu Boyadzhiev" by Milena Katsarska and Suman Gupta “Slavyanski dialozi”, 24. 2019.
Art history today often applies the already established dichotomy official/unofficial art, which emerged and got consolidated in the dialogic (self)construction between the “two camps” at both sides of the Iron curtain. This process leads to (a) neglecting a large body of art which was celebrated and received official approval within the communist period and (b) simplifying both the complexity of the receptive field during communism and the role which officially endorsed art plays. This text adopts a different approach. It is anchored in the particular and examines closely the reception of Zlatyu Boyadzhiev within a period of several decades.
Trata-se da tradução da conferência de abertura do XXXI Encontro Nacional da ANPOLL, pronunciada ... more Trata-se da tradução da conferência de abertura do XXXI Encontro Nacional da ANPOLL, pronunciada pelo Professor Doutor Suman Gupta (Open University) em 29 de julho de 2016 no Centro de Conferências da Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Gupta discute a herança filológica como horizonte das práticas acadêmicas correntes nos estudos literários, suas transformações e possibilidades de renovação.
Para quienes tienen interés en la docencia y la investigación en el campo de la educación superio... more Para quienes tienen interés en la docencia y la investigación en el campo de la educación superior (es), el discurso del "liderazgo académico" está en todas partes. Al menos eso parece en el Reino Unido: ojear páginas de mercado laboral académico, ver los esquemas de financiación de los consejos de investigación, examinar los documentos de política de gobierno sobre la es, consultar los procedimientos de evalua-ción y promoción en las universidades, considerar las maneras en que se estima la carga de trabajo académico, escuchar las deliberaciones de comités universitarios ...
This Introduction to the ERS special issue on 'Crisis and Race' begins by outlining the general t... more This Introduction to the ERS special issue on 'Crisis and Race' begins by outlining the general theme of this special issue, “Race and Crisis”. It then moves to examine populist right-wing politics from 2015. Of the various ways in which the rise of such politics could be charted in this period, here the “success” of anti-immigrant and anti-E.U. parties in national-level elections is the focus. Success is understood in terms of share of the popular vote at national level, and the appeal of the right-wing parties in question gauged from their manifestos. In particular, manifesto proposals for renegotiating the principles of citizenship are considered, and their implicitly racist underpinnings noted. The final part of the Introduction presents some general observations on coded ways of evoking race and prompting racialization in contemporary political discourse. How the contributions to this special issue deal with that is briefly summarized.
This paper analyses the institutional relationship between Creative Writing and Literary Studies,... more This paper analyses the institutional relationship between Creative Writing and Literary Studies, with their erstwhile close association and current drift towards disciplinary separation in view. It is in three parts. The first outlines some histories of the academic discipline of Creative Writing in the university. The second examines what's involved for Creative Writing in discipline formation in the university, and touches on the role played by professional associations (with a particular emphasis on the case of NAWE in Britain). The third part comments on recent moves towards developing Creative Writing Studies. Creative Writing and Literary Studies
Observations on media framing and on 'austerity' as a one-word framing by way of Conclusion for a... more Observations on media framing and on 'austerity' as a one-word framing by way of Conclusion for a book of essays on Media Representations of Anti-Austerity Protests in Europe.
Philology Vol. 2, 2016, 275-96
The paper examines various approaches to telling the 'story' of th... more Philology Vol. 2, 2016, 275-96 The paper examines various approaches to telling the 'story' of the financial crisis in the EU and USA after 2007/2008. The idea here, however, is not to thereby try to explain the financial crisis but to understand the preconceptions which attach to telling a 'story' – to understand the idea of the 'story' itself. The first section of the paper argues that the financial crisis oers a useful case study to this end, since explaining for the 'ordinary person' and addressing the 'general reader' through stories involved slippages and tensions in this instance. The next section explores such stories in literary, media and academic discourses. The final section makes some consequent inferences on the concept of the 'story', suggesting that it is not adequately grasped through philologically-underpinned – specifically narratological – methods.
Cyprus Review 27: 1, pp.293-310, Summer 2015
There are two sections, threaded around two abstr... more Cyprus Review 27: 1, pp.293-310, Summer 2015
There are two sections, threaded around two abstract nouns in the title: one on ‘financial crisis’ and another on 'media representation’. The latter outlines how the role of the media apropos the financial crisis has been accounted already, but from a relatively unusual perspective: not so much in terms of what media coverage did, but in terms of what analysts of that media coverage have done, or, more generally, by foregrounding some of the underpinning assumptions and methods of Media Studies.
The Routledge Companion to Global Comparative Literature , 2023
Pre-publication version of a chapter, forthcoming in Zhang Longxi and Omid Azadibougar eds., The ... more Pre-publication version of a chapter, forthcoming in Zhang Longxi and Omid Azadibougar eds., The Routledge Companion to Global Comparative Literature (2023). It examines the possibilities of literary machine translation, and their bearing on the practice of literary translation and concepts of comparative literature.
