Indian Spiritual Traditions and Resistance to Colonial Epistemes
While interest in postcolonialism has spanned a vast number of sub-fields and disciplines such as psychological explorations of resistance, the persistence of colonial topography in post-colonial governmentality, etc. not much attention has been given to the domain of Indian spirituality as an effective counter-discourse to the Colonial epistemic tradition. To vote an example, the problem concerning the Self/Other pedagogical formulation in Western discoursrs is met with an equally equitable pull in the notions of the Self as the latent Other ( 'tattvam asi') in Vedantic thought. I would like to therefore invite abstracts for an edited volume of essays which explore the theme of Politico- spiritual resistance in postcolonial spiritual literatures. The thrust of the essays would include the insistence on reading spirituality as an episteme that embodies political, ethical, and/or social approaches that constantly threaten the attempt at epistemological Selving in Western discourses on Oriental education and pedagogy. Broadly, the themes could be under the following ( though not exhaustive) heads: 1. Spiritual thinkers in the Indian caneon and their responses to Western epistemology 2. Analysis of 'religious' texts as political manifestos in the minor/major canons of postcolonial/ anti-colonial literature 3. Dialogic interventions between Oriental spiritual discourses and Western counterparts in the long 19th c. 4. Religious episteme and it's correspondences with the 'Scientific' episteme vis-a-vis Colonial enterprise We are already in contact with an international publisher. Hope to see the project completed by mid-2023.