Contextualising Cultural Praxis - II

Below are the excerpts of the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Lecture delivered by Sitaram Yechury on November 22, 2014. The memorial lecture was organised by the Jana Natya Manch.

VI

This hegemony of the `ideas' of ruling classes, as Gramsci explains, is not enforced merely by the State.The State is only the "outer ditch" behind which stands a powerful system of "fortresses and earth works", a network of cultural institutions and values which buttress the rule and domination of the ruling classes.

Contextualising Cultural Praxis

Below are the excerpts of the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Lecture delivered by Sitaram Yechury on November 22, 2014. The memorial lecture was organised by the Jana Natya Manch.

LOCATION OF CULTURE:
A MARXIST APPROACH
By choosing this, I am conscious of, at least, two limitations at the outset.

125th Birth Anniversary Celebrations Of Jawaharlal Nehru by SAHMAT

TO mark the 125TH birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru, Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT), in association with India International Centre, has organised a series of lectures by eminent personalities on the theme ‘Indian Modern and Nehru’. The first of these talks was held on 22 November 2014. The talk was delivered by eminent historian Professor Irfan Habib. He spoke on ‘Jawaharlal Nehru and Indian National Movement’. The talk, which was chaired Professor Mushirul Hasan, was attended by a large number of people from various walks of life.

DUJ Condoles UR Ananthamurthy

THE Delhi Union of Journalists paid glowing tributes to the memory of renowned writer and social activist UR Ananthamurthy. In a resolution adopted at a meeting of its office bearers held on August 27 the DUJ noted that the writer had made a big impact on Indian literature through his socially relevant writings.

A Chronicler of the Apartheid: Nadine Gordimer

THE South African Nobel-prize-winning author Nadine Gordimer, one of the most powerful voices against apartheid, died at the age of 90 on July 13, 2014 at her Johannesburg home.

SAHMAT Condemns Threat to Artiste

THROUGH a press statement issued from New Delhi on June 9, 2014, the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT) strongly condemned the threat issued to renowned singer Shubha Mudgal in California. There, a pro-Modi supporter of Hindutva threatened Mudgal at a concert, for her vocal and public opposition to the Hindutva forces.

Khwaja Ahmed Abbas Centenary Celebration

KHWAJA Ahmed Abbas, a multi- faceted personality who was engaged in several important ventures is an important legendary figure in the world cinema and literature. Abbas was integral to Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) and Progressive Writers’ Association (PWA).

A Truly Phenomenal Woman

DR MAYA Angelou, the celebrated poet, writer, singer, and actress died at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in the United States on May 28, 2014. She was 86. The literary giant, most known for her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and Phenomenal Woman, a collection of poems, was one of the foremost African-American writers and thinkers of our times and one of the first black women in the United States to enjoy mainstream literary success.

Gabriel García Márquez: Living to Tell the Tale

TEN days after his discharge from a hospital in Mexico City, Gabriel García Márquez, one of the greatest writers of our times, died on April 17, 2014 at the age of 87. Author of classic works such as One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Times of Cholera, No One Writes to the Colonel, The Autumn of the Patriarch and Chronicle of a Death Foretold, he created the eternal and marvelous Macondo which, in the imagination of millions of his readers, became synonymous with Latin America.

Artists Need to Unite against Communal Fascism

THE Janvadi Lekhak Sangh (JLS) held its eighth national conference at Allahabad, on February 14 and 15, with the message that it would do all it can to unite the writers, artists and other cultural workers with the broad democratic movement in order to meet the growing threat of communal fascism in the country. On the first day of the conference, a Meet on Composite Culture was held in an effort to bring on to one platform various groups of democratic minded writers and cultural workers as well as independent writers and other intellectuals against the communal threat.

Search form

Peoples Democracy

Culture