Chapter 24 in Zoltán Boldizsár Simon and Lars Deile eds., Historical Understanding: Past, Present... more Chapter 24 in Zoltán Boldizsár Simon and Lars Deile eds., Historical Understanding: Past, Present and Future (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), ISBN 978-1-3501-6861-9
This paper explores the emergence of and policies and practices underpinning ‘social enterprise’... more This paper explores the emergence of and policies and practices underpinning ‘social enterprise’ in Britain: that is, the concept that businesses could provide social services and benefits while returning profits to those who have invested in them. This paper argues that, in Britain, the concept was massaged into existence and adopted as a business and policy model at a particular historical juncture, in the later 1990s and early 2000s. The process involved a careful interweaving of linguistic maneuvers with financial calculations both at the level of specific businesses and at that of political regimes. This process is traced here with reference to a specific organization, the Big Issue, and a particular policy regime, introduced by the New Labour government between 1997 and 2005. For the former, the transition from business activity focused on the Big Issue magazine to brokering activities for the “social enterprise” sector generally is tracked. The New Labour government’s concurrent focus on “social exclusion” and rearticulation of terms denoting sectors providing public services are traced. Thus, light is thrown on the relationship between the strategic terminology deployed at the ground-level of business operations and the top-down level of governmental policy and welfare restructuring in this period.
Brazil under President Bolsonaro is an extreme case of multiple system failures that bring the co... more Brazil under President Bolsonaro is an extreme case of multiple system failures that bring the country to the brink of collapse. It has a tremendous heuristic potential as a prefiguration of what the "post-pandemic world" could be like. It is "good to think with". Experimentally, the article submits current events to a disjuncture analysis that gathers various perspectives and fragments into a literary montage.
Slovenian version of the paper 'The University as Political Site: 1968 and Now', in Med majem '68... more Slovenian version of the paper 'The University as Political Site: 1968 and Now', in Med majem '68 in novembrom '89: Transformacije sveta, literature in teorije (2021), edited by Marko Juvan.
In recent years a number of firms offering political campaigning and fundraising services have cl... more In recent years a number of firms offering political campaigning and fundraising services have claimed that AI is used to maximise the opportunities of their clients. News media have reported on high profile cases where AI capacities have allegedly influenced elections and referendums; publications on the threat posed thereby to democratic procedures are proliferating. This paper take a somewhat sceptical view of such claims. Focusing on the practice of voting events, an argument is presented in six sections. First, the received principles of procedural democracy in relation to voting events are outlined. Second, the kind of services offered by firms ostensibly employing AI capacities are considered. These consist mainly in data mining and targeted message delivery, the means and rationale for which are enumerated. Third, to what extent these services actually involve 'AI'i.e. call upon some degree of autonomous electronic agencyis pondered. Fourth, the ways in which the use of such technological capacities may underpine the tenets of procedural democracy underpinning voting events are raised. Fifth, it is argued that it is unlikely that those tenets are indeed significantly undermined in practice. And sixth, this paper concludes by considering the implications of it being proven that such technological capacities do play a decisive role in voting events.
This article offers a polemical comparison between conceptualizations of the University in the la... more This article offers a polemical comparison between conceptualizations of the University in the late 1960s and now. It has two main sections. The first and more substantial of these sections focuses on the left-wing student movements of the 1960s. These were underpinned by an understanding of the University as a political site: that is, an institutional formation and space structured by the ruling order. As such, the University was considered a locus of social contradictions, and could be occupied, extended and opened up, reformed, performed against the ruling order, and even abandoned or left behind. These different agendas are exemplified by drawing opportunistic lines from May 1968 in Paris to student movements in other contexts – Belgrade, Berlin, Berkeley, Tunis, Beijing, Kolkata – and back. A short section then comments on how the University has fared as a political site since. The entrenchment of managerialism, removal of policy-informing research to non-University centres, and dispersal of the University between material and digital spaces are some of the developments that are noted.
This paper presents some conceptual observations on how the condition of poverty is brought to pu... more This paper presents some conceptual observations on how the condition of poverty is brought to public attention and discussed, i.e. on mediations of poverty. It is proposed that such mediation is largely monopolised by those who are not-poor, though attempts to describe the not-poor as a category call for circumspection. As such, mediations are based on preconceptions which are seldom examined carefully. These preconceptions are dubbed phenomenal bases here, and three are outlined in general terms: poverty as experience, visible poverty, and poverty in abstract. A final section considers 'fear of poverty' as a pervasive idea, and speculates on the possibility of approaching political economy accordingly.
Creative Writing programmes in universities now offer both an education for and employment to lit... more Creative Writing programmes in universities now offer both an education for and employment to literary writers. This papers asks how literary writers apprehend their relatively recently institutionalised position, as university staff and students. The concept of 'patronage', it is argued, offers a useful way into reflecting upon such academic institutionalisation. The argument is presented in three parts. The first outlines some of the conceptual nuances of patronage. The second examines the oft made claim that universities extend patronage to literary writers by enabling employment as Creative Writing staff. The third part engages with a question: what precisely does a student expect to gain from a Creative Writing programme and what does the degree validate? It is suggested that Creative Writing programmes are designed principally to offer supportive patronage, with a promise-but without guarantees-of entry into a financial patronage system. A brief conclusion considers the bearing of these arguments on Creative Writing as a school subject.
