Communist, Scientist, Activist And Dreamer Daya Varma (August 23, 1929 - March 22, 2015) : Harsh Kapoor

The Wayland Rudd Collection A project organized by Yevgeniy Fiks

The Wayland Rudd Collection focuses on the representation of Africans and African-Americans in Soviet visual culture. A point of departure for this project is Fiks’ collection of over 200 Soviet images (paintings, movie stills, posters, graphics, etc.) of Africans and African-Americans spanning from the 1920s to the 1980s. Fiks invited contemporary artists as well as activists, historians, sociologists, political theorists, and specialist in cultural studies to select one or more images from this collection and asked them to respond to it either via artwork, performance, lecture, or other forms.

Wayland Rudd was an American actor who began performing in the Hedgerow Theater in Rose Valley, Pennsylvania under the directorship of Jasper Deeter. Rudd first received critical acclaim for his performance in Eugene O’Neill’s “Emperor Jones.” Frustrated over racism in the entertainment industry, Rudd moved to the Soviet Union in 1932 where he began a successful career in Soviet Theater and Film including work with the famed Russian Director Vsevolod Meyerhold. He later received a degree from the Theatrical Art Institute in Moscow and worked at the Stanislavsky Opera and Drama Theater. Rudd died in Moscow in 1952.

During Wayland Rudd’s twenty year-long career in the Soviet Union, he appeared in numerous films, theatrical performances, and plays. He was also used as a model for paintings, drawings, and propaganda posters and, in many respects, defined the image of the “Negro” for generations of Soviet people. Although only a small section of the assembled images in The Wayland Rudd Collection are of Wayland Rudd, the project is given his name to commemorate this American-Soviet actor’s personal story as a case in point of the complex intersection of 20th century American-Soviet narrative.

The images in The Wayland Rudd Collection present a very complex and often contradictory mapping of the intersection of race and Communism in the Soviet context. The participatory aspect of this project adds the needed dimensions to show this complexity—giving the viewers the capacity to digest this history. This project investigates the promise and reality of Communism vis-à-vis the issue of race in the 20th century through the Soviet experiment. It presents this issue as unresolved, revealing the Soviet legacy on race as a mix bag of internationalism, solidarity, humanism, Communist ideals as well as exoticization, otherness, racist stereotyping, and hypocrisy.

Participants: Suzanne Broughel, Maria Buyondo, Dread Scott, Jenny Polak, Michael Paul Britto, Nikolay Oleynikov, Ivan Brazhkin, Haim Sokol, Kara Lynch, Dr. Allison Blakely, Dr. Romy Taylor, and others

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AagfPvWEJc)

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB4s5b9NL3I)

A CRITIQUE OF THOMAS PIKETTY'S 'CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY' - 3

A CRITIQUE OF THOMAS PIKETTY’S ‘CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY’ – 3

  CONTAINING CAPITAL – 3

  Prasanna K Choudhary

Thomas Piketty zimbio.com

3. CAPITAL SOCIAL AND SELF-EXPANDING – 1

MONEY IS NOW PREGNANT. Goethe, ‘Faust’, Part I, Scene5.1

Let me begin with Thomas Piketty’s definition of capital, labor and ‘return on capital’. After all, ‘capital’ and ‘return on capital’ form the basic theme of the book.

Piketty writes, “In this book, capital is defined as the…

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‘Fake News’ in America: Homegrown, and Far From New (from @Truthdig)

‘Fake News’ in America: Homegrown, and Far From New (from @Truthdig)

For decades, the media have been dominated by manufactured reports. This skillful manipulation of information erased the lines between fact and opinion and gave rise to the demagogue who will sit in the Oval Office. – 2016/12/18

Source: ‘Fake News’ in America: Homegrown, and Far From New (from @Truthdig)

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To Jyotiba, from Savitribai Phule: These aren’t love letters, but tell you what love is all about,,In memory of this remarkable WOMAN… 🙌 — International Journal of Research (IJR) To Jyotiba, from Savitribai Phule: These aren’t love letters, but tell you what love is all about,,In memory of this remarkable woman, here are letters that Savitribai Phule wrote to her life partner, Jyotiba – her comrade-in-arms in the struggle for the emancipation of India’s disenfranchised people.Below are translations from the original Marathi,The first letter, […]

(via What is the Morally Appropriate Language in Which to Think and Write?)

Our very life here depends directly on continuous acts of beginning.

The great Irish poet and philosopher John O'Donohue on beginnings – wonderful read.

अनन्त का छंद - 3

अनन्त का छंद – 3 प्रसन्न कुमार चौधरी सृष्टि 29. पूरी सृष्टि में एक अनन्त शक्ति व्याप्त है – आत्म-पुनरुत्पादन की शक्ति । अन्य सारी शक्तियाँ इसी अनन्त शक्ति की उपज हैं । 30. आखिर अनन्त है क्या ? आत्म-पुनरुत्पादन की शक्ति ही अनन्त है । सूक्ष्म कण के रूप में इसे हम स्पिन ∞ का माया कण (वर्चुअल पार्टिकल ऑफ स्पिन इनफिनिटी) कह सकते हैं । 31. आत्म-पुनरुत्पादन की प्रक्रिया में आये व्यवधान/विच्युति…

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