Category: Published Writing

Writing published elsewhere.

The Joao-Roque Literary Journal: Garcia da Orta: India’s Original Antiquarian

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“While we know Orta today as a man for his medica materia, I would like to push for his recognition as an early antiquarian — probably the first European antiquarian in India. As Markham points out in his critical edition, it is almost certain that Orta was the earliest European visitor to Elephanta Islands. Throughout Colóquios, Orta goes on various escapades, his digressions encompass Indian politics, the Luso–Spanish rivalry in the Spice Islands, and the significance of China, apart from anecdotes on elephants, cobras, and mongoose. Orta’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the world around him extended far beyond the world of medicine; as a Renaissance man, the first proof of his credentials lie within the dialogue format of Colóquios which assumes the classical style of philosophy — dialogues between pupil and teacher, where Dr. Ruano is the student, and Orta the teacher.

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The legacy that da Orta left behind is multifaceted. It is unfortunate that da Orta has been all but forgotten today, especially in Goa and Bombay. A historian, ethnographer, botanist, physician, and antiquarian at the very least, his role in early modern Indian history is foundational for he was truly the founder of the city of Bombay in any meaningful way. In Goa, he was not just a physician but also a taxman, merchant, and trader. From the Pangim [Panjim of today], which was just a “small fort at the mouth of the [Mandovi] river,” to the city of Juner, where people ate peacocks because they were “free from putrefaction,” Orta roamed the breadth of the known country and provides an essential account of the country and its peoples and medicines.”

Published in the 12th issue of the Joao Roque Literary Journal. Read the full piece here.

Dartmouth Alumni Magazine: Artist On the Go

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Photo by Garret Vreeland | Courtesy of Jordan Ann Craig

Artist On the Go

Northern Cheyenne painter Jordan Craig ’15 lands multiple fellowships.
ISHAAN H. JAJODIA ’20 | MAR – APR 2019

“Thrilling and terrifying” is how Craig describes “trying to figure out how to be an artist.” After graduation the painter and printmaker enjoyed nearly back-to-back fellowships and residencies that took her from Berkeley, California, to Ireland, Italy, England, and the Netherlands. She’s now an artist-in-residence fellow in Santa Fe at the Institute of American Indian Arts, the world’s only college devoted to the study of contemporary Native American art. While there, she is creating designs influenced by the patterns and colors of her tribe’s beadwork. “I feel like I learn something every day when I make art,” she says.

Read the full article here: https://dartmouthalumnimagazine.com/articles/artist-go

The Dartmouth Review: The History of the Hood

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A photo of Carpenter Hall right after it was built. Courtesy of Dartmouth College.

However, it was only under President Ernest Martins Hopkins, class of 1900, that Dartmouth’s collections were organized more systematically. The commissioning of the Baker Library and its subsidiary buildings, Carpenter and Sanborn, provided space for the collections to be organized. Carpenter Hall (completed in 1928–29), then solely the domain of the art history department, formed the axis mundi of the collections; the topmost floor featured galleries with large skylights and high ceilings to facilitate the exhibition and lighting of sculptures and paintings. Rare books were relegated to a specially constructed room at Baker. The architect of Carpenter Hall, Jens Frederick Larson, believed in a stringent but unique form of American neoclassicism that drew from Greco-Roman styles and orders of architecture, the forces of Georgian revivalism, and American history to create a building that reflected the noble simplicity and quiet grandeur that one would learn to expect from a college. The anthropology and natural science collections continued to be housed in Wilson Hall once the books were moved to Baker.

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Within a decade of its physical establishment, the Hood held pieces from significant artists, from the reputed and renowned Old Masters like Rembrandt to the so-called New Masters like supposed artist and well-known chronic abuser of paint and canvas Jackson Pollock. Roy Lichtenstein, known for his ability to photocopy comic books in an ungainly large format and sell it as art at the Leo Castelli Gallery, gifted Richard Serra’s alleged “minimalist masterpiece”, a variant of which collapsed upon an installer at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, killing the installer; the gift now lies in the walled-off courtyard behind the Warner Bentley bust.

Published in the Dartmouth Review’s edition commemorating the reopening of the Hood after an extensive remodelling and expansion. Read the piece here.