This article examines how "resilience" appeared and became embedded as a keyword in Arts Council ... more This article examines how "resilience" appeared and became embedded as a keyword in Arts Council England's (ACE) policy discourse from 2010, initially in response to the financial crisis in Britain and the government's call for austerity. The general dynamic of what we call policy keywords here is thereby exemplified, while throwing light on Arts policy making at a specific historical juncture in Britain. Some of the features of such policy keywords are considered here: in terms of connotative ambiguities and associations, definitions, and naming or branding practices. Their distinctive purchase in ACE's "resilience" policies is analysed in the process. The policies were designed to reduce public spending by appealing to normative agendas which, in this instance, seemed contingent on a larger and immediate impetus and were derived from the field of "ecological economics".
Student protests in Indian universities in 2018; the future of UGC and the Higher Education Fundi... more Student protests in Indian universities in 2018; the future of UGC and the Higher Education Funding Agency's (HEFA) function.
This paper discusses the wider relevance of recent, 2014 and onwards, student protests in Indian ... more This paper discusses the wider relevance of recent, 2014 and onwards, student protests in Indian higher education institutions, with the global neoliberal reorganisation of the sector in mind. The argument is tracked from specific high-profile junctures of student protests toward their grounding in the national/state level situation and then their ultimate bearing on the prevailing global condition. In particular, this paper considers present-day management practices and their relationship with projects to embed conservative and authoritarian norms in the higher education sector.
"The Receptive Field during Socialism through the Case of Zlatyu Boyadzhiev" by Milena Katsarska ... more "The Receptive Field during Socialism through the Case of Zlatyu Boyadzhiev" by Milena Katsarska and Suman Gupta “Slavyanski dialozi”, 24. 2019.
Art history today often applies the already established dichotomy official/unofficial art, which emerged and got consolidated in the dialogic (self)construction between the “two camps” at both sides of the Iron curtain. This process leads to (a) neglecting a large body of art which was celebrated and received official approval within the communist period and (b) simplifying both the complexity of the receptive field during communism and the role which officially endorsed art plays. This text adopts a different approach. It is anchored in the particular and examines closely the reception of Zlatyu Boyadzhiev within a period of several decades.
Trata-se da tradução da conferência de abertura do XXXI Encontro Nacional da ANPOLL, pronunciada ... more Trata-se da tradução da conferência de abertura do XXXI Encontro Nacional da ANPOLL, pronunciada pelo Professor Doutor Suman Gupta (Open University) em 29 de julho de 2016 no Centro de Conferências da Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Gupta discute a herança filológica como horizonte das práticas acadêmicas correntes nos estudos literários, suas transformações e possibilidades de renovação.
Para quienes tienen interés en la docencia y la investigación en el campo de la educación superio... more Para quienes tienen interés en la docencia y la investigación en el campo de la educación superior (es), el discurso del "liderazgo académico" está en todas partes. Al menos eso parece en el Reino Unido: ojear páginas de mercado laboral académico, ver los esquemas de financiación de los consejos de investigación, examinar los documentos de política de gobierno sobre la es, consultar los procedimientos de evalua-ción y promoción en las universidades, considerar las maneras en que se estima la carga de trabajo académico, escuchar las deliberaciones de comités universitarios ...
This Introduction to the ERS special issue on 'Crisis and Race' begins by outlining the general t... more This Introduction to the ERS special issue on 'Crisis and Race' begins by outlining the general theme of this special issue, “Race and Crisis”. It then moves to examine populist right-wing politics from 2015. Of the various ways in which the rise of such politics could be charted in this period, here the “success” of anti-immigrant and anti-E.U. parties in national-level elections is the focus. Success is understood in terms of share of the popular vote at national level, and the appeal of the right-wing parties in question gauged from their manifestos. In particular, manifesto proposals for renegotiating the principles of citizenship are considered, and their implicitly racist underpinnings noted. The final part of the Introduction presents some general observations on coded ways of evoking race and prompting racialization in contemporary political discourse. How the contributions to this special issue deal with that is briefly summarized.
This paper analyses the institutional relationship between Creative Writing and Literary Studies,... more This paper analyses the institutional relationship between Creative Writing and Literary Studies, with their erstwhile close association and current drift towards disciplinary separation in view. It is in three parts. The first outlines some histories of the academic discipline of Creative Writing in the university. The second examines what's involved for Creative Writing in discipline formation in the university, and touches on the role played by professional associations (with a particular emphasis on the case of NAWE in Britain). The third part comments on recent moves towards developing Creative Writing Studies. Creative Writing and Literary Studies
Observations on media framing and on 'austerity' as a one-word framing by way of Conclusion for a... more Observations on media framing and on 'austerity' as a one-word framing by way of Conclusion for a book of essays on Media Representations of Anti-Austerity Protests in Europe.
Philology Vol. 2, 2016, 275-96
The paper examines various approaches to telling the 'story' of th... more Philology Vol. 2, 2016, 275-96 The paper examines various approaches to telling the 'story' of the financial crisis in the EU and USA after 2007/2008. The idea here, however, is not to thereby try to explain the financial crisis but to understand the preconceptions which attach to telling a 'story' – to understand the idea of the 'story' itself. The first section of the paper argues that the financial crisis oers a useful case study to this end, since explaining for the 'ordinary person' and addressing the 'general reader' through stories involved slippages and tensions in this instance. The next section explores such stories in literary, media and academic discourses. The final section makes some consequent inferences on the concept of the 'story', suggesting that it is not adequately grasped through philologically-underpinned – specifically narratological – methods.
