"Imbibe as much as you can from the institutions you go to, but also be open to the informal cultures of literature, music, art and so much more that surrounds you. You will then have many opportunities for Bildung and will be able to feel and orient yourself to your future paths. The multiple worlds you inhabit might not quite fit in with each other or with what you set out to do, but you would have to negotiate these worlds in finding your freedom."

 

At the University of Innsbruck I will...

I will be teaching a seminar course on care and critique, exploring the relationship between care ethics and Critical Theory based on my new research on which I am working at present. A quick look at their meanings and etymologies in the Merriam Webster dictionary reveals care to have a wider range of meanings than critique, while foregrounding their differences. Care as a noun covers a wide ground: nurture, attention, protection, maintenance, responsibility; as a verb it covers a range of actions nurture/protection/attention/maintenance/being responsible, in short looking after in any of these senses. Care also suggests concern/worry/anxiety. These range of meanings suggest that care is an affective term.  Critique, on the other hand, is not as closely related to the emotive dimension; on the contrary, it emphasizes discursivity, intellectualism and rationality that maintain a distance from affects. Critique is etymologically derived from critica in Latin, or the the evaluation of literature. Critica in turn is rooted in the Greek kritikḗ that has a feminine dimension of kritikós as in "discerning, capable of judging". These differences and overlaps are reflected in their philosophical explorations. Care ethics, rooted in the affective philosophical tradition of David Hume, has travelled since its feminist articulations by Carol Gilligan and Nel Noddings to a political philosophical alternative to neo-liberalism with thinkers like Joan Tronto, Daniel Engster and others. Care thinkers are committed to relationality and vulnerability. Critical Theory, on the other hand, situates itself in the Kantian – and to an extent in the Marxist-framework with a critical focus on rationality and the Enlightenment. As the work of a prominent critical theorist Jürgen Habermas suggests, critical theorists aim at developing both critique and noninstrumental modes of reasoning such as the communicative. The seminar course I will be teaching will examine whether the key themes of care and critique are at necessarily at odds with each other, given their affinities. In this endeavour, it would work with key themes and texts in ethics of care, as well as, critical theory to explore their dialectical relationship. I will also be giving two public talks (i) Rethinking Surrogacy from the Global South:  Reproductive Technology, Freedom and Care (Institute of Philosophy in collaboration with the Centre for Gender Studies) (ii)Maternal Metaphor in Bhakti Saint Poetry as “Cosmo-feminist” (Institute of Philosophy in collaboration with the Peace and Justice Centre)

 

What fascinates me about scientific work is...

It attempts to understand the world as it is given, but at the same time actively reflects, analyses, interprets and critiques it. The world is impacted by the perspective of the scientific researcher, but then rather than mastery, the thinker’s own vulnerabilities are foregrounded in the self-reflexivity that is characteristic of scientific research. This is more so because the thinker is not simply one single individual who is isolated but a part of a larger web of interconnectedness. Consequently, research conclusions that are themselves the outcome of such reflexive reflection are open to further deliberation. This in my view is particularly important in the context of our increasing exposure to digital information where the challenge of distinguishing between what is fake and what is true is tremendous. Scientific research with its focus on evidence and reflexivity is relevant in addressing the blurring of such a divide. Its significance is also related to deliberation and dialogue being an inherent part of such research. Thus, scientific research enables self-criticism and openness to others, both of which are important public dimensions of democratic life.

 

For my students I give the following advice...

Imbibe as much as you can from the institutions you go to, but also be open to the informal cultures of literature, music, art and so much more that surrounds you. You will then have many opportunities for Bildung and will be able to feel and orient yourself to your future paths. The multiple worlds you inhabit might not quite fit in with each other or with what you set out to do, but you would have to negotiate these worlds in finding your freedom. Since we are never alone, you will have to try to empathise with worlds that differ from yours and with those who make choices that differ from your own. In freely cultivating yourself, you would also have the responsibility of resisting what might look easy – in terms of knowledge- to be more responsible. For example, digital technology is all around and easily available, but might appear to be knowledge, without being so. To discern the fine print in digital technology, you would have to do the hard work of reading and deliberating what you read with others who are both like you and different. You would have to engage with the fraught dialectic of the real world of libraries, books, reading groups, friends, peer circles and the virtual world of social media to responsibly arrive at free judgments.

From Innsbruck I take home with me...

Interactive sessions with students from my seminar course and conversations with colleagues in the Department of Philosophy and the wider University community. The questions, arguments and comments raised by students will help me think from wider perspectives that could differ from my own and include points of view that I was not aware of earlier. My own communicative skills as a teacher would sharpen during my interaction with students, as I would have to vocalize my own theses, while providing grounds for them. I similarly look forward to dialogues with colleagues in the Department of Philosophy and the wider academic community in Innsbruck to learn from their work and share my own work with them. I especially wish to learn more about the area of metaphorology, on which some of my colleagues in the Department of Philosophy work. It has the potential to think about language, concepts and translation in multiple ways that go beyond narrow rigid confines. I particularly think that a point of contact between care ethics and metaphorology will be philosophically helpful. Since Plato, metaphors such as nurse and mother have been used to spell out the superiority of rational thought from care work. I am interested in exploring how metaphorology would enable these same metaphors to articulate another mode of philosophical thought akin to care work. In sum, I hope to take back from Innsbruck "expressive collaborative" discussions in the spirit of Margaret Urban Walker; discussions that are grounded in concrete specificities of embodied lifeworlds that would have an abiding impact on my writing.