Monday 11 May 2020

Understanding Online Teaching

Live Interaction on 'Understanding Online Teaching'

Questions by Interviewers:

1.    How do you see online teaching in the time of covid19 / corona virus pandemic?
a.    Poll (for audience): Will covid19 make online education an integral part of traditional education system? (White Baord)
                                          i.    Yes, it will.
                                         ii.    No, it is just a phase. We will come back to our traditional as soon as it is over.
b.    Poll: Will covid19 prove to be the last nail in the coffin in which teacher will be buried forever and technology will take over / replace teacher? (the only source of information; the fountain head, sage on the stage – crowd sourcing, rivulets flowing, guide by the side/in the pocket/
                                          i.    No, it is just a phase. We will come back to our traditional as soon as it is over.
                                         ii.    Yes, those who are adamant to adopt to technology will be buried and replaced by technology
                                        iii.    Yes and No. Teacher as a human intervention will remain but the role of the teacher will no longer remain as it was. Sage on the stage vs Guide by the Side (virtually)
2.    As you said that the critics of online education have also emerged. On what grounds are they making critique of online education?
a.    Do you agree with the critics of the online teaching in this epidemic?
                                          i.    Yes. I like the idea of ‘Maslow before Bloom’.
                                         ii.    No. It is good opportunity and it shall be grabbed.
3.    What according to you shall be the ‘model’ for ‘Online Teaching’? And what is the importance of ‘digital platform’ in this model?
a.    Do you agree that most of the teachers do not have a ‘model’ in the mind for online teaching?
                                          i.    No. They have a model.
                                         ii.    Yes. They do not have model of online teaching and they are just replicating traditional f2f on zoom platform
4.    In a recent TV debate, Anant Agarwal, CEO, edX, Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO, Coursera and Prin. Rekha Krishna, Vasant Valley School – there were some hope as well as apprehensions. What’s your opinion about this debate? (kids – let them play – grown-up, study – in blended mode – core knowledge vs skills) (Show in whiteboard)
a.    Do you agree that we should have separate ‘online education policies’ for schools and colleges?
                                          i.    Yes
                                         ii.    No
5.    You talked about ‘Model’ and ‘Platform’. How about the role of ‘teacher’ in ‘Online Teaching’? Isn’t teacher becoming more of a ‘material developer’? If so, how are teachers going to groom themselves into this new role and new demands?
a.    Do you agree that the teachers shall be more of ‘constructivist’ rather than ‘behaviouristic’ in online education system?
                                          i.    No. I think it is okay to be behaviouristic even in online teaching
                                         ii.    Yes. I think this is very important. Maybe we are failing because this difference in not understood properly.
6.    You mentioned ‘instructional design’. May you please throw more light on it?
a.    Is it necessary to understand ‘instructional design models’ to prepare better modules for online teaching?
                                          i.    No.
                                         ii.    Yes. This will improve the quality and effectiveness of online teaching.
7.    I have read some articles on ERT. what is ERT?
a.    Do you think that most of us are doing online is ERT rather than well-planned online teaching?
                                          i.    No.         ii. Yes.

Watch live interaction




The Presentation


Understanding Online Teaching from Dilip Barad

Some parts of this discussion was shared on Facebook:


#OnlineTeaching #बहस #ચર્ચા #debate #Corona #Covid19
कोरोना महामारी के मंथन नें एक ओर बहस को छिड़ दिया है।
Technology for teaching.
जो लोग अब तक शैक्षणिक कार्य मे खास करके पढ़ाने (teaching) के कार्य मे technology को दूर से ही सलाम कर देते थे और इंगिनत बहाने बनाते थे उनमे से बहुत सारे अब डिजिटल प्लेटफार्म पर परफॉर्म करने लगे है।
बहुत सारे शिक्षक और विद्यार्थी खुश नही है। दिक्कते बहुत आती है। अभी ठीक से एडजस्ट नही हो पा रहे। टेक्नोलॉजी को अडॉप्ट करने में वक्त लगता है।
इस महामारी में शैक्षणिक संस्थाओं और शिक्षकों एवं विद्यार्थियों ने आपातकालीन रूप में अभी पढ़ना-पढ़ाना शूरु कर दिया है।
बहुत सारो के लिए यह पहला कदम है।
जो लोग टेक्नोलॉजी को पढ़ाई का अभिन्न अंग बनाना चाहते थे उनलोगों के लिए तो जैसे स्वर्णयुग के प्रवेशद्वार पे खड़े होने की ख़ुशी हो रही होंगी।
खैर, हम वापिस उस डिबेट पे आते है। क्या टेक्नोलॉजी टीचर को रिप्लेस कर पाएगी? एक महत्व का मुद्दा शिक्षकों की फ़ेवर में यह था कि 'पर्सनल टच' से, रूबरू हाज़िर होने से, शिक्षक एक अतिमहत्व का रोल अदा कर शकते है। पर अब जब सब शिक्षकों 'देह से दूरी' - physical distancing - social distancing को फॉलो करते हुए डिजिटल प्लेटफॉर्म से पढ़ाते है तब वो टूटने लगता है।
फिर भी हम सोच सकते है कि पोस्ट-कोरोना काल मे टेक्नोलॉजी किस तरह से एजुकेशन सिस्टम में बदलाव ला सकती है।
कमेंट में जो लिंक दी गयी है उसकी कमैंट्स पढ़ने जैसी है।

