JBS Vol.2, No.2 Is Now Online

The Autumn Issue of Journal of Bengali Studies 2013 (Vol.2, No.2), a peer reviewed interdisciplinary online academic journal, has been published on the occasion of Kojagori Lokkhipurnima. You can read the journal here (click on the cover image):

ISSN: 2277-9426

Journal of Bengali Studies

Vol. 2, No. 2

18 October 2013

Kojagori Lokkhipujo, 31 Aashshin 1420

Autumn Issue

Science and Technology in History:

Modern Bengali Perspectives

Issue Editor: Mousumi Biswas Dasgupta

Asst. Issue Editor: Joydeep Bhattacharya

Editor: Tamal Dasgupta

Asst. Editor: Sourav Gupta



 

 

Contents

Editorial 5

Articles

The Deprived Technologist: Hiralal Sen and Bioscope

Sourav Gupta 8

Mahendralal Sarkar and His Indian Association for Cultivation of Science

Soumen Ghosh 17

Conveyance in Bengal Waterfront and Its Technological Excellence

Swarup Bhattacharya 31

Reviews

A Nationalist Approach towards Science and Technology: A Review of Acharya Prafulla Chandra Roy's Collected Essays (in Bengali)

Tamal Dasgupta 47

A Review of Kadambini Ganguly: The Archetypal Woman Of Nineteenth Century Bengal by

Mousumi Bandyopadhyay

Mousumi Biswas Dasgupta 55

Workshop

Field Notes: The History of Modern Pharmaceutical Technology in Bengal

Tanushree Singha 61

Commentary

The Lady Doctors: Bengali Women in Medical Science in the Modern Period

Nachiketa Bandyopadhyay 67

CALL FOR PAPERS: JBS VOL.2, NO.2

Please Note: This issue has been published. Check out this space for our new Call for Papers



CALL FOR PAPERS:

After the proud publication of our inaugural issue on Ognijug, the age of revolutionary nationalism in Bengal, and the consecutive issues respectively on Bengali Cinema: Bengalis and Cinema (Vol.1, No.2) and Bengali Theatre: Bengalis and Theatre (Vol.2, No.1), Journal of Bengali Studies (JBS), a peer reviewed academic interdisciplinary online journal (ISSN: 2277- 9426) meant for discussions into the history and culture of the Indic Bengali people, is pleased to announce the Call for Papers for its fourth issue (Vol.2, No.2) on the theme of Science and Technology in History: Bengali Perspectives, due to be published on the occasion of Durga Pujo, 2013. The final date for submission of article/review/workshop is 30 September 2013. 　


Science and Technology in History: Bengali Perspectives

The important topics for contribution will include the following (but will not be exclusively limited to the same):
Ancient times to the early middle ages and the flourish of science and technology in the Eastern Indic civilizations of which Bengal was the prominent seat:

The flourish of Ayurveda and pharmaceutical sciences.

Civil Engineering, architecture and draftsmanship.

Metallurgy, and other branches of Inorganic chemistry.

Sculptural technology, woodcraft, terracotta, different forms of handicraft.

Textile technology.

Navigation.

Irrigation and other forms of water management.

Agriculture, Fishing technology, Veterinary sciences, and other Biological sciences.

Physical sciences.

Linguistics, grammar and philology.

Military technology.


The general setback suffered by the Indic science and technology in the middle ages by Islamic invasion (the destruction of Nalanda University immediately coming to mind); later, the appropriation of the native science and technology by the Islamic rulers.


The British colonization. British destruction of native knowledge and technology, immediately coming to mind is the brutal annihilation of superior textile technology of Bengal by cutting out the thumbs of Bengali muslin weavers. Also, the systematic uprooting of Ayurveda by encouragement given to Western system of medicine.

Bengalis' encounters with western science and technology.

Asiatic society and the flourish of philology and archeology.

The establishment of Medical College in Calcutta in 1835, and Bengal Engineering College at Shibpur in 1856.

