Bacon Frying Sounds Like Rain
I am a would be-someday-fingers crossed-hopefully anthropologist who is interested in aesthetics.
​
In this blog I will mostly be posting summaries of books, articles and essays that I read (along with some of my other random crap). This is just so I can gather my scattered thoughts but also for anyone who is interested - I realize not everybody has the time, energy or luxury to read books or articles, so perhaps my summaries might be useful/ helpful. I think a huge problem with academia is its failure to communicate its research. We spend enormous amounts of time thinking about, reading about, discussing and debating power and force, yet for the most part only academics read other academics. Science has this whole field called science communication. All other fields should invest in communicating their research and results as well. I don't know why this hasn't happened yet.
I think on the whole I am a better writer than I am a thinker. In this blog, I will try to unpack academic ideas that excite me and I will try to do so without using jargon or esoteric vocabulary. I will also try to do so by writing posts that don't take up more than 10 (at the most 15 minutes) of your reading time.
​
​
I picked out my current reading list with the aim of figuring out these 3 questions -
1) Can we understand something without being able to explain it or conversely, does the fact that we are able to explain something mean that we also understand it? In other words is explaining something the same as understanding it? What would a non-explanatory way of understanding be?
2) Much work in academia/ research is about figuring out 'the truth of the matter'. But is truth the only ground of being/ of existence? Do people's lives always depend on knowing and understanding 'the truth' - whatever that is? What are some alternative grounds to truth for being/ existence? What do people base their lives on, when not basing it on the truth? Can the outcome of academic research be something other than producing truth claims?
3) Even if and when we concern ourselves with the truth, is truth always propositional? i.e. I propose something - nothing can travel faster than the speed of light or that democracy is the best form of governance or that the Transformers movie series is sexist and then we accept or reject the proposal after either squabbling over it or subjecting it to some tests.
Can truths take non-propositonal forms? eg. can truths be declarative as when a Minister says I declare you husband and wife thus bringing into existence a new truth/ reality wherein a man and a woman are now indeed husband and wife? Can truths be performative? as when an actor takes to the stage and is no longer Benedict Cumberbatch or Manoj Bajpai but instead becomes Hamlet or Sardar Khan. Can truths be prophetic? as when a prophet describes the future and through this very act of prophecy brings into being the future that he or she describes? What would a non-propositional truth be/ be like?
​
In order to tackle these questions, I am considering doing a multisited ethnography among plant scientists studying plant cognition and intelligence and people who take ayahuasca who frequently report the ability to communicate with plants. Thus I hope to compare and contrast two different ways of understanding plants and two different ways in which truth claims about plants are articulated, verified, measured and approved.
​
I am trying to become acquainted with literature in the fields of science and technology studies + history & philosophy of science; psychedelic research; aesthetics; epistemology of religion.
I am always happy to discuss these + many other topics. Feel free to reach out to me if you feel like it.
​
​