Cyprus Review 27: 1, pp.293-310, Summer 2015
There are two sections, threaded around two abstr... more Cyprus Review 27: 1, pp.293-310, Summer 2015
There are two sections, threaded around two abstract nouns in the title: one on ‘financial crisis’ and another on 'media representation’. The latter outlines how the role of the media apropos the financial crisis has been accounted already, but from a relatively unusual perspective: not so much in terms of what media coverage did, but in terms of what analysts of that media coverage have done, or, more generally, by foregrounding some of the underpinning assumptions and methods of Media Studies.
The Practical Philosophy of AI-Assistants (ISBN 978-1-80061-421-5) presents a formal conversation... more The Practical Philosophy of AI-Assistants (ISBN 978-1-80061-421-5) presents a formal conversation between an AI engineer, Peter, and a humanities researcher, Suman. The book ensures that specialist concepts in AI research are made comprehensible to a humanities researcher, while humanities theories can be easily grasped by an AI engineer.
The authors establish ground rules to design an AI-Assistant, that is, an AI system that could act as a personal friend, consultant and confidante for every individual, to be integrated into our daily lives. These rules apply to four large areas of AI development: recognition and identification, communication, explanation, and civility.
In discussing these areas, this book provides an accessible account of the current state of AI research, as well as adding nuance to the underpinning assumptions informing the relevant technologies, reflecting on their social implications.
First proof of the Introduction uploaded.
Offers extensive discussion of contemporary catchphra... more First proof of the Introduction uploaded.
Offers extensive discussion of contemporary catchphrases like 'new normal' and 'we are the 99%' and catchwords like 'resilience' and 'austerity'.
Presents a history of, roughly, the period 2001-2020, with a focus on important junctures such as 9/11, the 2002 dot-com crash, the 2007-2008 financial crisis, the Occupy movement of 2011-2012 and other subsequent mass protests, and the Covid-19 outbreak.
Covers issues of the moment such as austerity policies and protests, marketization and neoliberalism, flexible working, online education, climate change, populism and political polarization, mass protests, and pandemic responses and restrictions.
Proposes a distinctive approach to contemporary history and a theory of political catchphrases
This book is a collective journal of the COVID-19 pandemic. With first-hand accounts of the pande... more This book is a collective journal of the COVID-19 pandemic. With first-hand accounts of the pandemic as it unfolded, it explores the social and the political through the lens of the outbreak. Featuring contributors located in India, the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Bulgaria, the book presents us with simultaneous multiple histories of our time.
The volume documents the beginning of social distancing and lockdown measures adopted by countries around the world and analyses how these bore upon prevailing social conditions in specific locations. It presents the authors’ personal observations in a lucid conversational style as they reflect on themes such as the reorganization of political debates and issues, the experience of the marginalized, theodicy, government policy responses, and shifts into digital space under lockdown, all of these under an overarching narrative of the healthcare and economic crisis facing the world.
This book engages with the title question: what is artificial intelligence (AI)? Instead of reite... more This book engages with the title question: what is artificial intelligence (AI)? Instead of reiterating received definitions or surveying the field from a disciplinary perspective, the question is engaged here by putting two standpoints into conversation. The standpoints are different in their disciplinary groundings — i.e. technology and the humanities — and also in their approaches — i.e. applied and conceptual. Peter is an AI engineer: his approach is in terms of how to make AI work. Suman is a humanities researcher: his approach is in terms of what people and academics mean when they say 'AI'.
A coherent argument, if not a consensus, develops by putting the two standpoints into conversation. The conversation is presented in 32 short chapters, in turn by Suman and Peter. There are two parts: Part 1, Questioning AI, and Part 2, AI and Government Policy. The first part covers issues such as the meaning of intelligence, automation, evolution, artificial and language. It outlines some of the processes through which these concepts may be technologically grounded as AI. The second part addresses policy considerations that underpin the development of AI and responds to the consequences. Themes taken up here include: rights and responsibilities; data usage and state-level strategies in the USA, UK and China; unemployment and policy futures. ISBN: 978-1-78634-863-0
The phrase ‘Digital India’ here refers to an aspiration for progressive social development throug... more The phrase ‘Digital India’ here refers to an aspiration for progressive social development through technological means, particularly post-2000. Within that broad context, this study explores the ways in which poor people and the condition of being poor are discussed, represented and purposively used in public discourses – that is, in political and policy, legal, commercial, media, and relevant academic debates. Importantly, here that entails constant attention to the expectations pinned on technology – especially digital systems – to better the lot of the poor. This area is addressed by turn from a top-down perspective, in relation to initiatives bearing upon the population generally, and from an on-the-ground perspective, taking in intimate spaces and accounts of lived observations and experiences. For the former, education technology experiments in Indian ‘slums’ and a series of governmental ‘financial inclusion’ initiatives (including PMJDY, Aadhaar and demonetisation) are analysed; for the latter, the status of domestic workers, restructuring of domestic work and the place of technology therein are examined.
