 |
Rukmini Bhaya Nair is Professor of Linguistics and English at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. She obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 1982. Widely recognized for her work in the areas of linguistics, cognition and literary theory, Nair is to receive a second honoris causa doctoral degree from the University of Antwerp, Belgium, in 2006 for her contributions to international scholarship. She has taught at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, the National University of Singapore and the University of Washington at Seattle, and delivered plenary addresses and invited lectures at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla as well as at many foreign universities. These include Aarhus, Berkeley, Birmingham, Cape Town, Copenhagen, East Anglia, Hangzhou, Linkoping, Los Angeles, Portsmouth, the Max Planck Institute, Nijmegen, Saarbrucken, Sorbonne, SOAS, London, Toronto, Trieste and Xinxiang, China. Her most recent invitation is to be Visiting Professor in the Department of English, Stanford University, a position she has taken up in September 2005. The year 2000 saw Nair selected as a 'Face of the Millennium' in a national survey of writers by India Today. From the time she won, as a student, an Essay Prize in a competition organized by La Stampa, Le Monde, Die Welt and The Times in conjunction with the 'First International Exhibition on Man & his Environment', Turin, Italy, she has also been the recipient of several awards (The J.N. Tata Scholarship, the Hornby and Charles Wallace Awards, the Dorothy Leet Grant etc). Her latest award is a CRASSH fellowship (Centre for Research in the Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences) on the theme 'Conversation' at the University of Cambridge in 2006. Academic books by Nair include Technobrat: Culture in a Cybernetic Classroom (Harper Collins, 1997); Narrative Gravity: Conversation, Cognition, Culture (Oxford University Press, India, 2002 and Routledge, London and New York, 2003); Lying on the Postcolonial Couch: the Idea of Indifference (Minnesota University Press and Oxford University Press, India, 2002); as well as an edited volume, Translation, Text and Theory: the Paradigm of India (Sage, 2002). Nair, who has been called 'the first significant post-modern poet in Indian English' by more that one critic, has published three books of poetry: The Hyoid Bone and The Ayodhya Cantos (Viking Penguin, 1992 and 1999) and, most recently, Yellow Hibiscus (Penguin, December, 2004). In 1990, Nair received the first prize in the All India Poetry Society/ British Council competition. Her work has since appeared in Penguin New Writing in India (1992), in the anthology Mosaic, featuring award-winning writers from the U.K and India (1999), in Reasons for Belonging: Fourteen Contemporary Indian Poets (2002) and a special issue of Poetry International (2004). It has been translated into languages ranging from German, Swedish and Macedonian to Bengali and Hindi. In addition to contributing to all major national dailies and magazines, Nair is a frequent panelist on programs such as Mark Tully's BBC broadcast 'Something Understood'. She is on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Literary Semantics (De Gruyter: Berlin & New York), The Journal of Multicultural Discourses (Multilingual Matters: London and Beijing) and Biblio (New Delhi), as well as The Macmillan Dictionary. A special issue of Biblio on 'Cosmopolitanism and the Nation State', guest-edited by her, appeared in 2002 in conjunction with the International Literary Festival organized by the Indian Council of Cultural Relations. Forthcoming works in 2006-2007 include a study of Salman Rushdie, a book of essays tentatively entitled Poetry in a Time of Terror and a monograph on the psychology of deception. Nair's writings, both creative and critical, are taught on courses at universities such as Chicago, Kent, Oxford and Washington, and she contends that she writes poetry for the same reason that she does research in cognitive linguistics - to discover the limits of language. Her great ambition is simply to continue to write and research, whatever the genre and whatever the odds. Married with two children, she lives in Delhi. Selected Extracts from Reviews of and Pre-publication Comments on Books: LYING ON THE POSTCOLONIAL COUCH: THE IDEA OF INDIFFERENCE (Minnesota University Press & Oxford University