Bengal renaissance, the nationalist awakening and the flourish of science and technology in Bengal. Bankim Chandra's tome of writings on modern science.

Mahendralal Sarkar's establishment of Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science. Presidency College and Calcutta University. The great scientists during Bengal Renaissance: J.C. Bose and others.

The spirit of Hindu Revival in A.P.C. Ray's History of Hindu Chemistry. Tagore's exchange with A.P.C. Ray regarding the chemist-turned-litterateur Rajshekhar Basu (whose brother Girindrashekhar was the first Freudian psychoanalyst in the entire non-Western world) exhibiting the tremendous amount of talent which went into the cultivation of science and technology in Bengal.

Developments in Printing technology. Upendrakishore (U. Ray and Sons) as a case study.

Bengali nationalism and Bengal Chemicals of A.P.C. Ray.

Ognijug and the flourish of science and technology in an overall atmosphere of nationalism.

Establishment of Bengal Technical Institute in 1906 and its later merger with National Council of Education in 1910, a merger that gave birth to what is known today as the Jadavpur University. The contribution of Jadavpur University towards advancements in science, engineering and technology.

The sustained flourish of Calcutta University's Science Colleges.
The phenomenal, original contributions of Satyen Bose, Prasanta Mahalanobis, Meghnad Saha and other such luminaries.
Interactions and exchanges: science and technology, and other disciplines. Science and literature, Bengali science fictions. Popular Science. Science and philosophy. Science and art and culture. Technology and Bengali cinema (particularly early Bengali cinema, prior to the left-IPTA take-over of Bengali cultural scenario; for a brief idea of the technological superiority of early Bengali cinema one may refer to Tamal Dasgupta's article in the JBS cinema issue).


Post-Independence to the present. The stagnation. The flight of talents. Bengali bhadralok fascination with Joint Entrance Examination (for admissions into Medical and Engineering). Left domination and the degeneration of science and technology in Bengal, immediately coming to mind the fate of Doctor Subhash Mukhopadhyay (on the basis of whose tragic but nevertheless pioneering life, Tapan Sinha made the movie Ek Doctor Ki Maut). The paradox of largely left dominated so-called science movements (so-called rationalist movements) in Bengal which could not arrest, but perhaps further fueled the degeneration and decline of the dilapidated condition of cultivation of science in Bengal that increasingly embraced mediocrity; the vulgar Marxist, mechanically materialist outlook of such movements, so aptly touched upon in Nabarun Bhattacharya's Herbert. 　


General details about submissions to Journal of Bengali Studies:
Journal of Bengali Studies is published in English and is an online journal. A Contribution must be electronic and in English language. It should consistently follow any one of these three scholarly styles of citation: MLA style, Chicago Manual of Style and APA style. Contributions must always be double spaced. An article, with notes and bibliography, should not be more than 10000 words. In case of reviews, the upper limit is 2000 words; we welcome reviews of new books as well as old and out of print ones, not necessarily of books written in English alone; we accept  reviews of science and technology related books, texts and artworks (new and old alike). From our Cinema issue onwards, we started a section (in addition to articles and reviews) called Workshop: Theory in Practice. This section features creative/critical works which are related to our theme. Any kind of creative writing that concerns the relationship between Bengalis and science is welcome for this issue; a priority may be given to science fiction stories, which may be originally written in Bengali, in which case it has to be in English translation, or it may be originally written in English. In either case, it should focus on our theme and be relevant to the CFP. The workshop may also include critical writings, for example, the narration of the experiences in one's particular field/profession, exploring the question of the Bengalis' involvement with science and technology. Upper Limit of Creative Workshop: 10000 words. We have no lower word limit for the contributions, the authors are free to use their discretion. Contributions should either be in MS Word, Open Office, or RTF format and should be emailed to all of these three email ids: editorbengalistudies@gmail.com, editjbs@gmail.com and shoptodina@gmail.com. Before submission, please see our Submission Guidelines and Terms and Conditions for further details at http://bengalistudies.blogspot.in/. For further ideas about the objectives of our journal, please see the JBS Manifesto at http://bengalistudies.blogspot.in/.