Can an individual act of suicide be socially significant, or does it present too many imponderabl... more Can an individual act of suicide be socially significant, or does it present too many imponderable features?
This book examines suicide like no other. Unconcerned with the individual dispositions that lead a person to commit such an act, Usurping Suicide focuses on the reception suicides have produced – their political, social and cultural implications. How does a particular act of suicide enable a collective significance to be attached to it? And what contextual circumstances predispose a politicised public response?
From Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation during regime change in Tunisia to Dimitris Christoulas’s public shooting at a time of increased political upheaval in Greece, and beyond – this remarkable work examines how the individuality of the act of suicide poses a disturbing symbolic conundrum for the dominant liberal order.
This book retraces the formation of modern English Studies by departing from philological scholar... more This book retraces the formation of modern English Studies by departing from philological scholarship along two lines: in terms of institutional histories and in terms of the separation of literary criticism and linguistics. It is argued that the full potential of the discipline’s global scope and pluralistic formation can only be realized by departing further from philology rather than returning to it – and that this is possible only by engaging with philology rather than by forgetting it. Part 1 outlines the complexities and coherent features of philological scholarship. Part 2 examines historical accounts of the discipline’s moves away from philology in several institutional contexts (UK, USA, India, post-1990 EU). Part 3 explores the gradual bifurcation of English linguistics and literary studies, departing concurrently from philology and from each other.
Production and reception patterns in five areas of contemporary Indian publishing are analysed: c... more Production and reception patterns in five areas of contemporary Indian publishing are analysed: commercial fiction in English, vernacular pulp fiction in English translation, Hitler’s Mein Kampf, group discussion guidebooks, and public sector “value education” publications. The methodology is that of bibliographical sociology, which is conceptualised and discussed.
This book examines the status of English Studies in India, aspirations pinned on the subject by s... more This book examines the status of English Studies in India, aspirations pinned on the subject by students, teachers, policy-makers and society in general, and how these are addressed at the higher education level. Sample from the book attached.
‘Contemporary Literature’ is among the most popular areas of literary study but it can be a diffi... more ‘Contemporary Literature’ is among the most popular areas of literary study but it can be a difficult one to define. This book equips readers with the necessary tools to take an analytical and systematic approach to contemporary texts.
An enormous number of literary texts engaged with the build-up towards, undertaking of and afterm... more An enormous number of literary texts engaged with the build-up towards, undertaking of and aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, 2003-2005. This book both provides a survey of such texts and presents a particular critical perspective on them. The idea here is to examine how certain literary texts appeared within and 'spoke' to a specific socio-political context, not merely to reckon with that context but to understand the condition of contemporary literature generally.
Presents an overview of the relationship between globalization studies and literature and literar... more Presents an overview of the relationship between globalization studies and literature and literary studies, and the bearing that they have on each other. It is argued that, while literature has registered globalization processes in relevant ways, there has been a missed articulation between globalization studies and literary studies.
A critique of social constructionist identity politics, and an examination of the institutionaliz... more A critique of social constructionist identity politics, and an examination of the institutionalization of identity politics in literary studies.
Full-text: Examines concepts of democracy in the international/transnational domain from a politi... more Full-text: Examines concepts of democracy in the international/transnational domain from a politically realist perspective, and makes a case study of the rhetoric and policies surrounding the invasion and occupation of Iraq (September 2002-June 2004). ISBN 0-8264-9638-5 (pb)
Full text of first edition (2003): A study of mass market literature, with the Harry Potter books... more Full text of first edition (2003): A study of mass market literature, with the Harry Potter books and films, and the so-called Harry Potter “phenomenon”, as a case study.
The second edition has four additional chapters, covering a world-to-text approach, reception in Bulgaria and China, and fanfiction.
Full text: A close analysis of British and US media reportage on “international terrorism” in the... more Full text: A close analysis of British and US media reportage on “international terrorism” in the three months after 11 September 2001. ISBN 0 7453 1953 X hardback ISBN 0 7453 1952 1 paperback 135pp
Full text: A study of the place of managerialism in contemporary corporate capitalist organizatio... more Full text: A study of the place of managerialism in contemporary corporate capitalist organization, and its evasive philosophical underpinnings.]
A critical introduction to all Naipaul’s published works till 1999, with a particular emphasis on... more A critical introduction to all Naipaul’s published works till 1999, with a particular emphasis on their political underpinnings.
Traces the development of constructions of "intellectuals" in socialist political philosophy, and... more Traces the development of constructions of "intellectuals" in socialist political philosophy, and offers a modest proposal for future socialist transformation.
