Mohan J. Dutta: Critical Insights on Culture and Society

So, since most of us seem to be in a tizzy as to what the format of this blog is supposed to be, I'll just start off with a question. While I am reading Engels and Lenin, some of my very basic misconceptions of Communism are being unraveled. So, Engels claims that it is proliferation of the 'big industry' (as exemplified by the steam engine, the power loom, etc.) that has created this class of people called the proletariat. But he also articulates the fact that it is only within a 'big industrial' system that the seeds for a proletariat revolution can be sown. Which is in effect saying that a Communist revolution can only exist within a capitalist system. This gets further clarified in Lenin, where he differentiates the Socialist from the Communist, in saying that the idealistic utopian ideals of the Socialist envisage an overthrow of Capitalism per se, which the Communist thinks is unproductive . So here are my questions. 1. If Communism operates within a 'ca...

Social network sites like Facebook and Twitter were abuzz with some users posting one-word status messages. Women (and some men) around the world had 'pink', 'green', 'wine', 'black' on as their statuses. As most of the uninitiated (men, for the most part) wondered what was going on, the social network etiquette site, Mashable, revealed the mystery . These mysterious, singularly worded statuses were suspected to be part of a viral campaign to support the cause of breast cancer. Women across the world were putting up the colors of the bras they were sporting in seeming 'support' for breast cancer awareness. Quixotic, you say? Bizarre? Amongst contemporary health campaigns, breast cancer is an interesting case study in how it aims to get rid of the stigma of mammograms, how it attempts to get women to self-examine, and how it seeks to enable conversations about breasts without embarrassment. However, the problem is that this liberal feminist sta...

The historical relationship between the First and the Third, the West and the rest, the North and the South has been occupied by symbols of superiority of one over the other. The inherent notion of the West being the center of civilization, while the "other" being scripted as the primitive served the logic of colonialism. Spaces elsewhere could be occupied and controlled under the very argument that they needed development to be brought to them, that they needed to be liberated by the White men and women who only wanted to do good. In the early history of colonialism, this wanting to do good was embedded in the desire of the Christian missionaries to convert the savages, and lift the burden of the soul. The contemporary rhetoric of neocolonialism has replaced the cross with the white coat, with the power of Science and Development that seek to emancipate the Third World. Once again, the symbol of the white coat utilizes the trope of emancipation to bring Third World spaces u...

The Educational Testing Service runs and manages the TOEFL and TSE that are directed toward screening international students based on their english proficiency. I was recently drawn to look further into the ETS after one of our international students (with excellent written and spoken english skills in my assessment) was asked to retake the local Purdue spoken english test because he had supposedly not met the minimum TSE requirement established by Purdue. The student was frustrated at the thought of having to take the spoken test yet again; he felt humiliated. And I was perplexed at the hoops that we invent and re-invent for our international students to go through. I understood his indignation although at that moment I encouraged him to take the local speaking test in order to maintain his status as a teaching assistant. The event reminded me of my graduate school days when I felt indignant at the thought of having to take a spoken english test although my education was all along in ...

Recently, I served as a Principal Investigator on a grant that led a Purdue team to recruit some of the brightest students from China and India. Our department has had a long history of international presence, and I hope that this recruiting effort enriches further our internationalizing agenda. As we seek to internationalize academia, there are a few questions that I wonder about. What are the purposes behind internationalizing efforts? Whom does internationalization serve? Do we really create opportunities for dialogue and exchange through internationalization processes, or are these more reflective of our top-down agendas in global affairs? I wonder about these questions even as I reflect upon my experiences as an international student in academia. I don't consider myself introverted, and yet there were many times when I felt I couldn't speak, many times when I felt I didn't really belong, many times when I was confronted with my alienness. When I reflect upon these expe...

During her remarks with Kuwaiti foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed on January 16, 2007, Dr. Rice referred to the violence in Iraq and stated: "...obviously, the violence in and around Baghdad is one of the very important reasons the President went to the American people and said that the situation in Iraq is unacceptable to him, just as it was unacceptable to most Americans and that that violence needs to stop. Now, violent people will always be able to kill innocent people. And so even with the new security plan, with the will and capability of the Iraqi Government and with American forces to help reinforce Iraqi forces, there is still going to be violence. But whatever the number of civilians that have died in Iraq, and there are obviously competing numbers, but whatever the numbers, it's too many. Deconstruction of the above comment made by Dr. Rice brings forth the manipulativeness of public diplomacy discourse in the context of Iraq. The discussions of the unacceptability ...