Five Questions with Prof. Ashis Nandy

Prof. Ashis Nandy: Question 1 from Baraza Video on Vimeo.

Five Questions with Professor Ashis Nandy

Question 1:

2011 has marked a new model of revolution that stem from practical realities and shun standardized theory. What do you think the prospects are for such demands for change that function in the absence of macro-social frameworks and ideologies? What ideas or discourses are likely to rise to the fore in the future? Does the nation state have a future as the main unit of political organization? If not, how will people and societies be organized?

 

Prof. Ashis Nandy: Question 2 from Baraza Video on Vimeo.

Five Questions with Ashis Nandy

Question 2:

What is the role of religion in modern society? Is there a space for religion in public/political discourse? How is the role of religion evolving in society today? How will it evolve in the future?

Prof. Ashis Nandy: Question 3 from Baraza Video on Vimeo.

Prof. Ashis Nandy: Question 3 from Baraza Video on Vimeo.

What contemporary ideas are likely to have a significant impact in shaping the future and why?

Prof. Ashis Nandy: Question 4 from Baraza Video on Vimeo.

What is the future of the relations among people of the “global south” (economies previously labeled “developing economies” including the nations of Africa, Central and Latin America, South, South East Asia and parts of the Middle East)? How do you think the current changes taking place in these economies will effect the global order at large?

Prof. Ashis Nandy: Question 5 from Baraza Video on Vimeo.

What is the future of Area Studies?

Senior Honorary Fellow at the Center for the Study of Developing Societies

“Ashis Nandy has worked for more than thirty-five years on two diametrically opposite domains – social existence, -human potentialities or creativity and human destructiveness, particularly mass violence. It is the oscillation between these two domains that has defined his life and work. Even in his ongoing study of genocides in South Asia, the emphasis is not only on human destructiveness, but also on the resistance offered by ordinary people to organised machine violence and ethnonationalism. This has brought him close to social movements and non-state political actors grappling with issues of peace, human rights, environment, and cultural survival. During the last thirty years he has served in a number of commissions, hearings and investigations into communal riots, violence of development, racist crimes against women, electoral malpractices and human rights abuses .

Trained as a sociologist and clinical psychologist, Nandy is also known for his work in political science and future studies. However, during the last three decades, has travelled through some of the less familiar territories of social knowledge, such as scientific creativity, future studies, post-developmental and post-secular visions, cities of the mind, myths of nation-states, and alternatives. He is associated with the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, of which he was a director for a number of years. He has been also a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin, and Regent’s Fellow, University of California, Los Angeles” (From CSDS Website)

His books include:

His co-authored books include:

His edited and co-edited books include:

His essays include:

Our Five Questions followed:

  1. 2011 has marked a new model of revolution that stem from practical realities and shun standardized theory. What do you think the prospects are for such demands for change that function in the absence of macro-social frameworks and ideologies? What ideas or discourses are likely to rise to the fore in the future? Does the nation state have a future as the main unit of political organization? If not, how will people and societies be organized?
  2. What is the role of religion in modern society? Is there a space for religion in public/political discourse? How is the role of religion evolving in society today? How will it evolve in the future?
  3. What contemporary ideas are likely to have a significant impact in shaping the future and why?
  4. What is the future of the relations among people of the “global south” (economies previously labeled “developing economies” including the nations of Africa, Central and Latin America, South, South East Asia and parts of the Middle East)? How do you think the current changes taking place in these economies will effect the global order at large?
  5. What is the future of Area Studies?