How About You Do Both?! Go For It!

credit: rookalbis

Essays

Here’s a (non-exhaustive) list of essays I like/find interesting/are food for thought; I’ve tried to sort them as much as possible. The starred (*) ones are those I especially love

also quick note: some of these links, especially the ones that are from books/anthologies redirect you to libgen or scihub, and if that doesn’t work for you, do message me; I’d be happy to send them across!

Literature + Writing

Godot Comes to Sarajevo - Susan Sontag

The Strangeness of Grief - V. S. Naipaul*

Memories of V. S. Naipaul - Paul Theroux*

A Rainy Day with Ruskin Bond - Mayank Austen Soofi

How Albert Camus Faced History - Adam Gopnik

Listen, Bro - Jo Livingstone

Rachel Cusk Gut-Renovates the Novel - Judith Thurman

Lost in Translation: What the First Line of “The Stranger” Should Be - Ryan Bloom

The Duke in His Domain - Truman Capote*

The Cult of Donna Tartt: Themes and Strategies in The Secret History - Ana Rita Catalão Guedes

Never Do That to a Book - Anne Fadiman*

Affecting Anger: Ideologies of Community Mobilisation in Early Hindi Novel - Rohan Chauhan*

Why I Write - George Orwell*

Rimbaud and Patti Smith: Style as Social Deviance - Carrie Jaurès Noland*

Art + Photography (+ Aesthetics)

Looking at War - Susan Sontag*

Love, sex, art, and death - Nan Goldin, David Wojnarowicz

Lyons, Szarkowski, and the Perception of Photography - Anne Wilkes Tucker

The Feminist Critique of Art History - Thalia Gouma-Peterson, Patricia Mathews

In Plato’s Cave - Susan Sontag*

On reproduction of art (Chapter 1, Ways of Seeing) - John Berger*

On nudity and women in art (Chapter 3, Ways of Seeing) - John Berger*

Kalighat Paintings  - Sharmishtha Chaudhuri

Daydreams and Fragments: On How We Retrieve Images From the Past -  Maël Renouard

Arthur Rimbaud: the Aesthetics of Intoxication - Enid Rhodes Peschel

Cities

Tragic Fable of Mumbai Mills - Gyan Prakash

Whose Bandra is it? - Dustin Silgardo*

Timur’s Registan: noblest public square in the world? - Srinath Perur

The first Starbucks coffee shop, Seattle - Colin Marshall*

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai’s iconic railway station - Srinath Perur

From London to Mumbai and Back Again: Gentrification and Public Policy in Comparative Perspective -  Andrew Harris

The Limits of “White Town” in Colonial Calcutta - Swati Chattopadhyay

The Metropolis and Mental Life - Georg Simmel

Colonial Policy and the Culture of Immigration: Citing the Social History of Varanasi - Vinod Kumar, Shiv Narayan

A Caribbean Creole Capital: Kingston, Jamaica - Coln G. Clarke (from Colonial Cities by Robert Ross, Gerard J. Telkamp

The Colonial City and the Post-Colonial World - G. A. de Bruijne

The Nowhere City - Amos Elon*

The Vertical Flâneur: Narratorial Tradecraft in the Colonial Metropolis - Paul K. Saint-Amour

Philosophy

The trolley problem problem - James Wilson

A Brief History of Death - Nir Baram

Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical - John Rawls*

Should Marxists be Interested in Exploitation? - John E. Roemer

The Discomfort You’re Feeling is Grief - Scott Berinato*

The Pandemic and the Crisis of Faith - Makarand Paranjape

If God Is Dead, Your Time is Everything - James Wood

Giving Up on God - Ronald Inglehart

The Limits of Consensual Decision - Douglas Rae*

The Science of “Muddling Through” - Charles Lindblom*

History

The Gruesome History of Eating Corpses as Medicine - Maria Dolan

The History of Loneliness - Jill Lepore*

The Anti-Che - Jay Nordlinger

From Tuskegee to Togo: the Problem of Freedom in the Empire of Cotton - Sven Beckert*

Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism - E. P. Thompson*

All By Myself - Martha Bailey*

The Geographical Pivot of History - H. J. Mackinder

The sea/ocean

Rim of Life - Manu Pillai

Exploring the Indian Ocean as a rich archive of history – above and below the water line - Isabel Hofmeyr, Charne Lavery

‘Piracy’, connectivity and seaborne power in the Middle Ages - Nikolas Jaspert (from The Sea in History)*

The Vikings and their age - Nils Blomkvist (from The Sea in History)*

Mercantile Networks, Port Cities, and “Pirate” States - Roxani Eleni Margariti

Phantom Peril in the Arctic - Robert David English, Morgan Grant Gardner*

Assorted ones on India

A departure from history: Kashmiri Pandits, 1990-2001 - Alexander Evans *

Writing Post-Orientalist Histories of the Third World - Gyan Prakash

Empire: How Colonial India Made Modern Britain - Aditya Mukherjee

Feminism and Nationalism in India, 1917-1947 - Aparna Basu

The Epic Riddle of Dating Ramayana, Mahabharata - Sunaina Kumar*

Caste and Politics: Identity Over System - Dipankar Gupta

Our worldview is Delhi based*

Sports (you’ll have to excuse the fact that it’s only cricket but what can i say, i’m indian)

