@catship Ah interesting. I saw it advertised before and was like "that could go badly" when I read the description.
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Checking this out! I don't read fast but I am consistent :D
For work I read a lot of scientific papers so sadly I don't have too much energy to come home and read much of the political stuff that is still on my wish list. So there will probably be quite a lot of (science) fiction ...
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Verglas wants to read Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique by Sa'ed Atshan
Verglas started reading Black Sun by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
Verglas started reading Hindutva and Dalits by Anand Teltumbde
Hindutva and Dalits by Anand Teltumbde
Contributed articles; with reference to India.
Verglas finished reading H-Pop: The Secretive World of Hindutva Pop Stars by Kunal Purohit
Finished the book. The final person out of three is Sandeep Deo who is a former journalist who started his own ethno-religious-nationalist publishing house and ecommerce platform. There is less in his section about him as a person than the other sections but that may be due to comparatively less exposure. What is discussed is how his story progresses from support of (the already very rightwing) leading BJP & Modi toward more and more Hindutva fringe people, first inside the BJP and then also outside of it. It was as interesting from a political perspective (as someone not from India) as the first two parts but the writing style definitely changed, perhaps because access to people around Sandeep was different than to the people around the other two.
You could criticize the book for it's style since it is quite different to most research books into extreme right political people. …
Finished the book. The final person out of three is Sandeep Deo who is a former journalist who started his own ethno-religious-nationalist publishing house and ecommerce platform. There is less in his section about him as a person than the other sections but that may be due to comparatively less exposure. What is discussed is how his story progresses from support of (the already very rightwing) leading BJP & Modi toward more and more Hindutva fringe people, first inside the BJP and then also outside of it. It was as interesting from a political perspective (as someone not from India) as the first two parts but the writing style definitely changed, perhaps because access to people around Sandeep was different than to the people around the other two.
You could criticize the book for it's style since it is quite different to most research books into extreme right political people. I also always wonder about the ethics of spending the amount of time required inside these extreme right spaces and telling such stories about people's private lives could act/be misused as a form of promotion.
Having said that, from the perspective of a non-local this really feels like a small window into what drives the extreme right in India, in which areas it is prevalent, and how it compares (the author investigates parallels with several places elsewhere where similar rhetoric had genocidal consequences) and I am happy I read it. The book is also fully referenced and has a long list of sources at the back.
Verglas commented on H-Pop: The Secretive World of Hindutva Pop Stars by Kunal Purohit
So far I am really enjoying this book and I am learning a lot. It is different than I expected, focusing not just on the spread of extreme right wing Hindutva through popular music (via youtube and live performance), but also on popular poetry (via kavi sammelans, public poetry events). The book will also discuss journalism/youtube influencing but have not reached that part yet.
The style (which was the surprising thing) is that each of the three topics are told through a prominent individual within that movement, respectively Kavi Singh (and her adoptive father), Kamal Agney, and Sandeep Deo. The author has clearly spent a lot of time with them and spoken to the people around them but does so while fully contextualising their ideas in terms of disinformation.
The book is well researched, the author has very obviously put a lot of time into it and I am enjoying …
So far I am really enjoying this book and I am learning a lot. It is different than I expected, focusing not just on the spread of extreme right wing Hindutva through popular music (via youtube and live performance), but also on popular poetry (via kavi sammelans, public poetry events). The book will also discuss journalism/youtube influencing but have not reached that part yet.
The style (which was the surprising thing) is that each of the three topics are told through a prominent individual within that movement, respectively Kavi Singh (and her adoptive father), Kamal Agney, and Sandeep Deo. The author has clearly spent a lot of time with them and spoken to the people around them but does so while fully contextualising their ideas in terms of disinformation.
The book is well researched, the author has very obviously put a lot of time into it and I am enjoying the style in which is was written. The author uses a lot of Hindi terms, lyrics and poetry samples (in Latin script), each of which is carefully translated, to give the reader an idea of the sounds of the words chosen which I think really adds to the reading experience and somehow makes a lot of it feel much more proximal or intimate than it would have had the text been more 'sterile'.
Verglas started reading H-Pop: The Secretive World of Hindutva Pop Stars by Kunal Purohit
H-Pop: The Secretive World of Hindutva Pop Stars by Kunal Purohit
"Can a song trigger a murder? Can a poem spark a riot? Can a book divide a people? Away from …
Verglas stopped reading
The passion of new Eve by Angela Carter
The Passion of New Eve is a novel by Angela Carter, first published in 1977. The book is set in …
Verglas finished reading Wees onzichtbaar by Murat Isik
Verglas reviewed Wees onzichtbaar by Murat Isik
Coming of age in the Bijlmermeer
4 stars
This is a coming of age story about a Zaza (Eastern Anatolian culture) child in the Netherlands tackling the intricacies of having an immigrant background and an abusive father in a poverty stricken neighbourhood during the late 80s early 90s heroin crisis. And yes, it's as dire as it sounds but simultaneously, it is just so nice to read a book about this neighbourhood where I also lived at that time (though in much better circumstances than the main character) which highlights the good with the bad -and- lays the blame where it's supposed to be, with the government who let the area down from its inception, rather than placing it (like all the media did at the time) with the residents. Much love for this book for that reason.
Verglas wants to read The Art of Not Being Governed by James C. Scott
The Art of Not Being Governed by James C. Scott
James Scott, recognized worldwide as an eminent authority in Southeast Asian, peasant, and agrarian studies, tells the story of the …
Verglas wants to read Disillusioned by Benjamin Herold
Recommended to me through this video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRTu2Su6HKI&t=29
Very interesting.
Verglas wants to read Tale of Genji (Tuttle Classics) by Murasaki Shikibu
Tale of Genji (Tuttle Classics) by Murasaki Shikibu
The most famous work of Japanese literature and the world's first novel—written a thousand years ago and one of the …