New book announcement! “Aakash Singh Rathore has given us a truly global theory of AI.”
—Slavoj Žižek ‘WILL AI MURDER US ALL? The Moral Psychology of Artificial Intelligence’ preorder now @PenguinIndia with a 25% discount: amazon.in/Will-Murder-All-Ps…

Glorious 10 km run around Carthage, Sidi Bou Saïd and La Marsa. I’ve created an unbelievable running route that passes thru: •the spot where, in 383, Augustine left his mother Monica at the shrine of St Cyprian and sailed for Italy; •the Roman cisterns that stored water brought by the aqueduct (2nd century AD) to fill ships with fresh water supplies for long voyages; •the Sidi Bou Saïd lighthouse (lit in 1840), which Flaubert climbed during his 1858 stay while writing his novel “Salammbô”; •the café in Sidi Bou Saïd where Foucault wrote “The Archaeology of Knowledge” (1968); •the North Africa American Cemetery, which includes the grave of Foy Draper, who won Olympic gold with Jesse Owens in Berlin in 1936 (you know, the one where Hitler was not pleased); •and Damous el Karita, the spectacular church where Augustine preached in Carthage. #runningtheworld #carthage #augustine #flaubert #foucault

Here’s a very challenging and interesting new book from Srila Roy (WITS, South Africa): “Dissonant Intimacies”. The author covers movements like FeesMustFall, India’s #MeToo and resistance to the genocide in Palestine in this reflection on the limits of a global decolonial feminist agenda in the Global South. She also critiques my earlier Reader called “Dalit Feminist Theory”. books.google.com/books?id=dv…

‘Will AI Murder Us All?’: Maybe the real question the book asks is, ‘Will we kill ourselves?’ scroll.in/article/1096374/wi… via @scroll_in

Fantastic and important new work by my former student, now Professor in Rome, Dr Mohammed HasHas (student has clearly surpassed the teacher): “Political Theologies in Morocco: Towards the Post-Islamist Moment” This chapter seeks to chart the evolving relationship between religion and politics in modern and contemporary Morocco. Given the chronological and intellectual diversity of Moroccan political and religious thought, it identifies three key historical phases to frame the discussion: the precolonial, the colonial and the postcolonial periods. To each of these phases corresponds a use or a narrative of religion, as this chapter proposes: the ‘Islamic’, ‘nationalist’ and ‘post-Islamist’, respectively. First, the precolonial phase is characterised by hybridity, as it overlaps with the early Moroccan Nahda (awakening) movement prior to full colonial control, yet continues into the colonial era, playing a vital role in anti-colonial resistance. I refer to this period as ‘Islamic’ because Islam served as the sole and unifying identity marker for renewal efforts within what was then an intellectually homogeneous society. Second, during the colonial phase, this Islamic identity became even more pronounced, as French colonial authorities actively worked to weaken it by targeting religious institutions such as Sufi orders, endowments and brotherhoods. Most importantly, in 1930, the French exploited linguistic differences to divide the population into Berber (Amazigh) and Arab zones, and between 1953 and 1955, it attempted to depose the nationalist Sultan in favour of a compliant alternative. In response, Islam emerged as a unifying force against colonial domination and struggles for independence –hence the use of the term ‘nationalist Islam’, for this historical period. Third, the postcolonial phase introduces new debates around the structure of the nation-state and the role of religion in political life, encompassing themes like democracy, secularism, liberalism and socialism. This era witnesses the rise of diverse forms of political Islam, which I categorise as Ultra-Orthodox Islam, Orthodox Islam and Critical Islam. Though all grounded in Islamic identity, they interpret it in varied ways. Drawing on Asef Bayat’s concept of ‘post-Islamism’(Bayat 1996, pp. 43–52),I refer to this phase as ‘post-Islamist’, marked by the coexistence of multiple Islamic actors without a dominant, hegemonic project. This plurality not only prevents rigid ideological dominance but also revitalises the ‘Islamic’ as a fluid, lived spirituality and moral framework –reminiscent of its pre-modern character –within an increasingly secular and neoliberal global context.

Interesting new paper on Ambedkar by Danish Hamid. It treats Ambedkar as an Indian pragmatist focused on the ethics of belief. Hamid argues that Ambedkar uses Buddhist language to lay out a monist-materialist view, but the real point is practical: that is, to structure belief so it serves the ultimate goal of annihilating caste. scholar.google.com/scholar_u…

Scott Stroud’s new piece in “The Pluralist” — a reply to his critics — presents the simple and compelling point that most of the time in academia we just find new angles on the same old ground. But, Stroud argues, the growing work on pragmatism and India actually feels like something different, as though new territory is opening up. scholar.google.com/scholar_u…

An upcoming talk at @AshokaUniv on my new book, “Will AI Murder Us All?” amazon.in/Will-Murder-All-Ps… “Where is everybody?” Enrico Fermi’s famous question captures a cosmic puzzle: if our galaxy offers so many opportunities for life and intelligence to develop, why have we found no evidence of other technological civilizations? One possible answer is the Great Filter, a barrier that prevents most civilizations from reaching the stars. The unsettling question is whether that barrier lies in technologies like AI that we have yet to master. As powerful technologies become more widely accessible, the ability to cause catastrophe may spread faster than our capacity to prevent it. AI could intensify this danger both by expanding access to destructive capabilities and by introducing intelligence whose competence need not be matched by concern for human life. ashoka.edu.in/event/book-tal…

