Contemplative Studies is a recent field that endorses first person and third person views into academic discourse. It encourages "scholar-practitioners." Thus subjectivity is involved along with objectivity at the level of contemplative experience.. ...more

An Introduction to the Course Modernity, Colonialism and Transcultural Hermeneutics, Fall 2021 ...more

Response to Francesca Ferrando's "Philosophical Posthumanism" for the Karl Jaspers Society of North America, April 24, 2021 ...more

Talk given for the Sustainable Societies Conference II: Visions for a Viable Future in a Time of Covid and Climate Calamity organized by the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA on March 19, 2021. ...more

EXCERPT FROM THE ALTERNATE NATION OF ABANINDRANATH TAGORE Debashish Banerji CHAPTER 5 PRACTICES OF COMMUNITY AND THE ALTERNATE NATION Portraits Figure 27 – Portrait of Rabindranath/Abanindranath Tagore (Viswa Bharati Univ.) Abanindranath took to making portraits of friends and family members from an early (pre-Havell) stage of his art practice. These portraits were done mostly in … Continue reading Chapter-5: The Alternate Nation of Abanindranath Tagore ...more

This is a series of reflections on some ideas of darshan and yoga in the writings of Abanindranath Tagore. These reflections aim at extracting from the writings something that can be of use to sadhana — a kind of sadhana that one might call the sadhana of Art. ...more

Some relections on the issue of techno-capitalism and post-human futures. This is a first fragment highlighting Moishe Postone's commentaries on the late writings of Marx. ...more

A continuation of the reflections on Techno-Capitalism as the epistemic regime of modernity and posible post-human futures at the eschatological cusp of history. Here the alignment of Marx and Hegel with the Enlightenment vision/teleology is contemplated and questions asked regarding a comparative alignment with the Neo-Vedantic teleology (if it can be called that) of Sri Aurobindo. ...more

The concluding section on Techno-Capitalism and Post-Human Destinies continues its second installment's reflections on the Omniscience, Omnipotence and Omnipresence presented to us as the emerging destiny of post-Enlightenment Modernity and compares this destination with its appropriation and supercession in the Neo-Vedantic teleology of Sri Aurobindo. What are the differences, dangers and promises of these destinies and what are the conditions for achieving an alternate destination? ...more

The Bauhaus, founded in 1919 at Weimar, Germany by Walter Gropius, was arguably the most influential school of design in modern times, set up in the form of a residential creative community of designers, craftsmen, architects and artists. As part of its central ideal, Water Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus, envisaged a world made up of creative communities united spiritually in and around a materialized soul, which he likened to "a crystal cathedral." Today, Bauhaus influenced architecture is ubiquitous as the symbol of world modernity, but Gropius' dream is far from fulfilled. This article explores the historical dimensions of this ideal, the causes for its failure and the possible conditions for its postmodern manifestation. ...more