Author: Samuel Buchoul

May 10, 2013

The Language of Foreignness – Part 2.1
“India… what a beautiful country.” An awkward situation; the flagrant exposition of one of India’s many calamities before our eyes. My friends are Indians, born in this country and they are its foreground actors as young citizens of the democracy…

May 10, 2013

The Language of Foreignness – Part 2.2
And as for the language, well I don’t know. English is comfortable, or rather, comforting. A foreign language, for the one who always found himself to be the foreigner. The easy foreign language, so foreign that it is even foreign to most people one encounters in India. Funny thing. And foreign to me, indeed. A safe terrain to express my thoughts…

May 10, 2013

The Language of Foreignness – Part 2.3
Spring 2013. The never-ending heat of Manipal has fallen for a few hours. Early evening at End Point Road, for a session of frisbee. The decreasing attendance of our classmates pushed some of us to resort to other players. A community of foreign students from Malaysia comes at an impressive regularity, almost everyday, and seems to end up always very numerous – fifteen, sometimes twenty players…

May 10, 2013

The Language of Foreignness – Part 2.4
Three years in Delhi and another one in South India. Enough Hindi to maintain a two-minute rudimentary discussion, not to mention anything in Kannada besides uttha, neer and illa. If one is to focus on the matter of foreignness and language, one question should be addressed in priority: any language, in a situation of foreignness, is in general an unknown language…

May 10, 2013

The Language of Foreignness – Conclusion
Alain Badiou’s mention of philosophy as foreignness is not an unprepared statement. For the thinker, the foreign is truly a character, if not, the main character, the main aspect, of the philosophical approach: “I think it is very important to understand this: genuine philosophical commitment, in situations, creates a foreignness…”

April 1, 2013

Four Quartets has been considered as one of the major works of the naturalized British poet T.S. Eliot. It represents the later part of his life and creations, where his inspirations and themes reached mystical conclusions, contrasting with the overwhelming and suffocating atmosphere of the Second World War…

March 18, 2013

Foreshadowing is a classical element of tragedy. It generally consists of a character telling the main protagonist, early in the play, of the dramatic events that shall ultimately happen to her…

March 4, 2013

The emergence of Greek philosophy was, for a long time, considered as a sort of uncaused miracle in the history of ancient thought. Views have changed and it is now accepted that philosophy did not come into life from a vacuum: it has certain roots in ancient intellectual and artistic life of Greece…

February 18, 2013

While it is a well-known fact that the whole lifestyle of Ancient Greece was entirely imbued with theological elements, via the importance of the Greek pantheon, it is more rarely clarified that this spiritual life was a very unique type of religion. The understanding and practices revolving around the relations between humans and God was such that calling it a “religion” is in itself a controversy…

February 4, 2013