Thinking beyond Learning

The question of how an essay should be judged has been a long-discussed topic. It seemed to have found a solution in the format of the peer-reviewed essay. However, this is the notion that was debated in ‘The Non-Peer Reviewed Essay’, the theme of the tenth anniversary of the Literary Activism symposium. This symposium was held at the India International Centre recently, and was presented by the Centre for the Creative and the Critical at Ashoka University in partnership with the Institute of Advanced Studies, University College, London.

As novelist, essayist, and Ashoka University creative writing professor Amit Chaudhuri explained in the opening remarks, it is important to keep asking, “Why am I writing? What is the purpose of it?” Chaudhuri conceptualised the Literary Activism phrase and started the symposium along with literature professor Jon Cook. He added that he had wanted to remind people that in the 20th century and in the early 19th century, a lot of writers and poets were not only talented people, they were also very important thinkers. Consequently, they had a role in posing important questions to society, and challenging accepted ideas. “I came up with the term ‘literary activism’ to posit it against what I call ‘market activism’, or the language of the market, which is concerned with what will sell, and what will be the bestseller, and what will be the masterpiece,” he added. In 2014, he, along with other writers, academics, artists and filmmakers, started this tradition of coming together every year to discuss what they were doing as writers and what it meant to be creative practitioners in this globalised world with its language and literary speech.

“One reason why we had ‘The Non-Peer Reviewed Essay’ theme this year, is that the essay form is of great interest to me, as is what has been left out by academia and by the novel,” Chaudhuri told Open. “It was also because it seemed there was excessive respect in India and in academia for the idea of peer review—the notion that every statement in an academic article has to be verifiable and this verifiability supported by citation and proof; that the academic essay had become a form that did not value insight and thought as much as it did the observance of conventions and certain professional requirements.”

He pointed out that the essay form, like literature, is a home for indirection and chance: it doesn’t arrive at insight or discoveries through predetermined routes. “There’s an unusual liberal consensus about what’s ‘relevant’ and ‘important’ in India. Discussing the ‘non-peer reviewed essay’ (an unwieldy term that I coined deliberately) is one way of freeing our thinking of the constraints of the ‘relevant’”.

Author and poet Sumana Roy, another speaker at the symposium, said to Open, “The peer-reviewed essay has become so important as a career in academia. People have to write them to get promotions, to be taken seriously and so on. Once upon a time it wasn’t like this. There was a time people could write without someone telling them how not to write. There wasn’t so much judgement censorship.” Roy, an associate professor of creative writing at Ashoka University pointed out how the peer-review form sets limitations on writing. “The peer review can tell you, you can’t be published, so you don’t have the forum.  There are career expectations and research expectations. There needs to be a style, where you can write as yourself.”

In the first session, ‘Seeing Double, Hearing Double: An Experience of Reading’, the poet and translator Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, spoke on the term ‘boundation’. This referred to, as he said, an essay which is not restricted to one literature, one period, or one genre. Mehrotra also spoke on the need for allowing poetry and art to speak for themselves, as well as the spread of texts and ideas, through translations. On the other hand, the n+1 editor Colin Vanderburg spoke on the need for criticism in ‘Quiet Please, Critics at Work’. As he said, literary criticism needs crisis, otherwise it will remain unquestioned and stagnant. Vanderburg warned that although, literary criticism is constantly in crisis, of late it has gotten more spiteful, and he went on to point out that the number of literature majors are declining. Another session of the day had Lara Choksey, a lecturer in Colonial and Postcolonial Literatures at University College London, speak on how sociobiology will replace sociology in her session ‘Peer Review in Public: The Case of Sociobiology’.

On the second day of the symposium, in his session ‘The Fiction of Original Response’, author and editor Edwin Frank called attention to the fact that for so many decades and centuries, the essay form had flourished without the peer review. Frank also argued the point that all books, including what are classified as ‘bad’ books must be reviewed and discussed, as all books need representation. He also brought up the question, “Do publishers or sales dictate the writing of books?”

In his session, ‘What on Earth does Non-Fiction Mean?’ Chaudhuri drew up the differences between journalism and fiction, accurate records over popular retelling, and the documentary over the arthouse cinema. He memorably demonstrated the last example by showing a clip from Anand Patwardhan’s 1992 documentary Ram Ke Naam. The clip showed locals in Uttar Pradesh, who voiced their sceptism of the karsevaks, and whether the demolition of the Babri Masjid was necessary, or if it would make a difference.

Chaudhuri commented, “I wanted to draw attention to the way Ram ke Naam makes its case not only through fact and information but through a poetic and sensory apprehension of time and space. It is analysing and scrutinising a significant and disturbing event; but, through the imaginative vitality of its filmmaking, it’s also making us see anew certain vistas and ways of life that we otherwise ignore.” He added, “We think of documentary as information; we forget that these forms can also contain a kind of attention to the world that may not always be possible in a work of fiction or a feature film because the latter are obliged to constantly get on with the story.”

One of the many highlights of the symposium was the last session; a panel discussion by Mandakini Dubey, Vineet Gill, Saikat Majumdar, and Cynthia Zarin on ‘What Can the Essay Do?’. Writer and Penguin India editor Vineet Gill present the need for the essay form when he argued, “The essay form itself is a euphemism for criticism. All essays present an argument, some more immediately than others, and in a manner that is more accessible than others.”

The symposium was well-attended on both days. In fact, on the second day, Roy, a third-time speaker at Literary Activism, commented it was the highest turnout she had seen. Chaudhuri agreed, saying, “People had come not to learn, but to think. The fact that on each of the two days 300-500 people watched the proceedings online made it feel like the conversation was addressing a need for a kind of thought that’s complex but non-academic, and deeply related to the moment we’re in creatively.”

Amit Chaudhuriart and cultureAshoka UniversityLiterary ActivismliteraturePostcolonial LiteraturesSumana Roy