A book review of On race: 34 conversations in a time of crisis, by George Yancy, Oxford: Oxford U... more A book review of On race: 34 conversations in a time of crisis, by George Yancy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017, 384pp., £22.99, ISBN 9780190498559 In Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2018 https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2018.1520272
Review of Danilo Zolo’s Invoking Humanity, in Capital and Class, Summer 2003, no.80, 205-8. ISSN ... more Review of Danilo Zolo’s Invoking Humanity, in Capital and Class, Summer 2003, no.80, 205-8. ISSN 0309-8168
Review of Michael Sprinkler ed. Ghostly Demarcations, in Capital and Class, June 2002, no.77, pp.... more Review of Michael Sprinkler ed. Ghostly Demarcations, in Capital and Class, June 2002, no.77, pp.156-9. ISSN 0309-8168
Review of Stuart Sim’s Post-Marxism, in Capital and Class, Spring 2003, no.79. 167-70. ISSN 0309-... more Review of Stuart Sim’s Post-Marxism, in Capital and Class, Spring 2003, no.79. 167-70. ISSN 0309-8168
Настоящето издание се осъществява с финансовата подкрепа на Фонд "Научни изследвания" при ПУ "Паи... more Настоящето издание се осъществява с финансовата подкрепа на Фонд "Научни изследвания" при ПУ "Паисий Хилендарски" -договор РНИ-ФЛ-03.
Canadian Review of Comparative Literature / Revue canadienne de littérature comparée, 2015
This special issue of CRCL/RCLC titled “Novel beyond Nation” is devoted to a rethinking of the co... more This special issue of CRCL/RCLC titled “Novel beyond Nation” is devoted to a rethinking of the conjuncture between the nation and the novel in light of the contemporary persistence of the novel despite the rise of identity politics and other post-nationalist types of social bond. The issue will hence welcome papers on any aspect of the history of the novel and/or the nation from the joint rise of the two forms to the current moment of the prevalence of the former despite the crisis of the latter.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: Novel beyond Nation Jernej Habjan
1 Novels before Nations: How Early US Novels Imagined Community Nancy Armstrong and Leonard Tennenhouse
2 Pre-modern Joking Relationships In Modern Europe: From Le Neveu de Rameau to Le Neveu de Lacan Jernej Habjan
3 The Nation Between the Epic and the Novel: France Prešeren’s The Baptism on the Savica As a Compromise “World Text” Marko Juvan
4 Autonomy after Autonomy, or, the Novel beyond Nation: Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 Emilio Sauri
5 The Narrator and the Nation-Builder: Dialect, Dialogue, and Narrative Voice in Minority and Working-Class Fiction Alexander Beecroft
6 Novel, Utopia, Nation: A History of Interdependence Hrvoje Tutek
7 Neomedievalism in Three Contemporary City Novels: Tobar, Adichie, Lee Caren Irr
8 Crisis of the Novel and the Novel of Crisis Suman Gupta
This edited volume explores how the kinds of world-wide restructurings of higher education and re... more This edited volume explores how the kinds of world-wide restructurings of higher education and research work that are underway today have not only increased employment insecurity in academia but may actually be producing unemployment both for those within academia and for graduate job-seekers in other sectors. Recent and current re-organisations of higher education and research work, and re-orientations of academic life (as students, researchers, teachers) generally, which are taking place around the world, achieve exactly the opposite of what they claim: though ostensibly undertaken to facilitate employment, these moves actually produce unemployment both for those within academia and for graduate job-seekers in other sectors.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Notes on Contributors
Introduction Suman, Gupta, Jernej Habjan and Hrvoje Tutek
I THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF HIGHER EDUCATION POLICY INITIATIVES NOW
1 The Implausible Knowledge Triangle of the Western Balkans Danijela Dolenec
2 Human and Inhuman Capital, and Schooling: The Case of Slovenia Primož Krašovec
3 Privatising Minds: New Educational Policies in India P. K. Vijayan
II MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP AGAINST ACADEMIC FREEDOM
4 ‘Academic Leadership’ and the Conditions of Academic Work Richard Allen and Suman Gupta
5 Not Working: Shared Services and the Production of Unemployment Kim Emery
III GENERATION GAPS AND ECONOMIC DEPENDENCY IN ACADEMIC LIFE
6 Graduate Unemployment in Post-haircut Cyprus: Where Have all the Students Gone? Mike Hajimichael
7 ‘Dare to Dare’: Academic Pedagogy in Times of Flattened Hierarchies Ivana Perica
8 Cannibalising the Collegium: The Plight of the Humanities and Social Sciences in the Managerial University George Morgan
9 Between Career Progression and Career Stagnation: Casualisation, Tenure and the Contract of Indefinite Duration in Ireland Mariya Ivancheva and Micheal O’Flynn
IV THE SCOPE OF COLLECTIVE ACTION IN ACADEMIA
10 Are University Struggles Worth Fighting? Branko Bembič
11 You’re Either a Flower in the Dustbin or the Spark that Lights a Fire: On Precarity and Student Protests Mark Bergfeld
12 Whither Critical Scholarship in the Modern University? Critique, Radical Democracy and Counter-Hegemony Cerelia Athanassiou and Jamie Melrose
13 Academics as Workers: From Career Management to Class Analysis and Collective Action Hrvoje Tutek
Over 2013-2014 I had maintained a blog on contemporary Chinese art, entitled Small Notes on Chine... more Over 2013-2014 I had maintained a blog on contemporary Chinese art, entitled Small Notes on Chinese Art 《看画随笔》(https://sumangupta.blog.163.com/). It consisted in brief essays, each analysing a single work of art. The blog continues to be accessible online. However, in 2016 five of the postings were removed by the site’s administrators and I have no way of restoring them. The administrators also deleted the link to the index of postings and adjusted the record on the archive so that it now appears that these postings did not exist. The removed postings are given here.