Press, India, 2002) The range of the various pieces collected here is remarkable. Under Nair's guidance, we move effortlessly from textual analysisÉto historical frescoes heavy with drama of actuality, to more philosophical considerations cleverly connecting the testimonies of the actors of history and the impeccable logic of the author. Lying on the Postcolonial Couch is a seminal work. Michael Riffaterre, Columbia University An accomplished poet, philosopher of language, cultural historian, and literary critic of great skill, Rukmini Bhaya Nair has wonderfully wide-ranging interests and an altogether unusual intellectual intensity and energy. Lying on the Postcolonial Couch has at its core a powerful account of indifference, but it will leave none of its readers indifferent to its rare intelligence and range.' Stephen Greenblatt, Harvard University Nair's book gives postcolonialism a decent burial and looks forward to Òa new language of communityÓ. It exposes the Ònumbing rituals of colonial and postcolonial indifferenceÓ with a light touch, pausing on postmodern theories on the way. In the wake of 9-11-01, I found the tabulation of Indian students' stereotypes of the United States particularly instructive.' Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Columbia University This is quite literally, an amazing book. Full of spiky intelligence, it is written with verve and color and in a distinctive and convincing voice. Lying on the Postcolonial Couch is consistently persuasive [in its] brilliance and passion. Its voice is distinctive and original [and] will be of great interest to a wide range of academic intellectuals. James C. Edwards, Furman University This book examines canonical texts with Indian imitations and perversions of them and digs deeply in the way in which English Literature, like all literatures, is closely connected to the culture which produced it and how this affected the Anglophiles in India as well as how it affects the subcontinent today. There is startling information on how US literature has formed and suffers from the current Indian stereotypes of the US. Whether you are interested in orientalism or language theory or translation or how British nabobs livedÉ during the Raj, or how 'culture is visualized as a predominantly male domain', you will find this book highly informative from a number of critically popular and essentially geolinguistic perspectives. This book É. on the way in which the colonial trauma needs to be reinvestigated lest its history be forgotten and its impact uninvestigatedÉ is written by a born teacher and you will not find it hard to grasp despite its exotic subject. Leonard R.N. Ashley in Geolinguistics, 2002 Nair has done no less than invent a new way of addressing out discourse in a manner that is neither subservient to the dominant modes prevalent in the West nor reactive in our own half-baked postcolonial manner. In this polyphonous book, Nair is not only the linguist that she was trained to be but also a literary critic, poet and philosopher. She combines all these talents and abilities to produce a scholarship that, far from being indifferent actually excels from at a commitment that is convincing even as it preserves itself from the overly ideological. Nair at her best is confident, erudite, inventive and even exhilaratingÉ Makarand Paranjape in India Today, 2002 Nair's readings of any writer are original and her chapters on translation are philosophically daunting and exemplary. Her account of her own students' attitude towards India and the US are discerning. The world of a Kafkaesque officialdom that she describesÉis a tour de force of how governments efface their citizens. The erudition, imagination, profound interest in humanity and the sheer energy of the prose on display make this a landmark publication. Bhanu Pratap Mehta in Outlook, 2003 Killing her field several times in the course of her profoundly postcolonial work, Rukmini Bhaya Nair self-consciously foregrounds the psychopathy of self-division in her title. Lying on the Postcolonial Couch captures the recurring therapeutic drama of postcolonial disciplinary patricideÉ[but] the analytic couch of this book is not merely harnessed as a figure of theoretical self-parody, retaining at its core the possibility of therapeutic recoveryÉEven in provoking [critical] questions, Nair achieves her end, compelling her readers to think again. This book is serious