Bouquet #3: Eclectic Mind Food (Switzerland Schedule, Moon, Scientists, Precolonial what?, Colonial Art)

Photo by David Clode / Unsplash

“in his view there could come of his interference nothing worse than what existed at present. And yet to every bad there is a worse.” ― Thomas Hardy, Thomas Hardy: The Complete Collection

1. Switzerland Schedule

Journals. Memoirs. To-do lists. They all have their place. A documentation of life, activities and events. They all bring back memories and sometimes are cathartic. In this piece, Robin Williamson writes about a ritual of her family called “The Switzerland Schedule.” She talks about her mother's death and how the documentation helped her.

The Switzerland Schedule

Emerging Writer Series

The Audacity.Robin Williamson

2. And the Moon was bright

Sometimes our experiences start us thinking in different directions. Many years back during my post grad days, I visited a village in Rajasthan and had some experience which led to this story. A personal plug.

And the moon was bright….

“Oh!! I didn’t see that puddle there!’ said Geetika as she started brushing herpants wet with mud. Vikram, Geetika and Siddarth had been walking for half anhour to get to Aam ka Taal village in rural Rajasthan. They were social workerswho had heard that the villagers

DrishtikoneDesh Kapoor

3. Conforming is in vogue for scientists

The number of science and technology research papers published has skyrocketed over the past few decades. But the ‘disruptiveness’ of those papers has dropped, according to an analysis of how radically papers depart from the previous literature.

Is it because science is now an ideological undertaking?

‘Disruptive’ science has declined — and no one knows why

The proportion of publications that send a field in a new direction has plummeted over the last half-century.

NatureMax Kozlov

4. Precolonial biases

The ‘precolonial Africa’ phrase and whatever follows from that always ends in caricature of the continent. Homogenizing and bastardizing the people and the cultures on the continent.

The idea of ‘precolonial Africa’ is vacuous and wrong | Aeon Essays

The idea of a ‘precolonial’ Africa is theoretically vacuous, racist and plain wrong about the continent’s actual history

Aeon MagazineOlúfẹ́mi Táíwò

5. Colonial art encounters with the colonized

Colonial forces always had artists with them. These artists were crucial for recording information. Information that was better documented in images than words. Here is an interesting and very informative article on how the tattoes of the Native Americans were documented by the British artists.

Body Talk | Mairin Odle

Reading tattoos and clothing in sixteenth-century Roanoke.

Lapham’s QuarterlyMairin Odle

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