“It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough — it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.” - Steve Jobs The necessity of the Humanities in the digital age has become a topic of intense debate among policymakers and academicians worldwide. Regrettably, many of these discussions have found more reasons to sideline Humanities and favour STEM subjects. This trend has led to a decline in the disciplines' popularity in higher education institutions, leading to significant cut in the financial support for Humanities programmes.  The social perception that mostly celebrates rather than laments the decline of Humanities is a reflection of a distorted idea of knowledge. Seen through the neoliberal lens, it is the market economy that analyse the (ir)relevance of any episteme in the contemporary world. Neoliberalism adopts a "technical rationalist approach" towards education leading to its c...

Critical theories aren’t dry puzzles meant to confuse—they’re vibrant, living ideas, more like juicy stems than hard nuts. When approached with curiosity and the right tools, they can nourish the mind and open up exciting new ways of seeing the world. Critical theories are largely seen as intellectual labyrinths, as challenging to navigate as the intricacies of rocket science. A core paper invariantly offered in courses on Literary Studies, most of the students and even teachers have a hard time grappling with the discussions under its purview. The very reason for the inclusion of Critical theories -  the strengthening of Humanities perspectives - fails miserably when approached as an intellectual burden that cannot be wished away. Most of my teaching assignments since the past 8 years have included texts from Critical theories for postgraduate students. These seven years of teaching theories have been a learning experience to identify the reasons for the skewed perceptions on theo...

Critical theories are largely seen as intellectual labyrinths, as challenging to navigate as the intricacies of rocket science. A core paper invariantly offered in courses on Literary Studies, most of the students and even teachers have a hard time grappling with the discussions under its purview. The very reason for the inclusion of Critical theories -  the strengthening of Humanities perspectives - fails miserably when approached as an intellectual burden that cannot be wished away. Most of my teaching assignments since the past 7 years have included texts from Critical theories for postgraduate students. These seven years of teaching theories have been a learning experience to identify the reasons for the skewed perceptions on theories held by many students and teachers. I have also been informed by the regular discussions I continue to have with my guide and mentor, Prof. G. S. Jayasree  who introduced Literary theories at the Institute of English in 1995 and moulded the c...

The idea of life/death as defined in the analog world is getting complicated in this digital age. As netizens, our everyday life is immersed in diverse forms of digital acts that by and large leave a digital footprint until and unless the traces of our digital lives are erased forever through deliberate human intervention or collapse of technology.  In this era of hyper-digitalization, we’re not just living our biological lives; we're also crafting algorithmic versions of ourselves, day by day, in the digital realm. "When we encounter the dead through their left-behind data - what researchers call 'digital remains' - we are not merely facing a symbolic mask but a lifetime of data, an informational corpse."  We must sharpen our awareness of how we manage our digital selves to guard against the risks of data manipulation, digital theft, and breaches of privacy in the online world.  Together with being critically cautious about what we post, comment, like or s...