This blog was kept on the Open University UK server in 2010. It tried to analyse what were then r... more This blog was kept on the Open University UK server in 2010. It tried to analyse what were then relatively new policies in Britain to embed ‘impact’ assessments for publicly funded academic research – of specific projects and in institutionally supported research generally. These policies have since been successfully embedded and it is now taken for granted that measuring the ‘impact’ of academic research and supporting it accordingly is a meaningful exercise. The blog was deleted without being archived in 2014. The postings have been left below as they appeared then (typos, defunct links and all), and are apt to sound a bit other-worldly in these worldly times. There were more postings, now lost.
A series of exchanges with ChatGPT on the theme of violence is presented. As an AI Agent ChatGPT ... more A series of exchanges with ChatGPT on the theme of violence is presented. As an AI Agent ChatGPT is unable to endorse any form of violence but can serve to conceptualise it. Hypothetical scenarios which resonate with contemporary concerns are considered. Apart from correcting some of SG's typos, nothing has been changed. None of ChatGPT’s responses were regenerated. SG has inserted some subheadings for ease of reading.
Linguistics methodology and "fuck" in language corpora, the normalization of "fuck" in everyday l... more Linguistics methodology and "fuck" in language corpora, the normalization of "fuck" in everyday language usage.
In The Brown Envelope Book, edited by Alan Morrison and Kate Jay-R (Caparison 2021), ISBN 978-1-8... more In The Brown Envelope Book, edited by Alan Morrison and Kate Jay-R (Caparison 2021), ISBN 978-1-8384966-0-9
Uploads
Papers by Suman Gupta
developments that are noted.
“Slavyanski dialozi”, 24. 2019.
Art history today often applies the already established dichotomy official/unofficial art, which emerged and got consolidated in the dialogic (self)construction between the “two camps” at both sides of the Iron curtain. This process leads to (a) neglecting a large body of art which was celebrated and received official approval within the communist period and (b) simplifying both the complexity of the receptive field during communism and the role which officially endorsed art plays. This text adopts a different approach. It is anchored in the particular and examines closely the reception of Zlatyu Boyadzhiev within a period of several decades.
The paper examines various approaches to telling the 'story' of the financial crisis in the EU and USA after 2007/2008. The idea here, however, is not to thereby try to explain the financial crisis but to understand the preconceptions which attach to telling a 'story' – to understand the idea of the 'story' itself. The first section of the paper argues that the financial crisis oers a useful case study to this end, since explaining for the 'ordinary person' and addressing the 'general reader' through stories involved slippages and tensions in this instance. The next section explores such stories in literary, media and academic discourses. The final section makes some consequent inferences on the concept of the 'story', suggesting that it is not adequately grasped through philologically-underpinned – specifically narratological – methods.
There are two sections, threaded around two abstract nouns in the title: one on ‘financial crisis’ and another on 'media representation’. The latter outlines how the role of the media apropos the financial crisis has been accounted already, but from a relatively unusual perspective: not so much in terms of what media coverage did, but in terms of what analysts of that media coverage have done, or, more generally, by foregrounding some of the underpinning assumptions and methods of Media Studies.
developments that are noted.
“Slavyanski dialozi”, 24. 2019.
Art history today often applies the already established dichotomy official/unofficial art, which emerged and got consolidated in the dialogic (self)construction between the “two camps” at both sides of the Iron curtain. This process leads to (a) neglecting a large body of art which was celebrated and received official approval within the communist period and (b) simplifying both the complexity of the receptive field during communism and the role which officially endorsed art plays. This text adopts a different approach. It is anchored in the particular and examines closely the reception of Zlatyu Boyadzhiev within a period of several decades.
The paper examines various approaches to telling the 'story' of the financial crisis in the EU and USA after 2007/2008. The idea here, however, is not to thereby try to explain the financial crisis but to understand the preconceptions which attach to telling a 'story' – to understand the idea of the 'story' itself. The first section of the paper argues that the financial crisis oers a useful case study to this end, since explaining for the 'ordinary person' and addressing the 'general reader' through stories involved slippages and tensions in this instance. The next section explores such stories in literary, media and academic discourses. The final section makes some consequent inferences on the concept of the 'story', suggesting that it is not adequately grasped through philologically-underpinned – specifically narratological – methods.
There are two sections, threaded around two abstract nouns in the title: one on ‘financial crisis’ and another on 'media representation’. The latter outlines how the role of the media apropos the financial crisis has been accounted already, but from a relatively unusual perspective: not so much in terms of what media coverage did, but in terms of what analysts of that media coverage have done, or, more generally, by foregrounding some of the underpinning assumptions and methods of Media Studies.
The authors establish ground rules to design an AI-Assistant, that is, an AI system that could act as a personal friend, consultant and confidante for every individual, to be integrated into our daily lives. These rules apply to four large areas of AI development: recognition and identification, communication, explanation, and civility.
In discussing these areas, this book provides an accessible account of the current state of AI research, as well as adding nuance to the underpinning assumptions informing the relevant technologies, reflecting on their social implications.
Offers extensive discussion of contemporary catchphrases like 'new normal' and 'we are the 99%' and catchwords like 'resilience' and 'austerity'.