2. #OnlineTeaching #बहस #ચર્ચા #Debate #Corona #Covid19
यह अच्छी बात है कि बहोत सारे स्कूल और कॉलेज / यूनिवर्सिटी के शिक्षकों ने ऑनलाइन टीचिंग शुरू कर दिया है।
इसके साथ ही इस प्रवृत्ति के आलोचक भी उभर के आये है।
सबसे बड़ी आलोचना यह है कि बहुत कम शिक्षक पढ़ाने ने सही मायने और उद्देश्य के अनुसार पढ़ाते है। ज़्यादातर social media के लिए पढ़ाते है ऐसा महसूस होता है।
यह आलोचना हमे सोचने पर मजबूर करती है। हम ऐसा कर सकते है कि कुछ चेक लिस्ट तैयार करके रखे। देखें कि इस चेकलिस्ट में हमे कितने पॉइन्ट मिलते है।
1.
क्या सिलेबस पढ़ाना बाकी रह गया है? गुजरात के बहुत सारी कॉलेजेस और स्कूल्स में अभ्यासक्रम पढ़ाना पूरा हो गया था। और इम्तेहान का वक़्त था या रीडिंग टाइम था। इस पॉइंट पे ऑनलाइन टीचिंग की आवश्यकता बहुत कम है। हा, अगर स्टूडेंट्स को 'प्रोब्लेम्स' है तो प्रॉब्लम सॉल्विंग के classes ऑनलाइन लिए जा सकते है।
2.
स्कूल्स में , वर्ग 1 से 8 तक ,जब सब को बिना परीक्षा mass प्रोमोशन से पास कर दिया गया है, तब उनके classes को कोई आवश्यकता नही है। इनके classes को तो सरकार ने बंद ही करवा देने चाहिए। हा, अगर इन बच्चों को , आर्ट, क्राफ्ट, योग, खेलकूद जैसी प्रवृति के ऑनलाइन वर्ग चल रहे है तो ठीक है।
3.
वर्ग 10 या 12 या कंपीटिटिव परीक्षा के वर्ग बेहद जरूर है। यह होने चाहिए।
जो कोई ऑनलाइन पढ़ाता है उनको अपना अनुभव सोशल मीडिया पर शेयर करना चाहिए। स्टूडेंट्स को भी कहना चाहिये कि अनुभव शेयर करे। मैंने बहुत सारे विद्यार्थी ओ को ऑनलाइन टीचिंग से दुखी देखे है। पूरे विश्व मे ऐसा ही है।
सिर्फ सोशल मीडिया के लिए ऑनलाइन पढ़ाना नही है पर जो पढ़ाया है, जो सीखा है वो सोशल मीडिया पर शेयर जरूर करना है।

