on archives and history

"The question of Experience can be approached nowadays only with an
acknowledgement that it is no longer accessible to us. For just as modern man has been deprived of his biography, his experience has likewise been expropriated(13)".Agamben's language is seductively simplistic. Both Agamben and Foucault (Agamben is here with Foucault as he is considered as post-Foucauldian scholar and also because he himself has acknowledged Foucault a lot) have declarations. However, while Focault's declarations are at the cost of human experiences, Agamben places the experiential at the centre stage of his scholarship. These days I am reading Giorgio Agamben,"Infancy and History: Essays on the Destruction of Experience". I am not going to summerise Agamben's argument
but would liket o cite him without engaging with him here. He writes
that "the expropriation of experience was implicit in the founding
project of modern science( 17)". He argues that "the idea of
experience as seperate from knowledge has become so alien to us that
we have forgotten that until the birth of modern science experience
and science each had their own place"(18).He further writes that "in
its search for certainty, modern science abolishes this sepration and
makes experience the locus--the 'method'; that is, the pathway-of
knowledge"(19). We may walk with Agamben but not now. Agamben is
referred here as he strikes at the core, breaking the singularity of
the question , something I have learned from his earlier book,
"Witness and the Archives"a dn something that I am trying to when
engaging with the question of memory and the archives. Namrata was
deadright when she pointed that I am trying to meet both ends and
also rightly observed that I go wild. This is where I wanted to
reflect on self-obsession. this is important if I lack it I will lack
the experience of listening ( something that remains my anchor while
engaging with the issue of archives and the memory). Again I am not
going into details demonstrating the relevance of self-obsession or
whether this is the right word to deploy as a methodological tool
when like me all the researchers go back almost mechanical way to
recordings and experiences of listening to recover details. The key
difference lies in experiencing our own attempts of recovering
details and the manner in which detailing influence the self of the
researcher. Self-obsession is an obsesseed engagement with the self.
it is experiencing the self at specific moment and for specific
purpose. But how does it help to understand the relationship between
memory and the archives. Something I keep working on and I do not
have any readymade answer to it.
For some time I have been thinking on the relationship between memory
and the archives. This concern is an outcome of my earlier work,
documenting lives of those who underwent the trauma of partition of
Indian subcontinent during 1946-1950. The project was aimed at
documenting lives and making an archive (the project was initiated by
Ashis Nandy at CSDS, Delhi). I worked as field researcher in that
project. At this point, I am interested to understand
a. how ideas and notions of the archives circulate and practised
outside the disciplinary domain of history;
b. linkages between the domains of experience and the archives;
c. how archives are perceived and parctised in non-western pasts.
any suggestion, comment, reference is welcome.
warmly in disagreement and opening up the debate beyond the
omnipresent history,
sadan.

response to Surat:entry in the city

On 1:21 pm 01/11/08 " Shivam Vij शिवम ् विज् " wrote:
> Dear Sadan,
>
> I think any analysis of the Pushpa TS poem must keep in mind that it
> is part of a series of eight odd poems called "Very Indian Poems in
> Very Indian English". It is important that all of these poems be read
> together; that challenges many notions that reading Pushpa TS in
> isolation brings along.
>
> best
> shivam

Surat:: Entry in a city

"Surat? Ah yes,
Once only I stayed in Surat
with family members
of my uncle's very old friend,
his wife was cooking nicely...
that was long time ago..."
For the full poem see, http://audiopoetry.wordpress.com/2007/08/22/goodbye-party-for-miss-pushpa-ts

Like many other crucial functions, cities have been sites of memories too. The memory of this city of Surat comes alive at the moment of departure of Miss Pushpa, in this poem by Nissim Ezekiel. It is a "good bye party for miss Pushpa T.S." 'She is departing for foreign'. The poet writes,
"Miss Pushpa is coming
from very high family.
Her father was renowned advocate
in Bulsar or Surat,
I am not remembering now
which place".
As a history student, my immediate impulsive responsibility is to find the date when this poem was composed, at least date of of publication is necessary. The geographical setting of this party, the social environment, the literary form and the affective charge are some of the primary areas needed to be attended by any researcher.
I am informed,
"Ezekiel( 24December 1924- 9 January 2004) belonged to Mumbai's tiny, Marathi-speaking Bene Israel Jewish community, which never experienced anti-semitism. They were descended from oil-pressers who sailed from Galilee around 150BC, and, shipwrecked off the Indian subcontinent, settled, intermarried and forgot their Hebrew, yet maintained the Sabbath. There were 20,000 Bene Israel in India 60 years ago; now, only 5,000 remain". He stayed while his relatives left gradually for Israel. This same Guardian article by Lawrence Joffe( 9March, 2004) that maps his life sketch also informs that "Ezekiel's poetry described love, loneliness, lust, creativity and political pomposity, human foibles and the "kindred clamour" of urban dissonance".
I want to know more on this poet and his poems. But I am more interested to know about Bene Israel Jewish community in India, particularly in western part of this country. The linkages between this community and the city of Surat. However, before moving to a rapidly declining community and its association with Surat, that boasts its multi-cultural and multi-ethnic past ties, A brief pause at memory, literature and the city would be more pertinent. This is not merely because we began thinking about Miss Pushpa as a moment when the memory about the city came alive, memory of a visit to Surat. This is also because the space of the city of Surat is grounded and translated in and through the memories of specific experiences( i.e. visit to a family, nicely cooked food etc.) and figures (family members, uncle's old friend, figure of a wife through the act of cooking etc) and we come face to face with the place-ness about the city. This transition from the space to place-ness is mediated here through the memory rendered in specific literary form, poetry. The question that needs attention is how to conceptualise this relation between the city, memory and literature in general and with poetry in particular.