Disenchantments of secularism: the West and India

This Chapter is an exercise in comparative secularism. In this chapter I will be concerned basically with a critique of Western conceptions of secularism, beginning with Hegel’s invention of a particular reading of secularism that, through imperialist literature, gave a preeminent direction to the ideology of the less-religiously orientated Indian nationalists during their drawn-out independence struggle. My main concern will be to contrast the Western debates on ‘the secular’, particularly in its recent permutations or attempted revisions as a response to the crisis of modernity, with the current Indian debates—where ‘ the secular; has all but been hijacked by the Hindu Right—and to show—reversing Hegel’s trajectory—what impact the latter could have on the former. There is some evidence of this already occurring, particularly in Charles Taylor’s work and travels wherein he does make some gestures towards looking at non-Western experiences of secularism (which is taken more or less to be synonymous with secularization). There are severe limitations to this overture however, and the chapter hopes to sound a word of caution on the kind of excitement over which Taylor seems to have become something of a celebrity in the academe. Even more disappointingly, one does not find a similar emphatic approach or opening to non-Western experiences and rethinking of the secular in the works of other modernists; and I point to Habermas and Žižek as my examples, who I touch on, albeit very briefly. This lack or lacuna makes both the discourse of modernity and the supplementary critique of secularism much the poorer for it.

Migrant housing in the city and the village : from Melbourne to Zavoj

This paper will discuss the kinds of communities that evolve through historical practices of migration. The migrant house is associated with a new architecture that hod appeared in the cities of immigration of the new worlds (Melbourne, Toronto, Chicago). It is perceived as a stereotypical symbolisation of immigrants from Southern European origins that had arrived in the decades following the Second World War. The appearance of houses built by returning migrants in sites of origin suggests other traiectories, other modes of travel, and other forms of community. Central to the thesis of this paper is the testimony of two types of migrant houses. The study draws on theories of migration that address the site of departure, the site of arrival, and the question and conflict of return which is at the centre of the migrant's imaginary. This study will examine the migrant houses in the village of emigration (Zavoj in Macedonia), migrant houses built by returning emigrants. A study of the two houses of migration implicates a set of networks, forces, relations, circumscribing a large global geopolitical and cultural field that questions our understandings of diaspora, the binary structure of dwelling/travelling, and the fabric and fabrication of community. In addition, the paper will explore the notion of house as an imaginary landscape, a psychic geography narrated through migratory travels.

Baltic winter (amped folk instruments-ethereal and haunting with female vocals)

Baltic Winter - a Slavic mermaid rests upon a rock on the edge of the Baltic Sea. It is night time during the depths of winter. She risks not being able to return to the sea as it could freeze in the time that she drapes the snow crested pine trees with her ethereal calls. Her voice travels through the Medieval forest in search of her nymph . . . will he hear her? Or will her calls only serve to sing her loneliness?

OK . . . now for the technical . . . I wrote this with a documentary in mind. I have used a sampled Finnish/Estonian Kantele, a touch of an acoustic guitar, female vocals, percussion, and a couple of synths.

Baltic winter (under 1 minute haunting female vocals and ethereal)

Baltic Winter Shorts 02 - a Slavic mermaid rests upon a rock on the edge of the Baltic Sea. It is night time during the depths of winter. She risks not being able to return to the sea as it could freeze in the time that she drapes the snow crested pine trees with her ethereal calls. Her voice travels through the Medieval forest in search of her nymph . . . will he hear her? Or will her calls only serve to sing her loneliness?

OK . . . now for the technical . . . I wrote this with a documentary in mind. I have used a sampled Finnish/Estonian Kantele, a touch of an acoustic guitar, female vocals, percussion, and a couple of synths.

Baltic winter (under 1 minute haunting female vocals and ethereal)

Baltic Winter Short 01 - a Slavic mermaid rests upon a rock on the edge of the Baltic Sea. It is night time during the depths of winter. She risks not being able to return to the sea as it could freeze in the time that she drapes the snow crested pine trees with her ethereal calls. Her voice travels through the Medieval forest in search of her nymph . . . will he hear her? Or will her calls only serve to sing her loneliness?

OK . . . now for the technical . . . I wrote this with a documentary in mind. I have used a sampled Finnish/Estonian Kantele, a touch of an acoustic guitar, female vocals, percussion, and a couple of synths.

Baltic winter 42 seconds ethereal sweeping and haunting with female vocals

Baltic Winter Shorts 03 - a Slavic mermaid rests upon a rock on the edge of the Baltic Sea. It is night time during the depths of winter. She risks not being able to return to the sea as it could freeze in the time that she drapes the snow crested pine trees with her ethereal calls. Her voice travels through the Medieval forest in search of her nymph . . . will he hear her? Or will her calls only serve to sing her loneliness?

OK . . . now for the technical . . . I wrote this with a documentary in mind. I have used a sampled Finnish/Estonian Kantele, a touch of an acoustic guitar, female vocals, percussion, and a couple of synths.

Baltic winter ethereal cinematic and haunting

Baltic Winter (No Vocals - a Slavic mermaid rests upon a rock on the edge of the Baltic Sea. It is night time during the depths of winter. She risks not being able to return to the sea as it could freeze in the time that she drapes the snow crested pine trees with her ethereal calls. Her voice travels through the Medieval forest in search of her nymph . . . will he hear her? Or will her calls only serve to sing her loneliness?

OK . . . now for the technical . . . I wrote this with a documentary in mind. I have used a sampled Finnish/Estonian Kantele, a touch of an acoustic guitar, percussion, and a couple of synths.

Social on the road: enabling secure and efficient social networking on highways

 This article presents SOR, a vehicular social network to enable social communications and interactions among users on the road during their highway travels. Motivated by the limited connection to Internet contents and services, the essential goal of SOR is to encourage distributed users on the road to spontaneously contribute as the information producer, assembler, and distributer in order to provide timely and localized infotainments to each other through low-cost inter-vehicle communications. To be specific, SOR enables individual users to maintain a personal blog, similar to one on Facebook and Twitter, over which users can create and share personal content information to the public such as travel blogs with pictures and videos. By accessing each other's SOR blogs and commenting on interesting topics, passengers can exchange messages and initiate social interactions. In the specific highway environment, SOR addresses two challenges in the context of vehicular social communications. First, vehicular social communications tend to be frequently interrupted by diverse vehicle mobility and intermittent intervehicle connections, which is annoying to users. To address this issue, SOR adopts a proactive mechanism by estimating the connection time between peer vehicles, and recommending vehicles with relatively long-lasting and stable intervehicle connections for social communications. Second, as users on the road are typically strangers to each other, they are reluctant to disclose personal information to others. This makes it challenging to identify users of shared interests and accordingly restricts the scale of users' social interactions. To remedy that, SOR provides a secured solution to protect sensitive user information during social communications. Lastly, we use simulations to verify the performance of SOR. © 2015 IEEE.