3. #OnlineTeaching #Platform #How #बहस #ચર્ચા #Debate #Corona #Covid19
जब शैक्षणिक संस्था या शिक्षक ने यह तय कर लिया है कि ऑनलाइन पढ़ाना जरूरी है। इतना समय हम बर्बाद नही कर सकते। यह समय, अगर कोरोना lockdown ना होता तो, हमारे classes फुल टाइम चलते होते। इस समय अगर पढ़ाया नही तो बहुत देर हो जाएगी। स्टूडेंट्स को बहुत बड़ा खामियाजा भुगतना पड़ेगा।
तो . . .
अब प्रश्न आता है ~ कहाँ पर पढ़ाये? कैसे पढ़ाये?
'
कहाँ' का उत्तर है - डिजिटल प्लेटफार्म।
Zoom
बहुत लोकप्रिय प्लेटफार्म रहा। लेकिन कोई भी जो ऑनलाइन एजुकेशन से जुड़े है वो कहेंगे कि Zoom प्लेटफार्म काफी नही है।
हम पढ़ाते क्यू है?
हम पढ़ाते इसलिए है कि कुछ कॉन्सेप्ट्स स्टूडेंट्स की समझ मे आये। सिर्फ रूबरू होने से कॉन्सेप्ट्स की समझ नही होती। शिक्षक और विद्यार्थी के रूबरू होने से यह नही होता। क्या होना चाहिए . . . ? यहां हम 'कैसे' का उत्तर भी देखेंगे. . .
1.
पहले विद्यार्थियों को एडवांस में कुछ कॉन्टेंट पढ़ने या देखने या सुनने हेतु शेयर करना आवश्यक है। विद्यार्थी से अपेक्षित है कि ऑनलाइन रूबरू होने से पहले वो कॉन्टेंट पढ़ कर तैयार हो कर आये।
2.
ऑनलाइन सेशन में शिक्षक के साथ चर्चा हो। विद्यार्थी प्रश्नं पूछे, शिक्षक समजाते जाए। अगर कोई पूछता नही तो शिक्षक खुद प्रश्न खड़े करे, विद्यार्थी को मौका दे उत्तर देने का, और फिर समजाये।
3.
ऑनलाइन सेशन के बाद स्टूडेंट्स को ऑनलाइन टेस्ट में appear होना अति आवश्यक होना चाहिए। टेस्ट ऑब्जेक्टिव टाइप होनी चाहिए ताकि रिजल्ट तुरंत मिल जाये, सही उत्तर के साथ।
4.
दूसरे ऑनलाइन सेशन की शुरूआत में शिक्षक इस रिजल्ट की चर्चा करेंगे और फिर आगे बढ़ेंगे।
तो हम देख सकते है कि Zoom या गूगल मीट या और कपि भी वीडियो कॉन्फ्रेंसिंग प्लेटफार्म हमे यह सब कुछ नही देगा।
इसलिए हमें एक ऐसा ऑनलाइन प्लेटफार्म चाहिए जहां पर सब कॉन्टेंट पहले से अपलोड किया गया हो.
अब कॉन्टेंट मतलब क्या?
e
कॉन्टेंट या डिजिटल कॉन्टेंट केलिए 4 quadrant का स्ट्रक्चर ऐसा हो सकता है:
1. Textual Content (PDF
या PPT में हो सकता है)
2. Vidoe Resources
3. Online MCQ type test / questions for descriptive answers / Points to Ponder / Thinking Activities / Case Studies etc
4. Additional Resources
येह सब कुछ वेबसाइट पे या मोबाइल एप्प में या ब्लॉग पर पहले से उपलब्ध होना चाहिए।
पहले 2 मुद्दे, teacher से ऑनलाइन रूबरू होने से पहले स्टूडेंट्स ने देख लिए है, पढ़ लिए है। अपनी नोट्स और प्रश्न के साथ वो शिक्षक से रूबरू होने को तैयार है।
बाकी के 2 मुद्दे, रूबरू हो जाने के बाद के है।
तो जब हम ऑनलाइन टीचिंग के पूरे सर्कल को देखे तो हमे पता चले कि या तो Moodle जैसा पावरफुल 'लर्निंग मैनेजमेंट सिस्टम' चाहिए या फिर :
1.
वेबसाइट / ब्लॉग / अप्प
2. YouTube
3. Google Quiz Form
जैसे ऑनलाइन टेस्टिंग टूल
कमसे कम तीन प्लेटफार्म चाहिए।
हम देख सकते है कि ऑनलाइन टीचिंग में रूबरू होना 20% ही महत्व का है। 80% लर्निंग महत्व का है।
जब तक हम इस साईकल का नही समजेंगे और हमारे स्टूडेंट्स को नही समाज पाएंगे, तब तक ऑनलाइन एजुकेशन की सफलता अशक्य है।
कोरोना महामारी खत्म होते ही वापिस सब अपने पुराने घोंसले में सुकून फरमाते नज़र आएंगे।
Let us take this epidemic as an opportunity to reform education system. Let us not miss this opportunity. Let us learn a better way to utilize our time and available resources. Let us not mismanage it in such a way that people get an opportunity to say that 'it does not work'.