Presents a history of, roughly, the period 2001-2020, with a focus on important junctures such as 9/11, the 2002 dot-com crash, the 2007-2008 financial crisis, the Occupy movement of 2011-2012 and other subsequent mass protests, and the Covid-19 outbreak.
Covers issues of the moment such as austerity policies and protests, marketization and neoliberalism, flexible working, online education, climate change, populism and political polarization, mass protests, and pandemic responses and restrictions.
Proposes a distinctive approach to contemporary history and a theory of political catchphrases
The volume documents the beginning of social distancing and lockdown measures adopted by countries around the world and analyses how these bore upon prevailing social conditions in specific locations. It presents the authors’ personal observations in a lucid conversational style as they reflect on themes such as the reorganization of political debates and issues, the experience of the marginalized, theodicy, government policy responses, and shifts into digital space under lockdown, all of these under an overarching narrative of the healthcare and economic crisis facing the world.
A coherent argument, if not a consensus, develops by putting the two standpoints into conversation. The conversation is presented in 32 short chapters, in turn by Suman and Peter. There are two parts: Part 1, Questioning AI, and Part 2, AI and Government Policy. The first part covers issues such as the meaning of intelligence, automation, evolution, artificial and language. It outlines some of the processes through which these concepts may be technologically grounded as AI. The second part addresses policy considerations that underpin the development of AI and responds to the consequences. Themes taken up here include: rights and responsibilities; data usage and state-level strategies in the USA, UK and China; unemployment and policy futures.
ISBN: 978-1-78634-863-0
This book examines suicide like no other. Unconcerned with the individual dispositions that lead a person to commit such an act, Usurping Suicide focuses on the reception suicides have produced – their political, social and cultural implications. How does a particular act of suicide enable a collective significance to be attached to it? And what contextual circumstances predispose a politicised public response?
From Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation during regime change in Tunisia to Dimitris Christoulas’s public shooting at a time of increased political upheaval in Greece, and beyond – this remarkable work examines how the individuality of the act of suicide poses a disturbing symbolic conundrum for the dominant liberal order.
ISBN 0-8264-9638-5 (pb)
The second edition has four additional chapters, covering a world-to-text approach, reception in Bulgaria and China, and fanfiction.
ISBN 0 7453 1953 X hardback
ISBN 0 7453 1952 1 paperback
135pp
In Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2018 https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2018.1520272
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: Novel beyond Nation
Jernej Habjan
1 Novels before Nations: How Early US Novels Imagined Community
Nancy Armstrong and Leonard Tennenhouse
2 Pre-modern Joking Relationships In Modern Europe: From Le Neveu de Rameau to Le Neveu de Lacan
Jernej Habjan
3 The Nation Between the Epic and the Novel: France Prešeren’s The Baptism on the Savica As a Compromise “World Text”
Marko Juvan
4 Autonomy after Autonomy, or, the Novel beyond Nation: Roberto Bolaño’s 2666
Emilio Sauri
5 The Narrator and the Nation-Builder: Dialect, Dialogue, and Narrative Voice in Minority and Working-Class Fiction
Alexander Beecroft
6 Novel, Utopia, Nation: A History of Interdependence
Hrvoje Tutek
7 Neomedievalism in Three Contemporary City Novels: Tobar, Adichie, Lee
Caren Irr
8 Crisis of the Novel and the Novel of Crisis
Suman Gupta
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
Suman, Gupta, Jernej Habjan and Hrvoje Tutek
I THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF HIGHER EDUCATION POLICY INITIATIVES NOW
1 The Implausible Knowledge Triangle of the Western Balkans
Danijela Dolenec
2 Human and Inhuman Capital, and Schooling: The Case of Slovenia
Primož Krašovec
3 Privatising Minds: New Educational Policies in India
P. K. Vijayan
II MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP AGAINST ACADEMIC FREEDOM
4 ‘Academic Leadership’ and the Conditions of Academic Work
Richard Allen and Suman Gupta
5 Not Working: Shared Services and the Production of Unemployment
Kim Emery
III GENERATION GAPS AND ECONOMIC DEPENDENCY IN ACADEMIC LIFE
6 Graduate Unemployment in Post-haircut Cyprus: Where Have all the Students Gone?
Mike Hajimichael
7 ‘Dare to Dare’: Academic Pedagogy in Times of Flattened Hierarchies
Ivana Perica
8 Cannibalising the Collegium: The Plight of the Humanities and Social Sciences in the Managerial University
George Morgan
9 Between Career Progression and Career Stagnation: Casualisation, Tenure and the Contract of Indefinite Duration in Ireland
Mariya Ivancheva and Micheal O’Flynn
IV THE SCOPE OF COLLECTIVE ACTION IN ACADEMIA
10 Are University Struggles Worth Fighting?
Branko Bembič
11 You’re Either a Flower in the Dustbin or the Spark that Lights a Fire: On Precarity and Student Protests
Mark Bergfeld
12 Whither Critical Scholarship in the Modern University? Critique, Radical Democracy and Counter-Hegemony
Cerelia Athanassiou and Jamie Melrose
13 Academics as Workers: From Career Management to Class Analysis and Collective Action
Hrvoje Tutek
Index
The removed postings are given here.