The Dartmouth Review: Book Review of St. Paul’s Outside the Walls

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St. Paul’s Outside the Walls

The building’s long history and spiritual connotations evidently lead to the creation of myths surrounding it that were tacked onto its true historical identity. The Grand Tour resulted in the painter Giovanni Paolo Panini and etcher Giovanni Battista Piranesi creating highly detailed views of the interiors — with some added drama and a good sprinkling of figments of their imagination. Each favoured a particular vision of what the space was like and therefore privileged that in their representations. By separating its historical identity from the reality of the building’s history and clearly defining the two, Camerlenghi understands and reconciles the role of hearsay and myth in the histories that surround a remarkably long-lasting edifice.

One of the other things that Camerlenghi addresses extremely well is the acceptance of loss. The basilica, while considered widely to be a repository of important objects of both spiritual and historical interest, also exerts its own identity. Its inopportune destruction — which one conspiracy theory attributed to the Rothschild family, which had arrived in Rome only five days before the fire — grants the book the power of postulating while being authoritative, an accomplishment that is hard to find in contemporary art history. Art historians, as a group, tend to be overly sensitive to the loss of the very objects that they study (and, if I may say so, almost venerate). The pinning for the old does exist, but it refuses to overpower and overwhelm the ability to prioritise and present information in a critical manner.

Read the full review of Nicola Camerlenghi’s book, St. Paul’s Outside the Walls: A Roman Basilica, from Antiquity to the Modern Era (CUP, 2018), here: http://dartreview.com/st-pauls-outside-the-walls/

The Dartmouth Review: Lawsuit Alleges Cover-up of Sexual Misconduct

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On Thursday, the Trustees of Dartmouth College were sued for $70 million by seven former and current students (including an ’18 who graduated this past Spring) in the Psychology and Brain Sciences (PBS) Department, in relation to the College’s handling of systematic sexual harassment and assault at the department. The introduction to the lawsuit claims that “Dartmouth College has knowingly permitted three of its…professors to turn a…department into a 21st century Animal House”, tipping its hat to the eponymous movie that reinforced Dartmouth’s reputation as a den of debauchery. It adds that “for well over a decade, female students…have been treated as sex objects.”

The College’s response to the lawsuit has been muted at best. A press release made by the College acknowledges that while “sexual misconduct and harassment have no place at Dartmouth,” the College “strongly disagree[s] with the characterisations of Dartmouth’s actions.” The focus of the lawsuit isn’t on the actions of the three professors, but on the College’s handling of reports of sexual misconduct, harassment, and assault — the plaintiffs state as such, claiming that the “plaintiffs now turn to this Court for appropriate relief to…force Dartmouth College to enact meaningful reforms.”

Read the full article here: http://dartreview.com/lawsuit-alleges-cover-up-of-sexual-misconduct/

Dartmouth Alumni Magazine: Drama King

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Theater director Bob Greenwood ’63 takes his company across the globe.

 

As a child, Bob Greenwood ’63 enjoyed his first theater performances at the Opera House in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Although his parents lost their house in Etna, New Hampshire, during the Depression, they sold apples to earn enough money to take him to shows, experiences that inspired Greenwood to become an actor.

The article was published in print in the Nov–Dec 2018 issue. Read the full article on the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine‘s website here: https://dartmouthalumnimagazine.com/articles/drama-king-0

The Dartmouth Review: A Tale of Two Dartmouths

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Baker Library

Nathaniel Woodrich, the Librarian of the College, was so moved at the dedication of the Tower Room, that he launched into a long speech, reminiscent of Robin William’s portrayal of John Keating in Dead Poets Society. “No rules or restrictions are posted here. It is assumed that the room and its contents will be regarded as one would the library of one’s club. It is possible that in after years some students may feel that in this room were spent some of the most valued hours of their college life. Now and then during the winter, poetry or prose is read aloud here by members of the faculty, with lights dim, the fire glowing, and coffee served in the background.” Larson intended for the library to be a home away from home for the entire Dartmouth community, and not just a gigantic home for the tomes that filled its shelves.

Larson, too, was touched by the library. He said, “They believed that to surround young men with beauty is good.” Such a notion, not unfounded in many a neoclassicist, relies on trust. Students were to be treated not as old teenagers but as young adults, and therefore they deserved to be let loose in this Georgian wonderland of Larson’s creation. Larson was the living embodiment of the Winckelmannian notion of “noble simplicity and quiet grandeur,” which has long been a guiding force for fellow neoclassicists ever since Johann Winckelmann wrote those words in his 1755 masterpiece, Thoughts on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture. It is unknown whether Larson ever read Winckelmann, but he did live a life the latter would have been proud of.

