Sikholars Conference – this weekend!
As previously announced, the Sikholars: Sikh Graduate Student Conference is OPEN to the general public. All members of the public are cordially welcome and invited to attend the conference.
The conference will be held at the Cypress Lounge in the Tressider Union on the Stanford University Campus. Directions can be found here.
The schedule for SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20th, 2010 is as follows:
9:00-10:00am – Welcome and Introductions
10:00-12:00pm – Beneath the Surface (Erik Resly, Iqbal Kaur Gill, Kamal Kaur Arora) Resp: Puneet Kaur
12:00-12:45pm – Lunch
12:45-2:45pm – Locality: Past and Present (Mette Bach, Bandana Kaur, Preet Kaur) Resp: Naindeep Singh
2:45-3:00pm – Break
3:00-5:30pm – Beyond Borders (Ajeet Matharu, Harjant Gill, Arvinder Kang, Mandeep Kaur) Resp: Rahuldeep Singh
5:30-5:55pm Open Discussion
5:55-6pm – Closing Comments
6pm – Stanford SSA Event
Abstracts can be viewed here. Hope those in the Bay Area can attend!
6 Responses to “Sikholars Conference – this weekend!”
I am wary of using post-modern techniques to analyze Gurubani or associated material.
Post-modernism is a hegemonic way of thinking that supposes itself not so, which if adopted as a way to assess Gurubani acts to limit rather than expand ways of thinking.
Perhaps in the context in which it developed, Europe after World War II it provided new insight, and here I think it did so. But it is an imitation of the profound ways of thinking as in Gurubani.
Just one example is the idea that one can think and think but the (Being beyond descriptions) generates what will.
Akin to all that is lost when Gurubani is translated in a King James style of English, using Post-modernism to translate Gurubani will also result in similiar loss of meanings.
Post-modernism only gestures as this kind of thought, and that hundreds of years after Gurubani and that in the context of supposing to bring fresh insight.
Simply the idea that within Gurubani is the unstruck melody of Divine is almost more than post-modernism is capable of describing in its most sophisticated moments, and that also with a language obscure to all but the most dedicated initiate.
Gurubani can speak to a person who is barely or not literate in ways more profound than those using post-modern desscriptions can using language that the vast majority of it's readers can not hope to follow.
As a test, read Derrida and then Gurubani and find the difference.
I am wary of using post-modern techniques to analyze Gurubani or associated material.
Post-modernism is a hegemonic way of thinking that supposes itself not so, which if adopted as a way to assess Gurubani acts to limit rather than expand ways of thinking.
Perhaps in the context in which it developed, Europe after World War II it provided new insight, and here I think it did so. But it is an imitation of the profound ways of thinking as in Gurubani.
Just one example is the idea that one can think and think but the (Being beyond descriptions) generates what will.
Akin to all that is lost when Gurubani is translated in a King James style of English, using Post-modernism to translate Gurubani will also result in similiar loss of meanings.
Post-modernism only gestures as this kind of thought, and that hundreds of years after Gurubani and that in the context of supposing to bring fresh insight.
Simply the idea that within Gurubani is the unstruck melody of Divine is almost more than post-modernism is capable of describing in its most sophisticated moments, and that also with a language obscure to all but the most dedicated initiate.
Gurubani can speak to a person who is barely or not literate in ways more profound than those using post-modern desscriptions can using language that the vast majority of it's readers can not hope to follow.
As a test, read Derrida and then Gurubani and find the difference.
And also reflect that post-modernism is used to bring supposed new insight into the tradition of Gurubani.
That in itself is a fantastic reversal. It's like the flea on the back of the elephant supposing to describe the totality of the elephant. An almost fantastic level of presumption.
And also reflect that post-modernism is used to bring supposed new insight into the tradition of Gurubani.
That in itself is a fantastic reversal. It's like the flea on the back of the elephant supposing to describe the totality of the elephant. An almost fantastic level of presumption.
I am writing by the way as someone who finds Derrida wonderful, as a means at generating insights regarding to that which it was reacting to in Western Philosophical traditions.
Derrida is trying to describe part of the unstruck melody, and look a the contortions of language required. Compare with that with the language and myriad ways of thinking, and ways of being beyond thought expressed in Gurubani.
Apologies for the multiple posts on one subject. Please edit into one post if that would be better.
I am writing by the way as someone who finds Derrida wonderful, as a means at generating insights regarding to that which it was reacting to in Western Philosophical traditions.
Derrida is trying to describe part of the unstruck melody, and look a the contortions of language required. Compare with that with the language and myriad ways of thinking, and ways of being beyond thought expressed in Gurubani.
Apologies for the multiple posts on one subject. Please edit into one post if that would be better.