Rahul Kanwal invites Anant Agarwal, CEO, edX, Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO, Course ra and Prin. Rekha Krishna, Vasant Valley School to discuss online teaching in the time of corona epidemic lockdown.
In this video, as usual, we find school teachers insisting on the importance of face to face classroom over virtual platforms.
Whereas, both executive officers of Coursera and edX were of different opinion.
There is 800 to 1100% rise in course takers on these two popular MOOC platforms.
edX had 1000% rise in traffic from India.
Coursera had 800 rise in traffic from India.
Two important points we can take home from this discussion:
1. Primary schools shall have less of online integration and more of face-2-face classroom environment. For the best of what we expect our children to learn like being social being, learn skills, acquire life skills, learn that livelihood is imp but life is beautiful ~ for these we shall have more classes outside the classroom, because we can learn these wishing four walls of classroom. We need more classes on drawing, sports, dance, music etc.
2. Higher Education shall 
#Blend online along with f2f classes. More and more number of students of colleges and universities shall learn from online platforms.
3. For being lifelong learners, for acquiring skills, for professional development ~ we need to expose our students to the potential of learning from anywhere, anytime . . . the earlier, the better.

5. #OnlineTeaching #Teacher or #MaterialDeveloper #बहस #ચર્ચા #Debate #Corona #Covid19
#Constructivist #Behavioristic #General_Classroom #Technology_Enabled_Learning_Environment
In online teaching, #teacher is no longer a mere teacher. He is more of a material developer and instruction designer (may be without knowing what it is to be so and how is it different from being a teacher... And that's why when rhetorical question is asked about 'will technology replace teacher?' , 
the initial, extempore response is 'blunt denial')
There are fundamental differences in traditional classroom and technology integrated learning environment. One works on the model of #behaviorism as pioneered by Edward Thorndike, devised by John Watson and experimented by B.F. Skinner and Ivan Pavlov. The other on the model of #constructivism as pioneered by Jean Piaget and strengthened by perspectives of Lev Vygotsky, Mikhail Bakhtin, Jena Lave and Etienne Wenger.
The constructive design helps Lerner in developing multiple perspectives, engages in knowledge construction and reflective practices, offers open learning environments and supports collaboration.
In this learning environment, the role of 
#teacher, the way we know, gets transferred to one as #Material_Developer. The formative experience of teacher is replaced by collective experiences of material developers; teacher's training experience with that of ideas of models of instructions and teacher properties (personality, attitude etc) with that of technical affordance of the programme (user-friendliness).
(Source: Ken Beaty's Teaching and Researching Computer-Assisted Language Learning.)

Sunday 10 May 2020

World After Covid-19

World After Covid-19: Multidisciplinary Ideas

Vedant International Multidisciplinary Multilingual Online Conference on

World After Covid-19: Multidisciplinary Ideas, Designs and Systems

The presentation (video + ppt) uploaded here was presented in this online conference - 10 May 2020





The Presentation & Live Streamed Video



The Video Recording of the Live Streamed Session on YouTube

 





The Session was Live Streamed on Facebook



Thursday 7 May 2020

Tagore and Nationalism

Rabindranath Tagore and Nationalism

The webinar on 'Retrospection and Relevance of Rabindranath Tagore's Literature' was organised by Shri Sangameshwar Arts and Commerce College, Chadchan, District Vijaypura (Bijapur).
The College is associated with Rani Channamma University, Belagavi (Belgaum). Its area of affiliation is districts of North Karnataka.
The webinar was coordinated by Mr. Basavraj Yallur.



Wednesday 6 May 2020

To His Coy Mistress - Implied Culture vs Historical Fact

Reading Epidemics in Literature

Introduction:

One of the ways of reading 'epidemics' in literature is also to read the 'absence' of epidemics in literature. It can be interesting to read the literature written during and aftermath of epidemics or pandemics. If there is literature which deals with death and yet does not use the metaphor of epidemic to represent death in the literature, it can be something worth questioning.

Questioning the Artistic Sensibility

It is true that the creative writers are not supposed to write the way we want to read. It is their freedom of choice. It is every artist's liberty to deal with subject matter in the way it suits their artistic sensibility. We do not question the poetic liberty or artistic sensibility when we raise this question. What we can try to see is that: who is that poet? That means, not an individual person but a voice of the cultural group or identity that is represented by the artistic voice. It is also to question how different people, in a given culture, at a given moment of time, in a given calamity or epidemic, react to the hardships. How do the people react to the very notion of 'death'?

