Newsletter December 2015

December, décembre, des cendres, ashes. Remnants of a year, raw material for new beginnings. 2016, finally, spiral-like hopes: each of the times, every time anew, every time alike, and still distinct, always.
2015, year of clashes and alliances, overlapping and aligning, cosmic lures for each self onto the -isms of pessimus and relatus. Are we living the same year, again and again ?
Looping onto itself, 2015 and France, common denominators for my flinging critical creations, creaticals, meeting points of a soul with history: ignition of a destiny.
Stuttering time — this repeating year had already rehearsed over twenty times, to concur inner and outer growth and turn the tap of sap and blood through my new-age quill.
New abstracted battlefields of our world-events, offered an inner truce, tuning old sensibilities to awaited foresights: Charlie’s Face turns and looks, Around our Corner. Directionless, the ouroboros is set.

Samuel

charlie for samvriti

Charlie’s Face    |    Le Visage de Charlie
Terrorism, Charlie Hebdo, Islamic State, Levinas
jan 2015

EN

National mourning, stuttering media, flags at half-mast and unprecedented millions over hundreds of silent solidarity walks. France has been hit, where it hurts. And even its remotest members, overconfident of their patriotic detachment, must acknowledge how lively its running nerves still remain – I, too, was and am shocked…

FR

Deuil national, bégaiements médiatiques, drapeaux en berne et millions sans précédents pour des centaines de marches solidaires silencieuses. La France a été touchée, où ça fait mal. Et même ses membres les plus éloignés, volontiers confidents de leurs détachements patriotiques, doivent reconnaitre à quel point ses nerfs restent vifs – moi aussi, j’étais et je suis choqué…

Around our Corner | Aux tournants des angles droits

Around our Corner    |    Aux tournants de nos angles droits
Alain Daniélou, Terrorism, Kali Yuga, Cyclical Time, Linear Time
dec 2015

EN

A moment is not intrinsically longer or shorter than a century, except in relation to an element of consciousness by which it is possible to establish its direction and measure its duration… Yet human time is the only unit of measure that we can understand.

– Alain Daniélou

FR

Un moment n’est pas intrinsèquement plus long ou plus court qu’un siècle, sauf s’il est mis en relation avec un élément de conscience par lequel il est possible d’établir sa direction et de mesurer sa durée … Et pourtant, le temps humain est la seule unité de mesure que nous comprenons.

– Alain Daniélou

Two Frenchmen in the Orient

Orientalism, Flaubert, Indiana Sam, India, Egypt, Blog, Journal

may 2013 series

There was everywhere amongst Orientalists the ambition to formulate their discoveries, experiences, and insights…

– Edward Said, Orientalism

Two Frenchmen in the Orient The Writing Traveler
Two Frenchmen in the Orient The Writing Traveler
Imagining the Locals On the Aesthetics of Despair
Imagining the Locals On the Aesthetics of Despair
Genealogy of a Temptation Ethical Adventures of an Evolutionary Theorist
Genealogy of a Temptation Ethical Adventures of an Evolutionary Theorist
Ashis Nandy, Savarkar,
Nationalism

oct 2013

Evolution Theory, Elliott Sober, Sociobiology, Altruism

jan 2014

“Ultimately, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar is the name of a blown-up, grotesque temptation…” (Ashis Nandy). Ashis Nandy’s words on the “father of Hindutva” are severe and unambiguous. Savarkar represents, according to the famous Indian critic, an age-old desire found in emerging countries, to model a fantasized nationalist identity as replica of unquestioned western symbols…

“How does it matter to us?” seems to be the logical conclusion for a number of intellectual explorations. A conceptual construction or a scientific elaboration would then have their raison d’être in their capacity for implying a set of conclusions bringing a benefit … Addressing evolution theory, Elliott Sober brings this assumption to its most ambitious edge…

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