‘Massa Day Done:’ Cricket as a Catalyst for West Indian Independence: 1950-1962 - John Newman*

Playing for power? rugby, Afrikaner nationalism and masculinity in South Africa, c.1900–70 - Albert Grundlingh

When Cricket Was a Symbol, Not Just a Sport - Baz Dreisinger

Cricket, caste, community, colonialism: the politics of a great game - Ramachandra Guha*

Cricket and Politics in Colonial India - Ramchandra Guha

MS Dhoni: A quiet radical who did it his way*

Music

Brega: Music and Conflict in Urban Brazil - Samuel M. Araújo

Color, Music and Conflict: A Study of Aggression in Trinidad with Reference to the Role of Traditional Music - J. D. Elder

The 1975 - ‘Notes On a Conditional Form’ review - Dan Stubbs*

Life Without Live - Rob Sheffield*

How Britney Spears Changed Pop - Rob Sheffield

Concert for Bangladesh

From “Help!” to “Helping out a Friend”: Imagining South Asia through the Beatles and the Concert for Bangladesh - Samantha Christiansen 

Gender

Clothing Behaviour as Non-verbal Resistance - Diana Crane

The Normalisation of Queer Theory - David M. Halperin

Menstruation and the Holocaust - Jo-Ann Owusu*

Women’s Suffrage the Democratic Peace - Allan Dafoe

Pink and Blue: Coloring Inside the Lines of Gender - Catherine Zuckerman*

Women’s health concerns are dismissed more, studied less - Zoanne Clack

Food

How Food-Obsessed Millennials Shape the Future of Food - Rachel A. Becker (as a non-food obsessed somewhat-millennial, this was interesting)

Colonialism’s effect on how and what we eat - Coral Lee

Tracing Europe’s influence on India’s culinary heritage - Ruth Dsouza Prabhu

Chicken Kiev: the world’s most contested ready-meal*

From Russia with mayo: the story of a Soviet super-salad*

The Politics of Pancakes - Taylor Aucoin*

How Doughnuts Fuelled the American Dream*

Pav from the Nau

A Short History of the Vada Pav - Saira Menezes

Fantasy (mostly just harry potter and lord of the rings)

Purebloods and Mudbloods: Race, Species, and Power (from The Politics of Harry Potter)

Azkaban: Discipline, Punishment, and Human Rights (from The Politics of Harry Potter)*

Good and Evil in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lengendarium - Jyrki Korpua

The Fairy Story: J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis - Colin Duriez (from Tree of Tales)*

Tolkien’s Augustinian Understanding of Good and Evil: Why The Lord of the Rings Is Not Manichean - Ralph Wood (from Tree of Tales)*

Travel

The Hidden Cost of Wildlife Tourism

Chronicles of a Writer’s 1950s Road Trip Across France - Kathleen Phelan

On the Early Women Pioneers of Trail Hiking - Gwenyth Loose

On the Mythologies of the Himalaya Mountains - Ed Douglas*

More random assorted ones

The cosmos from the wheelchair (The Economist obituaries)*

In El Salvador - Joan Didion

Scientists are unravelling the mystery of pain - Yudhijit Banerjee

Notes on Nationalism - George Orwell

Politics and the English Language - George Orwell*

What Do the Humanities Do in a Crisis? - Agnes Callard*

The Politics of Joker - Kyle Smith

Sushant Singh Rajput: The outsider - Uday Bhatia*

Credibility and Mystery - John Berger

happy reading :)

Lmao! 😂

Irene: [tries to create a sense of calm by lighting incense, only to find out that the sticks were actually sparklers]

Irene: This is actually painfully on-brand for me.

GUYS LISTEN UP RIGHT NOW

This is a one note one hour post for one of my best friends @smolanxiouscatvoid. They are such an amazing and lovely person and I don’t want to lose them. They mean a lot to me, and a lot of other people as well.

You can only put:

1 reblog, 1 like and 10 comments every 24 hrs.

Please don’t break these rules I want them to know how genuine this is ok?

I repeat, don’t break the rules.

@therealbeesechurger @thorneedsahug @the-fire-is-shooting-at-us @sociophobia459 @x-pan-nicked-pansexual-x @thehugwizard @that-bi-bliophile @im-a-dragon-cawcaw @that0n3teen

Remus and Lily had the best friendship and nothing can change my mind

Lmao! You are garnering a reputation.

Hiya, could you do having seen you dance I know you have no feet (I’ve not got that completely right but can’t remember the exact phrasing, I know I’d be terrible with the Language, I’d say one thing inaccurately and get engulfed in an avalanche, swiftly followed by a tsunami) for Irene and Kai, please?