Example

Here in a very suitable study of Andrew Marvell's poem 'To His Coy Mistress'. The poem is known for it expression of beautiful love-sentiments by a lover to his beloved.

The speaker of the poem starts by addressing a woman who has been slow to respond to his romantic advances. In the first stanza he describes how he would pay court to her if he were to be unencumbered by the constraints of a normal lifespan. He could spend centuries admiring each part of her body and her resistance to his advances (i.e., coyness) would not discourage him. In the second stanza, he laments how short human life is. Once life is over, the speaker contends, the opportunity to enjoy one another is gone, as no one embraces in death. In the last stanza, the speaker urges the woman to requite his efforts, and argues that in loving one another with passion they will both make the most of the brief time they have to live. (Wikipedia)

Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.


       

But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust;
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
       Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.  

Critical Reading of the Poem: Implied Culture vs Historical Fact

Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" tells the reader a good deal about the speaker of the poem, much of which is already clear from earlier comments in this volume, using traditional approaches. We know that the speaker is knowledgeable about poems and conventions of classic Greek and Roman literature, about other conventions of love poetry, such as the courtly love conventions of medieval Europe, and about Biblical passages. 

Indeed, if one accepts the close reading of Jules Brody, the speaker shows possible awareness of the Provencal amor de Iohn, neo-Petrarchan "complaints," Aquinas's concept of the
triple-leveled soul, Biblical echoes, a "Platonico-Christian corporeal economy" (59), and the convention of the blazon. The first stanza, says Brody, shows "its insistent, exaggerated literariness" (60). In the second stanza, Brody sees not only the conventional carpe diem theme from Horace but also echoes from Ovid, joined by other echoes from the Book of Common Prayer, from the Greek Anthology, and from "Renaissance vernacular and neo-Latin poets" (61,-64). Brody posits the "implied 1s3dg1//-3s distinct from the fictive lady-who would "be able to summon up a certain number of earlier or contemporaneous examples of this kind of love poem and who [could] be counted on, in short, to supply the models which Marvell may variously have been evoking, imitating, distorting, subverting or transcending" (64). (The concept of the "implied reader," we may note, bulks large in reader response criticism; see, for example, the work of Wolfgang Iser.) The speaker knows all of these things well enough to parody or at least to echo them, for in making his proposition to the coy lady, he hardly expects to be taken seriously in his detailing. He knows that he is echoing the conventions only in order to satirize them and to make light of the real proposal at hand. He knows that she knows, for she comes from the same cultural milieu that he does. In other words, the speaker-like Marvell-is a highly educated person, one who is well read, one whose natural flow of associated images moves lightly over details and allusions that reflect who he is, and he expects his hearer or reader to respond in a kind of harmonic vibration. He thinks in terms of precious stones, of exotic and distant places, of a milieu where eating, drinking, and making merry seem to be an achievable way of life. Beyond what we know of the speaker from his own words, we are justified in speculating that his coy lady is like the implied reader, equally well educated, and therefore knowledgeable of the conventions he uses in parody. He seems to assume that she understands the parodic nature of his comments, for by taking her in on the jests he appeals to her intellect, thus trying to throw her off guard against his very physical requests. After all, if the two of them can be on the same plane in their thoughts and allusions, their smiles and jests,
then perhaps they can shortly be together on a different-and literal-plane: literally bedded. Thus might appear to be the culture and the era of the speaker, his lady-and his implied reader. But what does he not show? As he selects these rich and multifarious allusions, what does he ignore from his culture? He clearly does not think of poverty, the demographics and socioeconomic details of which would show how fortunate his circumstances are. For example, it has been estimated that during this era at least one quarter of the European population was below the poverty line. Nor does the speaker think of disease as a daily reality that he might face. To be sure, in the second and especially in the third stanza he alludes to future death and dissolution. But wealth and leisure and sexual activity are his currency, his coin for present bliss. Worms and marble vaults and ashes are not present, hence not yet real. Now consider historical reality, a dimension that the poem ignores. Consider disease-real and present disease-what has been called the "chronic morbidity" of the population. Although the speaker thrusts disease and death into the future, we know that syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases were just as real a phenomenon in Marvell's day as in our era. What was the reality that the speaker chooses not to think about, as he pushes off death and the "vault" to some distant time? Similarly, one might turn to a different disease that was in some ways even more ominous, more wrenching, in its grasp of the mind and body of the general population. Move ahead a few years, beyond the probable time of composition of the poem in the early 1650s: move to 1.664-65. That was when the London populace was faced with an old horror, one that had ravaged Europe as early as A.D. 542.It did it again in its most thoroughgoing way in the middle of the fourteenth century (especially 1348), killing millions, perhaps 25 million in Europe alone. It was ready to strike again. It was, of course, a recurrence of the Black Death, in the Great Plague of London. From July to October, it killed some 68,000 persons/ and a total of 75,000 in the course of the epidemic. Had we world enough and time, we could present the details of the plague here, its physical manifestations, its rapid spread, the quickness of death: but the gruesome horrors are available elsewhere. For example, the curious can get a sense of the lived experience by reading Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year (1722), an imaginative creation of what it was like. So disease was real in the middle of the seventeenth century. There needed no ghost to come from the world of the dead to tell Marvell's speaker about the real world. Perhaps the speaker and his lady-knew it after all. Maybe too well. Maybe that is why that real world is so thoroughly absent from the poem.

