On the patron saint of libraries

Came across this today while reading Paul Lendvai’s The Hungarians (2003) “Three chronicles report different versions, written between 970 and 1075, of an attack on the monistary of St Gallen and its surroundings (today in Switzerland). “The heathen barbarians” advanced like lightening through Bavaria and Swabia along Lake Constance, and inflicted heavy damage on the […]

On solidarity

From Avtar Brah in the introduction to Cartographies of the Diaspora, … My relationship to these political formations in the USA was inextricably entwined with my status as a ‘foreign’ student who ‘looked Indian’. I was not categorized as ‘Asian’, for this descriptor was then reserved largely for Chinese and Japanese Americans. the highly publicized […]

On interruptions

From Bonnie Honig in Antigone, Interrupted, I am one of those people who finishes other people’s sentences. Some people see such interruption as impolite and resent the institution. Others appreciate it and see it as a part of a kind of conversational co-stewardship. You can tell pretty quickly which are which. With those who resent […]