Important new book: होऊ शकतः है — Manyavar Kanshiram’s Bahujan vision for a people-oriented democracy, by Dhananjay Soidaji Wanjari. This is a sharp, essential reflection on Kanshiram’s philosophy, revolution, and ideological legacy. namamiprakashan.in/-4-d0ad

In this Deccan Herald piece, I use Derrida’s pharmakon (via Plato’s Pharmacy) and MC5’s “Poison” to unpack a recent X post that called Ambedkar’s ‘Annihilation of Caste’, Phule’s ‘Ghulamgiri’, and related texts “poison” being fed to students. What threatens inherited caste and patriarchal hierarchies is actually not a poison but a medicine, in line with the Constitution’s own demand for equality—it is actually caste/gender inequality that is the toxin to India. deccanherald.com/opinion/poi…

Mudras: Visual Convergence or Direct Transmission? The hand in the Byzantine Pantocrator icon forms the Christogram "IC XC," encoding the Trinity through a gesture rooted in Greco-Roman rhetoric and later theologized. Parallel to this, the Buddhist world independently codified its own hand seals. The Shuinzu, a 1684 Shingon manual in the British Library, diagrams 12 principal mudrās that ritually identify the practitioner with Mahāvairocana. While visual similarities between Orthodox blessings and the vitarka mudrā spark claims of direct transmission, records point to convergent evolution within distinct ritual grammars.

New in ‘Meridians’: Sneha Gole’s essay on “Contingent Intersectionality and the Politics of the Possible”. Dalit feminist critiques have shown that mainstream Indian feminism’s category of “woman” has not adequately dealt with caste, leading to an impasse in movement activism. Gole’s paper explores how left feminist organizing, attentive to caste and region, can open a politics of the possible: scholar.google.com/scholar_u…

Business as usual?

What a gift to meet Souleymane Bachir Diagne, the great Senegalese philosopher, here in Tunis. His brilliance and learning is paired with a remarkable humility. He was a student of Althusser and Derrida and is a polymath. But I’m most blown away by his work, inspired by Merleau-Ponty, on decolonising museums and the idea of the universality of the Louvre — which he calls “the Flesh of the Louvre”.

What if French Theory was born in the South? In The School of the South: The Colonial Roots of French Theory, Onur Erdur shows how Bourdieu, Foucault, Derrida, Cixous, Lyotard, Barthes, Balibar, and Rancière forged their concepts through direct contact with colonial and postcolonial North Africa (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia). A sharp rereading of a body of thought shaped by decolonization. philomag.com/livres/lecole-d…

"L'École du Sud. Les racines coloniales de la French Theory" de Onur Erdur!!! Et si la French Theory était née au Sud ? Une enquête passionnante qui révèle comment l’expérience coloniale a façonné les plus grands penseurs français du XXᵉ siècle. L’École du Sud propose une thèse majeure : les grands penseurs français du XXᵉ siècle — Bourdieu, Foucault, Derrida, Cixous, Lyotard, Barthes, Balibar, Rancière — n’ont pas forgé leurs concepts dans les seules bibliothèques parisiennes, mais au contact direct des espaces coloniaux et postcoloniaux où ils ont vécu, enseigné, combattu ou parfois gardé le silence. À travers huit portraits et en retraçant leurs parcours et leurs liens avec l’Algérie, le Maroc et la Tunisie, Onur Erdur montre comment l’expérience coloniale a façonné leurs œuvres. Ce livre offre une relecture inédite et décapante de la French Theory : un courant de pensée né dans la décolonisation, traversé par la violence, l’exil, la différence, la culpabilité et l’ambivalence. Il éclaire d’un jour nouveau les débats contemporains sur le racisme, l’identité, la mémoire, et la responsabilité intellectuelle. Dans une langue très accessible, entre scènes de terrain, archives, récits de vie et nalyses théoriques, L’École du Sud se lit comme une enquête vivante et comme une traversée du siècle. Onur Erdur met à jour une histoire longtemps refoulée : l’Algérie comme matrice oubliée de la pensée française, et le Sud comme lieu d’émergence de concepts qui ont changé le monde. Un essai puissant, qui déplace le regard et nous montre ce que signifie philosopher au temps de l’injustice coloniale.   Onur ERDUR est historien des idées, chercheur et professeur en études culturelles à l’université Humboldt à Berlin. L’École du Sud, paru en Allemagne en 2024, est son premier livre.

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar (1891–1956) — visionary politician, eminent jurist, economist, philosopher, scholar, and social reformer — was among the greatest architects of contemporary India. His life centered on emancipating the downtrodden and building a society of justice, equality, and fraternity. His ideas continue to shape debates on democracy, social justice, human rights, and constitutional governance. Read more: researchgate.net/publication…