Want to make a similar critique of the literature of epidemic?

Well, here is a very recent poem written by UK Poet Laureate  Simon Armitage. Would you like to give it a try? Would you like to make a critiqu of this poem with reference to 'implied culture vs historical fact'?

Lockdown by Simon Armitage

And I couldn’t escape the waking dream
of infected fleas
in the warp and weft of soggy cloth
by the tailor’s hearth
in ye olde Eyam.
Then couldn’t un-see
the Boundary Stone,
that cock-eyed dice with its six dark holes,
thimbles brimming with vinegar wine
purging the plagued coins.
Which brought to mind the sorry story
of Emmott Syddall and Rowland Torre,
star-crossed lovers on either side
of the quarantine line
whose wordless courtship spanned the river
till she came no longer.
But slept again,
and dreamt this time
of the exiled yaksha sending word
to his lost wife on a passing cloud,
a cloud that followed an earthly map
of camel trails and cattle tracks,
streams like necklaces,
fan-tailed peacocks, painted elephants,
embroidered bedspreads
of meadows and hedges,
bamboo forests and snow-hatted peaks,
waterfalls, creeks,
the hieroglyphs of wide-winged cranes
and the glistening lotus flower after rain,
the air
hypnotically see-through, rare,
the journey a ponderous one at times, long and slow
but necessarily so.
References:
Brody, Jules. "The Resurrection of the Body: A New Reading of Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress."' ELH 56, no. L (1,986): 53-80.
Guirin, Wilfred. et all. The Handbook of Critical Approached to Literature.
Marvell, Andrew. To His Coy Mistress

Friday 1 May 2020

The Plague - Albert Camus

About - The Plague  (Albert Camus)

[... and other resources on Literature and Epidemic]


Online Test based on this blog on 'The Plague': 

Click here to appear in the online test. You will get auto-generated certificate with your score.



The Plague (French: La Peste) is a novel by Albert Camus, published in 1947, that tells the story of a plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran. It asks a number of questions relating to the nature of destiny and the human condition. The characters in the book, ranging from doctors to vacationers to fugitives, all help to show the effects the plague has on a populace.
The novel is believed to be based on the cholera epidemic that killed a large proportion of Oran's population in 1849 following French colonization, but the novel is set in the 1940s.
The Plague is considered an existentialist classic despite Camus' objection to the label.
The novel has been read as an allegorical treatment of the French resistance to Nazi occupation during World War II (Tony Judt). The Plague represents how the world deals with the philosophical notion of the Absurd, a theory that Camus himself helped to define (Wikipedia).

Camus and The Plague

In January 1941, the twenty-eight year old French writer Albert Camus began work on a novel about a virus that spreads uncontrollably from animals to humans and ends up destroying half the population of a representative modern town. It was called La Peste/The Plague, eventually published in 1947 and frequently described as the greatest European novel of the postwar period (The Book of Life) . . . Click here to read more.

