Fractured Ecologies: Caste, Indigeneity and Nature in India
The Subverse
In this episode, host Susan Mathews is in conversation with an anthropologist studying wildlife conservation with an interest in human-animal relations and community-based conservation. Her monograph Tigers are our Brothers: Anthropology of Wildlife Conservation in Northeast India was published in 2021. She has written extensively on issues of caste and indigeneity in the environmental sciences and academia in India. Ambika completed a PhD thesis in Anthropology from the National University of Singapore in 2016, and currently teaches at IIT, Gandhinagar in India....
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Sonic Earth: Life, Loss and Listening
The Subverse
We start Season 4 of The Subverse, which will focus on “Earth”, with a conversation with , a writer and biologist. We focus on his latest book, Sounds Wild and Broken, which explores the story of sound on Earth. It was a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction and the PEN E. O Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. In it, David writes about how, three and a half billion years ago, sunlight found a new path to sound: life. The wonders of Earth’s living voices emerged after hundreds of millions of years of evolution that unfolded in communicative silence. From the ancient...
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Movement, Mountains, Metamorphosis and Music
The Subverse
In today's episode, we bring you Stories from the Subverse. Siddharth Pandey, a writer, artist, and historian, extols the wonders of moving, and allowing oneself to be moved. The simple act of walking becomes radical, with the potential to shirk Nazi commands in Munich, to reclaim fresh air and majestic mountain views from imperial exclusivity in Shimla, to change, create and stir the imagination. As he moves through the mountains, Siddharth challenges their apparent immobility, not just in the liveliness that they host and nurture, but in their very genesis. Every step he takes literally...
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Fire Changes Everything
The Subverse
In this episode, Susan Mathews narrates an eccentric story of fire, an intangible and odd element. She begins with lines from William Blake’s “The Tyger”, which invites us to partake of creation and the paradoxes of the divine, with an equal measure of wonder and terror evoked through fire. But fire is more than just combustion and volatility, a chemical reaction or an ecological stimulus. The history of fire and the history of life are twin flames. Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan write in their wonderful book What is Life? that one answer to the titular question is that life is the...
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Good Wife, Bad Witch: Incendiary Crossings and Theatres of Violence
The Subverse
In this episode, host Susan Mathews has a revealing conversation with Professor Pompa Banerjee on fire and gendered and ritualised violence in historical and current practices. Prof. Banerjee teaches courses in early modern literature and culture at the University of Colorado, Denver. Her work focuses on the literary and cultural dimensions of Europe’s cross-cultural encounters in the global Renaissance, especially in the ways they shape identity in the age of discovery. She also studies the unexpected crossings between European witches and Indian widows, and...
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Intersecting Heat: Visual Journeys into Caste, Gender and Labour in India
The Subverse
Dear listeners, this week we return to The Subverse. In this episode, Susan Mathews is in conversation with Bhumika Saraswati, an independent photographer, journalist and filmmaker. We look at how extreme heat is embroiled in caste and labour in India. We speak about Bhumika’s present visual project which focuses on dalit women in agriculture in Uttar Pradesh, India and the impacts of heat, and an earlier short film she had done on workers in crematoriums during the covid-19 pandemic in New Delhi, India, an occupation which is surrounded by fire and heat hazards. The...
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Acrx - Vajra Chandrasekera
The Subverse
Arcx is all about literary inspiration. In this episode, we speak to short story writer, editor and novelist, Vajra Chandrasekera. Vajra’s work is largely in the realm of speculative fiction, and he has published over a hundred pieces since 2012 in various formats. Notably, his work has been featured in Analog, Clarkesworld, West Branch, and The Los Angeles Times. He has also been nominated for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for his short story, The Translator, at Low Tide. Additionally, he was also nominated for the British Science Fiction Association award for Best Non-fiction. His...
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Arcx - Usman T. Malik
The Subverse
Arcx is all about literary inspiration. In this episode, we speak to doctor and speculative fiction writer Usman T. Malik. Usman’s work has been published extensively, and featured in platforms such as Strange Horizons, Tor.com, Black Static, and Nightmare. In 2014, he became the first Pakistani to win the Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction for his work The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family. He also won a British Fantasy Award in 2016 for The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn. The story was also nominated for Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy awards....
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Arcx - Payal Dhar
The Subverse
Arcx is all about literary inspiration. In the sixth episode of this season, host Anjali Alappat talks to journalist, editor, and author Payal Dhar. Payal Dhar primarily writes for middle grade and young adult audiences, and her extensive catalogue of work includes Satin: A Stitch in Time, Slightly Burnt, Hit for a Six, There's a Ghost in My PC, and It Has No Name. More recently, Payal has published two books in the Sands of Time series: The Prophecy and The Key. Payal’s work has also been featured in anthologies like Shockwave! and Other Cyber Stories, Year's Best Young Adult...
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Arcx - Saad Z. Hossain
The Subverse
Arcx is all about literary inspiration. In the fifth episode of this season, host Anjali Alappat speaks with Saad Z. Hossain, the author of the best-selling Djinn series, which includes Djinn City, The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday, Kundo Wakes Up and Cyber Mage. Saad's debut novel, Escape from Baghdad! was a finalist at the Grand Prix de L'imaginaire in 2018. The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday also received critical acclaim and was a finalist at the Locus Awards and the IGNYTE awards in 2020. Kundo Wakes Up, the sequel to The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday, was published in 2022, and...
info_outlineIn this episode, The Subverse explores the progression in the use of metals and its impact on the trajectory of human evolution,the role of fire and its symbolism in understanding artefacts, art history, culture, and dance. Susan Mathews speaks with Prof. Sharada Srinivasan, a professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore, India, who studies archaeological artefacts and metallurgy.
Through the study of artefacts, we can better understand the history of technology and the progression of metals in civilization. This also helps inform the conservation of artefacts and get better insights into archaeology and art history. In her own work, she has made landmark contributions such as the analysis of bronzes in South India using lead isotopes to identify its metallurgical characterisations and studies on ancient mining and metallurgy in South India.
We looked at the fire element in several ways. First, we explored the trajectory of human evolution and its intrinsic links to the increasing ability to master fire. The progressive use of metals and metallurgy was pivotal, and we find that presently no device or pursuit lacks an element of combustion technology. From the hearth to kilns and fiery furnaces, unknown forms and embellishments were forged for the good and for the bad. We spoke about some of these contradictions in the application of heat to metal and some of the gender divides that followed this fiery progression.
Prof. Srinivasan brings up interesting illustrations of the ancient art of lost wax casting in India, the making of carnelian beads and the role of women in ceramics, such as Kota women from the Nilgiris. The conversation covered fire symbolism and cultural references in Vedic literature, Buddhist iconography, Tamil Sangam poetry and the Nataraja bronzes.
Professor Sharada Srinivasan was elected as an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Archaeology in 2021. She received the Padmashri, India’s fourth highest civilian award, in 2019 and has made pioneering contributions to the study of archaeology and history of art from the perspective of engineering applications.