food for thought. Leela Gandhi in The Economic and Political Weekly of India, 2003 Nair's work is a fascinating intimation of [the] possibilities [of a psychoanalytic critique from the perspective of 'other' cultures and histories], both in its treatment of language and its reconstitution of the necessary subjects and objects of psychoanalytic discourse. Her work suggests that while psychoanalytic concepts such as internalization retain a lot of power as investigative tools, we must include within our definition of 'space' the specifics of location and history. She is particularly interested in delineating some psychic/social processes of postcoloniality. For instance, Nair shows É that Lacanian notions of language as structured by an abstract and universal grammar cannot accommodate the postcolonial understanding of its historical sedimentation. To speak or write in English in contemporary India, for example, entails engagement with multiple sites of Law, including colonialism and its not-always-archaic residuesÉ Whatever might come after postcoloniality cannot be rooted in a freshly excavated, pristine precolonial past. Memory reforms as it restores, and no precolonial re-membering is available. Jane Flax in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 2004. Lying on the Postcolonial Couch is an exhilarating if at times unnerving read. One feels captivated by so mobile an intelligence but bombarded by the sheer amount of evidence collected and exemplars offered. Yet, although Nair loads every rift with exemplary detail, her writing is never dryÉ Scholarly in the most adventurous senseÉ Nair's thought is wittily turnedÉ In tracing the fine links between the Raj and contemporary India, she demonstrates the persistence of colonialism's bad habits, the ways writing both embeds and resists those habits, and the possibility of compassion as well as blindness in human culture. Mark Williams in Canadian Literature: A Quarterly of Criticism and Review, 2004. Rukmini Bhaya, d'une Žtoile ascendante de la pensŽe linguistique et littŽraireÉ L'auteur unique de l'un enseigne au prestigieux mais non humaniste IITD (l'universitŽ de technologie de Delhi), jouit d'une importante notoriŽtŽ littŽraire en Inde et d'une forte mobilitŽ internationale; le ma”tre d'Ïuvre de l'autre appartient au premier monde, il enseigne dans une FacultŽ des Lettres britannique, mais sa notoriŽtŽ reste ˆ ŽtablirÉ L'argument de l'auteur est complexe et convaincant, on ne saurait lui faire justice en tentant de le rŽsumerÉ Toujours est-il que, dans cet ouvrage, Rukmini Bhaya nous montre exemplairement de bout en bout comment le balayage mŽtonymique et analogique en continu d'un vaste corpus discursif n'imposant aucune frontire a priori peut tre prŽcisŽment le procŽdŽ le plus efficace pour repŽrer les lignes de faille et les jeux de r™les, ainsi que les faits structuraux et les opportunitŽs historiques qui permettent ˆ un discours de se faire oublier, de se faire passer pour un autre ou d'en occuper la niche dans le continuum de l'oppression, dans celui du maintien de l'ordre —ou du dŽsordre— et dans celui de l'oppositionÉ En galvanisant des textes toujours dŽjˆ morts par un contact quasiment surrŽaliste (merveilleux) avec des aphorismes qui leur Žtaient totalement imprŽvisibles et qui sont compltement Žtrangers ˆ leur connaissance ou mme ˆ leur simple existence historique, Rukmini Bhaya accomplit autre chose qu'un tour de force ou qu'un miracle forain; autre chose, en plus. Didier Coste in Acta Fabula, 2005 NARRATIVE GRAVITY: CONVERSATION, COGNITION, CULTURE (Oxford University Press, India 2002 and Routledge, 2003) This remarkable book builds on Chomsky's key insight that language provides an inbuilt key to our identity as a symbol using species. To the role of grammar as a cognitive tool enabling us to construct 'selves', Nair adds a second tool in the realm of discourse: narrative. She has a wonderfully subtle account of the psychology of narrative as a 'species of natural theory'. I anticipate that with this book she will be recognised as a major figure. Stephen Greenblatt, Cogan Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University Nair's brilliant study of narrative combines anthropological and sociolinguistic perspectives with cognitive ones to bring out the magical impulses that animate this genre. Michael J. Toolan, Professor of Applied English Linguistics, University of Birmingham, and