Video 1:

There is no more important book to understand our times than Albert Camus's The Plague, a novel about a virus that spreads uncontrollably from animals to humans and ends up destroying half the population of a representative modern town. Camus speaks to us now not because he was a magical seer, but because he correctly sized up human nature. As he wrote: ‘Everyone has inside it himself this plague, because no one in the world, no one, can ever be immune.’ (Watching time 10 minutes)




Video 2:

An analysis of Albert Camus' The Plague. Enjoy:)! "Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many plagues as wars in history; yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise." Albert Camus, The Plague. (watching time: 25 minutes)




Video 3: (Additional / optional video resource)

Online chat with William Chafe, Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of History, and Frank Stasio




Gujarati Translation of the novel 'The Plague' by Paresh Vyas.

This translation was published in ten episodes in Gujarati daily 'Gujarat Samachar'. Paresh Vyas made the translation interesting by connecting it with contemporary corona virus covid 19 pandemic. The column 'Fact and Similarity' connects the fictional events of the novel with the real world happenings of today.













References and Additional Reading Resources:


1. Full original novel- The PlagueArchive.org



2. Block, Melissa. 




3. Lepore, Jill. 
In the literature of pestilence, the greatest threat isn’t the loss of human life but the loss of what makes us human.

4. Schaub, Michael. 

5. Villuamy, Ed. 
The fascist ‘plague’ that inspired the novel may have gone, but 55 years after his death, many other varieties of pestilence keep this book urgently relevant . . . 




6. Judt, Tony. The Hero of Our Times.
The Plague, an allegory of the German occupation of France and an attack on dogma and cowardice, established the reputation of Albert Camus. Today, argues Tony Judt, it is more relevant than ever


Tuesday 3 March 2020

Memorabilia 2020

Memorabilia 2020

From the desk of the Head of the Department


A Meme is an interesting ‘sign’ of communication. The word meme is a neologism coined by Richard Dawkins. It originated from Dawkins's 1976 book The Selfish Gene. 

Richard Dawkins likened the process by which memes survive and change through the evolution of culture to the natural selection of genes in biological evolution. Dawkins defined the meme as a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation and replication, but later definitions would vary. 

Merriam-Webster dictionary defined - A meme is an idea, behaviour, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture—often with the aim of conveying a particular phenomenon, theme, or meaning represented by the meme. 

Gordon Graham states in ‘Genes: A Philosophical Inquiry’ that “A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices, that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures. 

Well, the purpose of this explanation of ‘meme’ is to understand how funny-looking photograph of Mr. Bean with a dialogue between interviewer and ‘me’ (whoever reads this) is so significant meme in the times of leadership crisis. 

When observed from the distant hill-top position with a hind sight, every passing-out batch makes me think something vividly and yet in very general terms i.e. not specific about individual students, but about entire ‘class’ / ‘group’. The batch passing out in 2020 makes me re-think about the qualities and characteristics of leadership. This meme acts as a unit for carrying leadership ideas, symbols and practices, that can be transmitted form one mind to another through behavioural patterns imitated by others, supported and self-replicated and responded in similar fashion. The contemporary phenomenon represented by this meme is exactly what was experienced in last year. The meme speaks about leadership crisis in real-life situations. Social media platforms like WhatsApp is just a means for communication. Communication is a very significant strategic tool for good leadership. However, it shall be carried out in real-life situation, lest it should remain only at communication level which does not materialize in real life situation. 

When it comes to developing leadership qualities among students, we follow the model of ‘Emergent Leadership’. The success story of Google is all about ‘emergent leadership. We have also achieved significant positive results in past with the similar model of leadership wherein there is little interference by teachers and students are free to display leadership qualities. 

I would like to borrow views of Stuart R. Levine published as The Skills Required for Emergent Leadership on cutimes.com. He defined Emergent Leadership as ‘It is a type of leadership in which a group member is not appointed or elected to the leadership role; rather, leadership develops over time as a result of the group’s interaction. He concluded that it is not grades that matters but ‘predictive of success were adeptness with the “soft skills” of leadership, humility, collaboration and loving to learn, unlearn and re-learn… surprisingly, even the expertise was not a useful predictor. For every job at Google, general cognitive ability as the primary attribute of success and expertise as one of the least important. Google discovered that emergent leadership skills – including a desire to learn and the ability to process and integrate disparate bits of information for solutions and insights – were more important than content knowledge. 

Somehow, I don’t know why, but I get such vibes that the passing out batch was lacking the characteristics of emergent leadership. I have never felt an urge to write in Memorabilia about ‘the lack’. I prefer to write about what positive attributes were ‘present’ among the class of students passing out. Somehow, again I don’t know why, I feel – let me take this last opportunity to teach something so significant as life skills – emergent leadership! 