If I had The Language I’d probably get punished for the amount of Fuck bombs that I drop.

“Having seen you dance, I know you have no feet.” Kai said to Irene, leaning over to mutter to her, their arms linked. “Or I would ask you for a dance.”

“When did you ever see me dance?”

“Russia.” Kai said as they continued to circulate the room. “You stood on Alberich’s toes.” Irene supressed her shudder of disgust.

“Has it passed your mind that I may have done that on purpose?” She asked. “Why wouldn’t I stand on his feet when given the opportunity. Petty victories, Kai. Petty victories.” She smiled up at him, and he smiled back. “I will have you know that I am a wonderful dancer, however, you shall never find that out.”

“Please, may I have your hand for the next dance?” Irene slipped her arm out of his and took a few steps toward the bar.

“Sorry, I don’t have any feet. And I need a drink if I have to be here for much longer.” She replied before hedging her way through the groups of people, leaving Kai chuckling and shaking his head.

He caught up with her as she caught the attention of a bartender. “Whiskey, neat, please.” She asked.

“I’ll have the same.” Kai said with a nod, perching on the stool next to her. “So, this contact of yours.” Irene touched her earlobe, toying with the small scar that had been a lobe piercing.

“Our friend hasn’t arrived yet.” She shrugged and paid for their drinks. He gently bumped the rim of his glass against hers before they both took a sip. It was smooth and made their mouths burn a little bit. Irene left a faint lipstick smudge on our glass. “We shouldn’t be waiting too much longer.”

“I told you not to wear high heels.” He muttered, more to the whiskey than to her, then in brighter tones. “Well, good whiskey, women and the music isn’t half bad, I don’t mind the wait around.”

“Where are these women?” Irene said with a frown as she surveyed the room. “I haven’t been on a date for years and would not complain.” Kai looked at her before sighing.

“I was talking about you.” He said softly. “I know you are going to say no, that we shouldn’t, not that we can’t mind you. I know that it isn’t against the rules. I have checked, before you try to suggest that.”

“Kai, I don’t want to keep having this conversation, it’s tiring. It isn’t against any official rules, but it is against mine. You are my friend, let that be enough, please. For both of our sakes.” She sighed and listened to the ice in her glass. “Go and find one of the other women who’ll be happy to go- no, go home with them, not back to our house please, someone who’ll say yes, so that you don’t keep wasting your time on one hundred and one no’s.”

Kai sadly smiled. “I’d rather be rejected one hundred and one times, than get a yes from someone that I could never care for.” He got up though. “I’m going to get some fresh air, I won’t be long. Don’t move, especially if your contact makes… contact.” He cringed a little.

“Alright, stay safe.” He took his drink.

“You too.”

🌈🌈 some ancient lesbian ladies (lesbian, as from the island of lesbos. also lesbian as in gay)

OTP prompt 19 for Froststorm because I'm feeling sappy

“When I’m with you, nothing else matters.” Everything that could have gone wrong had done.

Neither of them liked hot weather, so when they’d left and felt the beginnings of a very warm day they werent too happy about it. By mid day both of them were uncomfortable and wished to be back inside of the nicely air conditioned apartmet.

There’d been a mix up with their lunches and it had taken over an hour for them to actually get what they’d ordered, by which time both were a little annoyed and very hungry.

Then the cab driver had got horrendously lost, Li Ming had thought that they were being kidnapped and about to pull his gun out when the driver managed to find his way back to the main road and he could relax a little more.

“Well.” Ao Shun said, running a hand through his hair. “That was an absolute nightmare.”

“Agreed.” Li Ming locked the door and quickly checked the security system. The flat had guards but that didn’t stop his paranoia from forcing him to sweep the place, and then cycle through all of the serveilance videos until he was satisfied with their safety. By which point, Ao Shun was impatiently tapping his foot, waiting with glasses of chilled white wine.

“Finally.” Ao Shun said, passing him the wine. “You are paranoid.”

“And you are far too relaxed.” Li Ming rolled his shoulders and pouted at the sensation of the cotton of his shirt sticking to sweaty skin. “I need a cold shower.”

“Do you need help with that?” Ao Shun nearly managed a cheeky  smirk.

“Yes.” Li Ming said in deadpan, making Ao Shun choke on his wine. “Sorry, did you expect me to be the embarrassed one?”

“I’m calling your bluff.” Li Ming set his wine glass down and started toward the master bathroom, already working on the buttons of his shirt. “Ming?”

“Call it, your majesty.” Li Ming dropped the shirt to the floor. “I’m waiting.”

Yeah, Irene gets up to a lot of shenanigans.

Irene: Do you think all of my wanted posters are for petty theft?

Irene: [Several stolen books fall from her jacket]

Irene:

Irene: Well, that’s part of it.

Perhaps. A lady never tells.

Vale: We’re not gonna burn it

Irene: C'mon dude, you never let me burn anything