Panini Gupt wrote:

> Dear Chandrika,
>
> While I agree that you are raising some very important
issues vis-a-vis t=
> he
> restrictive approach of the salon towards the non-western
cinema, I think=
>  you
> need to be a little careful about falling into a reactive
trap. Even with=
>  the
> best of intentions, some of our friends in the salon may
not be able to
> overcome the 19th century Macaulayan agenda to civilize
the people whom t=
> hey
> once colonized and granted 'freedom' not too long ago.


Whilst it's nice to hear a voice of relative reason here, I
still find it slightly worrying that the salon's general
focus on Western philosophy is understood as having some
residual colonial aspect. Despite being historically
inaccurate (if anything, it's us Brits who should be
feeling colonial, not the Americans), it smells of
essentialisations where such things lack usefulness and
stunt intelligent discussion.

Also, I still don't see any proposals for how this might be
changed; both parties being happy to try and take the moral
high ground, but looking like squabbling children on a
climbing-frame.

Personally, I've found this whole exchange offensive from
all parties concerned, but only now feel compelled to make
a particular point or two:

My PhD, for which I am in my final stages, is on a subject
for which Asian/Asian diaspora cinema is largely
irrelevant, but then so is Western cinema per se.
Am I now supposed to drop a chunk and suddenly insert a
chapter on Asian cinema? Drop the whole thing and start
again? Would any of you like to fund me, and pay back the
AHRB the funding I've formerly wasted on my (by default)
north-European racist-colonialist PhD?

Also...
Considering that it will remain important to study both
Western philosophy and Western cinema in the future (even
if we all paid our apologetic dues and studied Asian
cinema), who will be given leave to study Hollywood/Western
philosophy in Chandrika's utopian film salon? Will they be
accused of colonialism too? Perhaps there could be some
sort of licence established, so that we can apply for it,
and thus 'prove' ourselves to be non-racist and non-
colonial when Asian cinema doesn't remotely come into our
field of discussion.

reductio ad absurdum etc. etc....


Besides many arguments over spheres of influence and our
general exposure to other cinemas that can also be offered
easily, this whole discussion has failed to offer any way
forward from either part.

Moreover, it has been suggested that we should all take up
Asian cinema by 'duty'. Tell me, would you prefer us to do
at least one chapter on Asian cinema (tokenism) or drop the
whole thing for it (ghettoism)?

I've been reading Cornel West lately (who describes the
above), and none of the current argument satisfies his very
good idea of a critical organic catalayst - someone capable
of taking the benefits of both approaches.

Basically, I see only an old, hackneyed racism/anti-racism
argument over the last few weeks, and there's not only
(merely) a hair's breadth between the offensiveness of both
sides, but I'm becoming confused as to which argument is
racist, and which is anti-racist.

Panini is partly right, let's drop the reactive element
here. Both parties clearly have an axe to grind before they
enter the salon.

Let's also have some answers to the half-decent question
posed, and not quite answered...
Where do we go from here, in the Salon, and in academia?


Damian







Damian Peter Sutton

PhD Candidate
University of Glasgow
Department of French
16 University Gardens
Glasgow G12 8QL
tel 0141-330 5642
fax 0141-330 4234
email [log in to unmask]