Editor: Tamal Dasgupta

Editorial Board: Sourav Gupta, Sujay Chatterjee, Rishi Ghosh, Nirvik Banerjee.

For this science and technology issue of JBS, Mousumi Biswas Dasgupta will be the issue editor.

Journal of Bengali Studies: Theatre Issue (Vol.2, No.1)

Our Spring Issue 2013 is being published on the occasion of Dolpurnima. Journal of Bengali Studies Vol.2, No.1 is available here for download. The theme of this issue is Bengali Theatre: Bengalis and Theatre.

 

 

Contents

Editorial 5

Articles

Analysing Contemporary Response to Tagore's Philosophy of 'Indian' Theatre: A Selective Study of Productions in West Bengal

Sourav Gupta 7

Nineteenth Century Bengali Theatre: Nationalism and Identity

Rudrasish Dutta 18

Getting Our Bearings: The 'Unbearable' Tagore and Karnad's Bearable Dramaturgy

Dattatreya Datta 26

The Lonely Crusader's Journey: Sambhu Mitra and His Theatre

Gautam Sengupta 50

Open Air Theatre in Bengal

Dani Karmakar 56

Third Theatre: Thematic and Structural Decolonization

Debadrita Bose 62

Review

 

A Performance of Ruddhoshongeet by Bratyojon in New Delhi

Tamal Dasgupta 71

Theatre in Practice: Concerns of a Field Worker

Theatre: Bread and Butter versus Broad and Better

Rishi Ghosh 77

Commentaries

Bengali Theatre and Bengali Audience

Soumitra Basu 82

Theatre in Patna

Ajit Ganguly 88

Delay in Publication of JBS Vol.2, No.1 (Theatre Issue)

Owing to unavoidable circumstances, the publication of JBS Vol.2 No.1 (Bengali Theatre: Bengalis and Theatre) has been delayed. We regret the inconvenience caused to our readers, and would like to inform them that this issue will now be published online on the occasion of Dol Purnima (27 March 2013). The deadline for submission of articles etc. for this issue is extended to 10 March 2013.

Launch of Shoptodina

বাঙালি আত্মপরিচয়ের সন্ধানে। সপ্তডিঙা। আবার ভেসে উঠেছে...

Shoptodina refers to a grand fleet of merchant ships from ancient and early medieval Bengal. “Shopto” means seven in Bengali. There are also reasons to believe that Shoptodina could have been named after Shoptogram, an ancient harbour of Bengal. “Dina”/"ডিঙা" (which is correlated with the term dinghy, but stands for a much larger boat than a dinghy), as in Shoptodina, is an Austric word, and it belongs to the language of the most ancient, earliest group of native inhabitants of Bengal. All we know is that we really don’t know how far dina/ডিঙা goes back in history. Shoptodina thus stands as a symbol for the Bengali identity as well as the global reach and spread of the Bengalis and their culture.


We welcome everyone who has a lively interest in Bengal's history and culture. We welcome Bengalis and non-Bengalis alike to experience the unique feel of Bengal.

 

Journal of Bengali Studies is henceforth managed by Shoptodina, an organisation meant for promoting Bengali identity, history, culture and community. Be a part of the Shoptodina experience. Join us. This is our site: www.shoptodina.org

 

 

CALL FOR PAPERS
After the proud publication of our first issue on Ognijug, the age of revolutionary nationalism in Bengal, and the second issue on Bengali Cinema: Bengalis and Cinema, Journal of Bengali Studies (JBS), a peer reviewed academic interdisciplinary online journal (ISSN: 2277- 9426) meant for discussions into the history and culture of the Indic Bengali people, is happy to announce the Call for Papers for its third issue (Vol.2, No.1) on Bengali Theatre: Bengalis and Theatre, due to be published on the occasion of Boshonto Ponchomi, i.e. Saraswai Pujo, 15 February 2013. The final date for submission of article/review/creative workshop is 1 February 2013.

