There has been much academic work outlining the complex links between women and the nation. Women provide legitimacy to the political projects of the nation in particular social and historical contexts. This article focuses on the gendered symbolization of the nation through the rhetoric of the ‘motherland’ and the manipulation of this rhetoric in the context of national struggle in Bangladesh. I show the ways in which the visual representation of this ‘motherland’ as fertile countryside, and its idealization primarily through (...) rural landscapes has enabled a crystallization of essentialist gender roles for women. This article is particularly interested in how these images had to be reconciled with the subjectivities of women raped during the Bangladesh Liberation War (Muktijuddho) and the role of the aestheticizing sensibilities of Bangladesh's middle class in that process. (shrink)

In this age of “free-sex”, gurus, Hare-Krishna chanters and transcendental meditation teachers J. Кrisimamurti stands almost alone as a non-guru of outstanding grandeur. His lecture tours in major centers of the world remind one of the historical Buddha who reversed the Upanishadic tradition of teaching in a forest hermitage to a select few by travelling on foot from village to village in North-Eastern India to carry his message of love, compassion and understanding to the masses regardless of caste, color or (...) sex. But historical comparisons are never complete. Whereas the Buddha used the local dialect, adapted his message to the intellectual level of his audience and made free use of stories and parables, Krishna-multi lectures in the English language in his intense analytic style to rapt audiences without any such aid. No wonder the Buddha's appeal and impact historically has been infinitely wider than that of Krishnamurti. And yet, both eschewed dogma, tradition and metaphysical subtleties, and deliberately refused to offer any sugar-coated pills and panaceas for overcoming the pervasive human condition of suffering. They endeavoured to make people “see” and “understand” the human condition in an act of total awareness so as to take them to the very brink of that “creative emptiness”, ultimate freedom and radical change which alone is conducive to the attainment of transcendent peace. In other words, the doctrine of Krishnamurti as that of the Buddha is not for the weak and effeminate who need “crutches” of all kinds but for those who have the courage to help themselves by an act of understanding the way things are without being entangled in theories and conceptual puzzles. It is the intention of this paper to analyze, understand and critically evaluate Krishamurti's concepts of self, action and freedom. (shrink)

Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, EarlyView.