Many students are very talented in their respective areas of interest. . . . . But because they lacked the attribute of emergent leadership, they failed to lead the group to achieve something significant as a class. 

Many of the students were having very unique skills, attributes, characteristics, creative power and passion for life. Mentioning some of their uniqueness, not as per the attributes but alphabetically, I would like to mention that Alisha - a passion for acting in theatre & TV; Ashish - informed about his passion for badminton; Bhavnesh - shown good capacity to critically think and articulate in equally good elocution; Dhaval - good drafting style in Gujarati language, passion for photo-videography, media and also an insight for aesthetic designs; Dipti - displayed hunger for deep learning; Divya - capacity to do hard work; Hetal - a passion for sports; Hina was good learner; Jeel displayed attitude for research based learning; Kailas - a knack for adventure sports; Krishna displayed a capacity to lead; Lalji was one of the most sincere in learning and showed ability to unlearn & relearn; Minkal - displayed capacity to learn and articulate learning for exam purpose; Mitalba was slow in traditional classroom learning but was better in digital learning, especially in lab sessions; Nasim - developed an insight to read real life through the lenses of literature; Nikita – displayed tremendous improvement in last semester; Prakruti - good command over language and was able to articulate understanding in classroom discussions; Prinjal - been very good in working hard; Ruchita - shown initial spark of passion for learning and leading; Urvashi - good ability for sports; Vidhya was good in celebration and cultural events; and Vishva had good language commands, ability to be creative and a leader. Avni, Jetal, Jyotiba, mansi, Monika, Nirali, Rajdip, Richa, and Sejal were doing their bit as good students and even helping others in various activities. 

All these students had talents to make it larger than life; make something historical; make an indelible mark. Somehow, that did not happen as I imagined or expected from them. And so, when I reflect back on their endeavours, attempts, talents, attributes and ability to perform, I feel they lacked something known as ‘Emergent Leadership’ - a desire to learn and the ability to process and integrate disparate bits of information for solutions and insights – were more important than content knowledge. 

The lack of emergent leadership leads to the corrosion of an ability to communicate effectively also. If the students of literature (humanities) lack the ability to communicate, to share, to speak, to opine, to contribute, or to disseminate their learning, reading, research and interpretations, what happens is very tragic for entire discipline of humanities. We should always remember what Richard Altick and John Fenstermaker said about the dire condition of Humanities in the era of STEM: “If the humanities, including the study of literature, are in perennial crisis – more so at the present moment, perhaps, than ever before – and the outlook for their survival grim, blame must lie as heavily on us, their appointed agents, for our lack of enterprise, as on the supposed unreceptiveness of the prospective consumers. (Thus), it is our responsibility to seize every opportunity to communicate with the lay audience, as in book reviews or in articles and essays in the popular press (read social media) on history, biography, and culture (and to make such opportunities where they do not exist). Our contribution as scholars in this regard is only a slight modification of our essentially two-fold task in the classroom: to educate students at all levels to read, write, and think, developing in them the intellectually curious habit of mind that casts a disinterested eye over all important issues, appreciating their complexities; and to lead students by extensive reading and critical analysis of recognized writers and thinkers, ancient and contemporary, inside and outside the mainstream, to seek, in Matthew Arnold’s words, “the best that is known and thought in the world” for the purpose of creating in their own lives a “current of new and fresh ideas” appropriate in this, our time.” 

We, at Department of English, strive hard to cultivate the habits of observing the process rather than the product; to nurture the habit of reflection, ponder upon everything we do; to habituate mind to question, to examine and to test before believing into anything – and above all, write about it, make it visible to the people in the world. We, the agents of literature / humanities, have to snatch every opportunity we get and display emergent leadership qualities; and be visible to the world by sharing our learning, reading, research & interpretations. 

If these points are pondered upon, I hope, the passing out students will be able to shine out wherever and in whatsoever position they are. 

This ‘Memorabilia 2020’ is an evidence of their incredible talent. Thanks to Committee Leaders for their reports. The Documentation Committee deserves an applaud for all the editing work. The design work is done by Dhaval. 

Best wishes to all the passing out students for the future of their dreams and desire! 
- Dilip Barad
'Memorabilia 2020' released by Vice Chancellor Dr. Mahipatsinh Chavda