　
Owing to certain unavoidable circumstances, the previously announced CFP titled Bengalis and Power has been temporarily withdrawn, we deeply regret this decision and JBS pledges to return to it in future.
　
Call For Papers
Bengali Theatre: Bengalis and Theatre

"The really conspicuous talent for histrionic art possessed by the Bengali, cannot be seen to better advantage than in this drama."
-The Englishman (1873)

7th December 1872 was a historic day for Bengali Theatre as well as the socio-cultural spectrum of India as the nation witnessed the inception of a public theatre with the staging of Nildorpon. It was the first time that a public space was thrown wide open to the common masses in lieu of ticket and not on the basis of class, caste, creed, race, religion or gender. Every inhabitant of Bengal was welcome in the playhouse, which would now be the site of mass agitation, nationalist revolutionary awakening and cultural-spiritual cultivation in the coming decades.
Dinabandhu Mitra’s Nildorpon (translated by Michael Madhusudan Dutt as Indigo Mirror) signaled a new herald of nationalism that swept the Bengali stage to evolve into a potent weapon of protest against the British colonialism. The legacy of Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay in Bengali literature was carried on by the likes of the "Shakespeare of India", Girish Chandra Ghosh who pioneered modern play writing in Bengali. Soon, the Bengali stage acquired importance beyond socio-economic and cultural boundaries as spiritual leaders like Ramakrishna Paramhamsa patronized it and the British rulers despised it by drafting one coercive legislation after another.
The immortal words of Ramkrishna,"Theatre e lokshikkhe hoi" (Theatre provides mass enlightenment) catapult theatre from the mud of rich man’s entertainment and forced prostitution of actresses like Binodini by patrons to an aesthetic art form with an immense potential to influence people, that was evident in case of Binodini playing Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in Girish Ghosh's theatre. As time progressed, better technology, innovation and indigenous features and an imminent Bengaliness characterized Bengali theatre with the likes of Notosurjo Ahindra Choudhury and Natyacharjo Sisir Kumar Bhaduri coming to the forefront. Tagore's contribution to Bengali theatre was noteworthy too.
During the 1940s, with the advent of Leftist ideology in theatre, nationalism took a back-seat; anti imperial struggle was displaced and sabotaged under the name of class struggle in renowned plays like Nobanno. IPTA became the buzzword and Bengali theatre appeared in new avatars like Gononatyo, Nobonatyo and finally to the present form of Group Theatre. It has changed parallel to the change in Bengali society, values, norms, ideologies.
The present issue would like to throw open arguments, broadly regarding the change in Bengali theatre from its glorious nationalistic beginnings to the domination of leftist ideology and to what extent this has affected Bengali theatre and its environment.
The topics for contribution will include the following sub-themes but will not be exclusively limited to the same:

