We may think of reading and writing as opposite activities, but there’s a long history of people reading with blank books by their side so they could write out their favorite passages as they went. Deidre Lynch is interested in what these homemade books can tell us about the people who filled them up. Like someone’s Pinterest board or Tumblr blog today, these curated collections of words told a story about a person’s individual identity. Beyond that, they could also tell the story of relationships within a social group, with many people contributing extracts to a single book.
Tag: collaboration
When you think of an expert or specialist, you might picture a scientist with a lab coat and test tubes. Science likes to claim that its knowledge applies everywhere – like gravity or evolution – which makes scientific knowledge superior to local knowledge about one specific place. But Paige West points out that in practice scientists rely heavily on local people’s knowledge, for example the specialist knowledge that indigenous people in Papua New Guinea have about the fish, plants and ecosystems of their area. In fact, such local knowledge has proven to be crucial for successfully combating major problems like climate change.
Spectacular dance sequences are one of the most recognizable elements of Indian cinema, and female dancers are the biggest stars. Although some critics view dance sequences as just interruptions that don’t push the story forward, Usha Iyer argues that distracting from the story is actually a good thing. Whereas the stories are typically marriage plots in which women give up their independence, focusing on women’s dancing allows us to recognise the power and skill not only of the characters but also of the dancer-actresses who have shaped these films behind the scenes.