Read the full piece here: http://dartreview.com/a-tale-of-two-dartmouths/

The Dartmouth Review: A Tale of Two Murals: Hovey and Orozco

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A segment of the Hovey Murals.

At the centre of this battle are the Hovey murals in what is now the Class of 1953 Commons, which were painted by Walter Beach Humphrey, Class of 1914. A recent ‘study group’ convened by the Interim Provost Dave Kotz recommended to President Hanlon that the offending murals be torn out of their original setting and be confined to a dark, unseen container in an offsite storage facility, probably never to be seen again by Dartmouth students of the years to come, a recommendation that Hanlon unfortunately accepted. Since the early 1970s, the mural has been inaccessible to the general student body, so it is no surprise that the administration has decided to get rid of the mural almost entirely. This is the same administration that went on record last year to say that “the endorsement of violence in any form is contrary to Dartmouth values.” The hypocrisy, though alarming, reflects the double standards of an administration that is ready to denounce physical violence but is all too willing to physically desecrate works of art — and in the past and the future, suppress free speech and expression as well.

Read the full article here: http://dartreview.com/11567-2/

Preface to ‘Piccole Vite Infelici’

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In “Piccole Vite Infelici” Stefano narra di una città che io amo alla follia. Roma fa da sfondo non solo alla vita dei quattro protagonisti del libro ma anche ai comprimari che hanno provenienza, usi e costumi diversi da quelli occidentali. Una città, Roma, che ha qualcosa da dare ad ognuno di loro e che ha un fascino che non ha eguali per chi sa cercarlo. Nonostante l’introduzione dell’autore — che asserisce che la città faccia semplicemente da sottofondo alla storia — vi assicuro che essa è un personaggio ineludibile ed fondamentale in cui i quattro si muovono e si esprimono.

La versione di Roma che Stefano presenta nel suo libro è di una metropoli multiculturale e tollerante alle differenze, un riflesso dell’ethos che l’antica Roma aveva una volta. Capitale di un vasto impero che allora si estendeva dalla Turchia alla Gran Bretagna, Roma ha recentemente affrontato questioni di auto-introspezione in relazione all’afflusso di rifugiati e migranti provenienti da tutti gli angoli del mondo (per non parlare del mare di turisti che ogni anno affolla la città). Così, mi ritrovo a chiedere cosa sia Roma — e la Roma di Stefano è la Roma in cui ho vissuto, che ho amato e apprezzato. È la Roma che accoglie lo straniero e che rimuove in lui ogni passato.

Il punto di forza di Stefano è il discostarsi totalmente da ogni stereotipo. Quella contenuta in “Piccole Vite Infelici” non è una versione di Roma in stile “Elena Ferrante” per intenderci. La città non ha la meglio sulle persone che la abitano e scelgono di viverci. La relazione delicata e simbiotica tra la città e la sua popolazione è onnipresente senza arrivare a descrivere troppo ciò che può essere o ciò che è. Occorre “leggere tra le righe”: solo così si può scoprire dove i personaggi e la città arrivano veramente a collidere. A fondersi.

Anch’io sono stato un giovanotto che girovagava per le strade di Roma, cercando tra le sue vie la “salvezza intellettuale”. Anch’io credo nella città e nello stesso modo in cui lo fa Stefano — che in questo libro descrive la Capitale d’Italia come “Una città, (Roma NdR), sa come amarli per poi nascondersi nelle pieghe della sua imponente fragilità, e infine rannicchiarsi su se stessa per giocare come il gatto col topo.” Fai tesoro della città — tienilo a mente mentre leggi questo romanzo, e rimarrai stupito di come Stefano possa guidarti attraverso le vite dei suoi personaggi che animano le vie di Roma.

Il libro, scritto da Stefano Labbia, è stato pubblicato nell’ottobre 2018 dalla casa editrice italiana Maurizio Vetri Editore.

Kaani: Review: Joan of Mazgaon by Zenisha Gonsalves

Ishaan H. JajodiaLeave a comment

The semantics of this declaration of the developmental counterfactual reside the second-to-last machination of the author. This is by no means shorting the ability of the reader to return to the short story, simply reinforcing the paradigm of the authored and tailored and curated in a world of infinite possibilities. What if some infinities are larger than others? (Let Cantor answer this one for you — yes!). But does this simply reinforce the helplessness of the loop created by the consideration and then discarding of the counterfactual situation at hand?

 

Read the full review on Kaani‘s website here. Kaani is edited by Michelle D’Costa.