Sub themes
1. Bengali theatre and society.
2. Nationalist/Revolutionary awakening & Bengali theatre.
3. Bengali drama and Bengali language, culture, politics and history.
4. Bengali literature and Bengali theatre: Bankim, Sharat, Tagore et al.
5. Economics, publicity and stagecraft of Bengali theatre.
6. Issues & subjects of Bengali theatre.
7. Bengali influence on Indian and world theatre (on the plays in languages other than Bengali).
8. Leftist ideology in Bengali theatre.
9. The legendary commercial-popular theatre of Bengal. Group theatre movement.
10. Contemporary Bengali theatre & their polyphonic voices.
11. Women in Bengali theatre.
12. The relation of Bengali theatre to the traditional performing arts of Bengal, like dance, Jatra, Kobigaan etc.
(the authors are encouraged to extend beyond the given theme and sub themes)
　
General details about submissions to Journal of Bengali Studies:
Journal of Bengali Studies is published in English and is an online journal. A Contribution must be electronic and in English language. It should consistently follow any one of these three scholarly styles of citation: MLA style, Chicago Manual of Style and APA style. Contributions must always be double spaced. An article, with notes and bibliography, should not be more than 10000 words. In case of reviews, the upper limit is 2000 words; we welcome reviews of new books as well as old and out of print ones, not necessarily of books written in English alone; we accept reviews of old and new plays alike, as well as reviews of theatre related books, new and old alike.
From our Cinema issue, we have started a section (in addition to articles and reviews) called Creative Workshop: Theory in Practice. This section features creative writings which are related to our theme. Any kind of creative writing that concerns the relationship between Bengalis and Theatre is welcome for this issue; a priority may be given to maiden theatre scripts, which may be originally written in Bengali, in which case it has to be in English translation, or it may be originally written in English. In either case, it should touch our theme and be relevant to the CFP; for example, a meta-theatrical play about Bengalis and theatre (immediately coming to mind is Utpal Dutt's Tiner Toloyar) would be very much welcome. So will be any play that explores the question of Bengaliness. Upper Limit of Creative Workshop: 10000 words.
We have no lower word limit for the contributions, the authors are free to use their discretion. Contributions should either be in MS Word, Open Office, or RTF format and should be emailed to editorbengalistudies@gmail.com, editjbs@gmail.com and shoptodina@gmail.com.
Before submission, please see our Submission Guidelines and Terms and Conditions for further details at http://bengalistudies.blogspot.in/. For further ideas about the objectives of our journal, please see the JBS Manifesto at http://bengalistudies.blogspot.in/.
Editor: Tamal Dasgupta
Editorial Board: Sourav Gupta , Rishi Ghosh, Sandeep Chatterjee, Mousumi Biswas Dasgupta, Sujay Chatterjee, Amit Shankar Saha.

For this Theatre issue of JBS, Sourav Gupta (+919938902001) and Rishi Ghosh (+919432862316) will be Executive Editors.

JBS Vol 1 No 2 has been published

After the proud publication of our first issue on Ognijug, the age of revolutionary nationalism in Bengal, Journal of Bengali Studies, a peer reviewed academic interdisciplinary journal meant for discussions into the history and culture of the Bengali people, is happy to announce the online publication of its second issue. The Monsoon Issue (Vol. 1 No. 2) of Journal of Bengali Studies is now online. The theme of our current issue is Bengali Cinema: Bengalis and Cinema.

Download the complete issue.

To read it on scribd, click here.

Have a brief glance at the content of JBS Vol.1 No.2 .

Contents

Editorial 5

Articles

Towards a Historiography of Bengali Cinema

Or, Everything You Enquired about Herbert Sarkar, but Were Dismissed by the Coffee House Intellectual

Tamal Dasgupta 8

Utopias of Celluloid Love: The Golden Era of the 1950s & Popular Culture in Bengali Cinema

Kaustav Kundu 51

Adivasi Women in the Bengali Literature and Cinema

Debasree De 76

Writing a Biography of Bengali Film Publicity: the Logic of Differentiation, and a Journey of Desire

Spandan Bhattacharya 87

Adaptation of Films from Plays: A selective study in post colonial Bengali Cinema

Sourav Gupta 104

From Tollygunge to Tollywood: The Transformation of Bengali Film Industry between 1980 and the Present

Anugyan Nag 120

Film Reviews

Pather Dabi and Revolutionary Nationalism in Bengali Cinema: A Review
Sujay Chatterjee 169

Promoting Kolkata on a Global Scale: A Review of Kahaani

Abhijit Mallick 176

Kahaani and Bhooter Bhobishyot: Two Reviews

Mousumi Biswas Dasgupta 179

Creative Workshop: Theory in Practice

A Script Adaptation of a Poem

Debanjan Das 189