[INDOLOGY] Fw: Article about the politics surrounding Indology at the IHRC

[Jesse Knutson]

Understood. From a scientific point of view race does not exist. This has
been evident for some time. Yet even if race is a fiction and a purely
cultural construct, it does not liquidate the discussion of racism. Racism,
even if based on totally erroneous perceptions (and a long history of
them), does not cease to exist.

On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 2:35 PM, Dean Michael Anderson via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

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> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Dean Michael Anderson <eastwestcultural at yahoo.com>
> To: Indology List <indology at list.indology.info>
> Cc:
> Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 09:05:49 +0000 (UTC)
> Subject: Fw: [INDOLOGY] Article about the politics surrounding Indology at
> the IHRC
>
> Dominik Wujastyk said:
>
> >We are using the words "race" and "racist" as if they meant something.
> >But this is not the appropriate language to use in a methodologically
> sound
> >contemporary discussion about ethnicity or community.
>
> Thank you for pointing this out. I was going to mention it but was afraid
> my post was getting too long.
>
> Outmoded ideas of race have created no end of trouble in our discipline,
> not to mention the world at large. This is perhaps fitting since many of
> the men responsible for the mistaken concept were our academic forebears.
> Thus, we should be among the leaders in correcting people's understanding.
>
> Of course, at the same time we should be active in addressing the real
> issues this imaginary concept has created. Just because the snake turned
> out to be a rope doesn't mean the broken leg caused in the ensuing panic is
> illusory.
>
> Best,
>
> Dr. Dean or is it Professor Anderson? I can never predict.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>  *From:* Dominik Wujastyk <wujastyk at gmail.com>
> *To:* Indology List <indology at list.indology.info>
> *Sent:* Monday, June 15, 2015 2:12 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [INDOLOGY] Article about the politics surrounding Indology
> at the IHRC
>
> ​I know that we all know this, but I want to just get it on the table
> explicitly.  There is a broad scientific agreement that essentialist and
> typological conceptualizations of race are untenable​.  All humans are,
> biologically speaking, a single race.
>
> We are using the words "race" and "racist" as if they meant something.
> But this is not the appropriate language to use in a methodologically sound
> contemporary discussion about ethnicity or community.  The nearest term I
> can think of to what we mean is "nation" and "nationalist".  This seems an
> uncontroversial way of expressing the difference between, say, Moroccans
> and Icelanders, or Germans and Indians.  As Philipp said, it's a matter of
> passports.  In most places in the world, including the Americas, Europe and
> India, there has been so much movement of populations, accompanied by
> cultural and linguistic entanglement over many centuries, that it is
> impossible to be essentialist even about the national groupings, as has
> often been pointed out.  What is absolutely certain is that none of these
> groupings, cultural, linguistic or national, has anything to do with race.
>
>
>
>
> Best,
>
> Dr Dominik
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Jesse Ross Knutson PhD
Assistant Professor of Sanskrit and Bengali, Department of Indo-Pacific
Languages and Literatures
University of Hawai'i at Mānoa
452A Spalding


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