author of Narrative: A Critical Linguistic Introduction An original and deeply grounded work, which thoroughly explores the major dimensions of narrative and yet provides a theoretical basis in the cognitive sciences, Narrative Gravity is eminently worth the intellectual effort required to read it. Brian McHale, Professor of English, University of Ohio and author of Postmodernist Fiction By liberating utterances from the truth/falsity burden, eliminating distinction between routine conversation and sophisticated narratives, denying differences between ordinary language and literary language, and centring narrative as against the narrator, Naiir has presented a supremely postmodernist perspective. Narrative Gravity is a truly international effort and a path breaking theorisation. It is going to inspire a legion of studies in the interpretation of narratives as cultural texts. Prof. Gurupdesh Singh in The Hindu, 2003. This is a book about language, literature, and cognition written by a poet. What the book thinks through is weighty, and is worn lightly. The story, in Nair, becomes a way for conversation analysis to meet narrative theory, first in her Cambridge dissertation, associated with the redoubtable name of her supervisor Levinson himself, and later, through a remarkably rich and fruitful wait over two decades, in her engagements with the discourses around her. At last, the wait is over. 2002 is as resplendent in Nair's work as 1967 was in Derrida's. Somewhat grandly, we need to learn how to hail Nair as one of the first to transform swords into plough-shares in the world of theory. Professor Probal Dasgupta in The Journal of the Central Institute of the English and Foreign Languages, 2003. The intersections between cognitive science and narrative theory are gaining increasing critical interest, and Rukmini Bhaya Nair's detailed and creative study applies this synthetic methodology to the rhetorical analysis of postcolonialism in the discourse of disaster. Narrative Gravity argues that narrative should be the basic analytic unit of pragmatics and other forms of discourse analysis. Nair engages sociolinguistics, speech act theory, deconstruction, Paul Grice and David Lewis's semantics, and Daniel Dennett's arguments about the narrative illusion of intentionality. She then uses this interdisciplinary theoretical apparatus to uncover constraints in official administrative accounts and resistance in villagers' oral narratives of the West Bengali floods of 1978. )É [Narrative Gravity] is a rich source of material for those interested in the relation between the study of mind and literary narrative. Its synthesis of technical discourse analysis with postcolonial theories of nationalism is novel and exciting. Jonathan Goodwin in Modernism/Modernity, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. In this thought-provoking and stimulating book, the author integrates various theoretical perspectives, such as structural linguistics, speech-act theory, the cooperative principle, relevance theory and conversational analysis, making an admirable effort to demonstrate her view of narrative as a 'species of natural theory'É In sum, Nair's presentation helps in deepening our understanding of narrative and a variety of issues pertaining to it. This excellent text will be of much interest to those concerned with cognitive, anthropological and sociological approaches to the study of narrative. Chaoqun Xie in Language, Volume 80, Number 2, 2004. Cet ouvrageÉ n'est pas seulement une synthse ˆ la fois scientifiquement rigoureuse et novatrice dans son ensemble, il prŽsente l'intŽrt majeur de dŽmontrer par la pratique ˆ quel point le dŽsastreux abandon de la rŽflexion thŽorique fondamentale par presque toute une gŽnŽration de chercheurs dans les annŽes 80 et 90 Žtait motivŽ idŽologiquement plut™t que par l'excessive abstraction et la perte d'objet de la poussŽe mŽtathŽorique. Mme si la visŽe premire de cet ouvrage n'est ni littŽraire ni esthŽtique, on voit ici s'illustrer la productivitŽ d'une approche interdisciplinaire (sŽmiologique, pragmatique, sociologique, cognitiviste, rhŽtorique et philosophique) que l'on pourrait peut-tre tout simplement libeller Ç anthropologie discursive È. Mme Bhaya Nair ajoute que l'un de ses principaux objectifs dans ce livre Žtait de Ç soumettre les positions cognitivistes Ôdures' ˆ une sorte de rverie ˆ la Benjamin, de faon ˆ les rendre accessibles et attrayantes aux littŽraires. È (346) Mission accomplie. Didier Coste, Professor University of Bordeaux and author of Narrative as Communication, in Acta Fabula, 2004. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TECHNOBRAT: CULTURE IN A CYBERNETIC CLASSROOM (Harper Collins, 1997) "Unconventional and path-breakingÉ" Professor R, Narasimhan in Current Science (IISC) "Rukmini Bhaya Nair has provided a brilliantly witty yet remarkably incisive probe into the tensions and sublime confusions ruling the minds of the best students of India in a premier institution – the IITÉ The author deserves to be congratulated for a scintillating, unconventional book" Professor S.K. Chakraborty in Journal of Human Values (IIM). "Nair's account is provocative, stimulating and informative, laced with many pithy observationsÉ Rather than moralizing, these observations bring the anthropologist's eyes to the existential predicament of the higher engineerÉ One of the highlights for STS is the suggestion of a new discipline, epithymetics, which would study linkages between technological production and the articulation of desire within a culture. Overall the book represents a novel approach to technology and culture..." Professor Hans Aant Elsinga in Science, Technology & Society (Sage, 5:1) Technobrat by Rukmini Bhaya Nair is easily one of the most innovative books on education to be published anywhere in the world in recent years.Ó Professor Krishna Kumar in The Hindustan Times POETRY: The Hyoid Bone: Poems (Viking Penguin, 1992) "Rukmini Bhaya Nair's chosen words cannot be replaced by others, which means that the poet functions as a craftsman and not a self-indulgent emotionalist. The freedom of free verse is combined with an impressive formal control." Nissim Ezekiel in The Sunday Times With all its rich allusiveness and multi-layered irony...the only objection one can bring against Nair's poetry is its assumption of the kind of readerly sophistication that is as yet unavailable in our literary cultureÉ Pankaj Mishra in Indian Literature "Miles above the usual run of books of poetry being published today...The dextrous wordplay and deconstructions of Nair's poems notwithstanding, what finally emerges from them is the sense of a trapped meaning that is harrowed and hounded like an animal until finally and only finally, it breaks for open country. She uses words as some folk dancers use sticks, to suggest both confinement and/or open space, depending on how the sticks are angledÉ" Adil Jussawalla in The Illustrated Weekly ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Ayodhya Cantos (Viking Penguin, 1999) "The first significant volume of post-modern poetry written by an Indian is now available. No prizes for guessing the author is Rukmini Bhaya NairÉ For its boldness, its conceptual daring, its crafting and many scintillating imagesÉThe Ayodhya Cantos has emerged as a landmark volume." Keki Daruwalla in Biblio ÒAll told, this is a book of incredible poetic vigour, variety and ingenuity that marks the development of a new stage in the development of Indian poetry in EnglishÉtruly deserves the overworked adjective 'great'.Ó Christopher Levenson in The Toronto Review of World Literature. "It is difficult in a short space to convey Nair's range of sophistication from street-smart to erudite, the depth and flexibility of her poetic tones and languages, key indices of the lived-with intelligence as well as the witty acuity and technical mastery to be found throughout these lyrical yet trenchant poems É If Nissim Ezekiel gave Indian English poetry a model of formal rigor and incisive thought and Jayanta Mahapatra created an imaginative realm fusing immediate sensation and personal meditation, Rukmini Bhaya Nair now shows how both profoundly serious social issues and intimate personal moments can be imaginatively probed through the disciplined exercise of sensitive intelligence, passionate inquiry and unflinchingly open-minded, readily self-critical discernmentÉ Her technical and intellectual mastery of a hitherto unexplored area of poetic possibilities here establishes a new level of achievement for this genre. A new pace-setting level of poetic achievement in India " John Oliver Perry in World Literature Today CONTACT DETAILS: ADDRESS: Professor Rukmini Bhaya Nair PHONES: (91-11-) 26858947 and 26591611 (residence) and 26591365 (direct line, office) HOME PAGE: http://paniit.iitd.ac.in/~rukmini/ |