My dissertation project, ‘Reimagining the Modern Hindu Self: Caste, Untouchability and Hindu Theology in Colonial South Asia, 1899-1948’ examines the interrelationship between modern forms of Hinduness and the narratives of Progressivism in the context of Maharashtra, a region in Western India. I present a thick description of the complex social world of Marathi intellectuals and cultural actors of the early twentieth century through various discursive/philosophical writings, journals, newspapers, pamphlets, personal correspondence, biographies, as well as a wide range of literary corpus of novels, plays and literary criticism in Marathi. My project hopes to demonstrate that a deeper engagement with the vernacular discourses would be enriching and productive for South Asian intellectual history. My methodology involved an exploration of the dialogic and transformational relationships between the centre and the peripheries of ‘Hinduness’ across disparate sites of discursive productions like non-Brahmin print publics, theological debates and literary culture. Through an examination of the ways in which the various peripheries of Hinduness – like Untouchables, the non-Brahmin, the non-Hindu and the women – had transformed the ideas of what constituted the core of modern Hinduness, I argue that the various narratives of Maharashtra’s progressivism and a complex phenomenon of modern Hinduness were deeply implicated in the production of each other in the first half of the twentieth century. My project identifies untouchables, women, anti-caste intellectuals, toilet cleaners, translators of Sanskrit texts and people who fasted unto death as crucial actors in this reimagination of modern Hindu self. Also, by providing a regionally specific history of Hindu ethic, my project challenges the Pan-Indian narrative of universal Hinduism that is privileged in the historiography of South Asia and enables me to argue that the ethical value of Hinduness was inherently political and the universal idea of Hinduness did not emerge through a singular genealogy. It is in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948, that the contradiction between the ethical and political aspects of Hinduness became significant. My project is to write a long and complex history of this imperative moment that coincided with the dawn of independent India.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 2020 / This thesis examines how the history, design, management and use of public space relate to the interaction of public space with spatial (in)justice, focussing on case studies of different public space typologies in inner-city Johannesburg. These cases - namely Gandhi Square, Constitution Hill and Pieter Roos Park - embody key and distinct models for public space management. The research contributes to understanding the changing nature and meaning of privately and publicly managed places regarding their interactions with spatial justice and injustice. While the emphasis in South Africa’s spatial justice discourse is largely focussed on inadequate, peripherally located housing, this PhD explores how these issues relate with and impact on central public places. The thesis thus demonstrates how broad spatial injustices influence particular sites and networks of public space, arguing that site-level management and use patterns play important roles in shaping public culture, which has further implications for those broader spatial injustices and attempts at resolving them. Lefebvre’s (1968) concept of the right to the city helps to explore the inherently political nature of public space, and how people’s rights are enabled or circumscribed in the ways the spaces are managed, used and contested. My analysis of the paradoxes of public space underpin arguments for a more nuanced and processual understanding of spatial justice that emphasises public space more strongly, based on a shift from understanding spatial justice through a necessitation of trade-offs to a more holistic approach. In line with this shift is a call for a more network-based, creative and collaborative approach to the production and management of public space / CK2021

This interdisciplinary dissertation describes the pedagogy of Ignatius of Loyola (e.g., a Jesuit education is world-affirming, assists in the total formation of each individual within the human community) and examines its import for public schools. Chapter 1 establishes the research context within the historical landscape of Ignatian Pedagogy, with the dissertation question: Could the pedagogical philosophy of the Jesuit founder, Ignatius of Loyola, be used to apply and create a similar program/system of character formation in the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) schools. Character Formation is explained as the way youth are formed as whole persons to be in relationship with self and others, as active participants in a world where their flourishing is emphasized and their ability to be critical, reflective, and self-directed is enhanced by their psycho-social-environmental well-being. Chapter 2 presents a literature review to examine Ignatius of Loyola’s ideas about character formation. Chapter 3 continues the literature review, addressing concerns about the meeting of faith and education in public schools, this is done through the lens of feminist theology and pedagogy. Chapter 4 describes the strategy of program review of the Loyola Academy Encore Program of Character Formation that I employed to develop and form students’ character at the Jesuit-sponsored Loyola Nativity School in St. Louis, Missouri. Chapter 5 examines a pilot study completed at one of my schools, 30Q151, the Mary D. Carter school, which tracked five special education students’ placement from a Most Restrictive Environment to a Least Restrictive Environment, in order to build their self-esteem and form their character. Chapter 6 discusses findings and implications for the NYC DOE if it were to consider developing a universal program of character formation based on the programs in place at Jesuit-sponsored schools. Chapter 7 presents a theological-philosophical framework grounded in literature for creating the Beloved Community (e.g., King, Gandhi, Freire), my statement for and about how human beings flourish, e.g., ascending towards a rationalization for why public and private schools need programs of character formation in the 21st century.

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree MASTERS IN EDUCATION In the Department of Educational Psychology and Special Education of the Faculty of Education at the University of Zululand, 2010. / The aim of this study was to investigate the challenges facing educators’ in the inclusion of ADHD learners in the mainstream classroom. As an introduction to the study the challenges faced by educators’ in the inclusion of ADHD learners in mainstream classes were reviewed by means of a study of available and relevant literature. Educators are people who make learning and teaching possible and their own challenges in what is happening in the classroom are of crucial importance. Research done in South Africa on challenges faced by educators’ in inclusive education indicated that educators in mainstream classrooms generally express negative attitudes to mainstreaming policies and thus finds himself with many challenges. In the new education dispensation educators in mainstream classrooms have to accommodate learners with impairments, such as the ADHD child. Inclusion makes additional demands on educators because of the special educational needs of learners with impairments. The challenges facing educators in inclusion and their efficacy in meeting the special needs of learners with impairments play a determining role in the successful implementation of an inclusive education policy. For the purpose of the empirical investigation a self-structured questionnaire was utilized. An analysis was done of 110 questionnaires completed by primary school educators from the Mafukezela Gandhi district on the North Coast of KwaZulu Natal. The data was processed and interpreted by means of descriptive statistics. Essentially the following were the main findings from the empirical study:  Educators lack the necessary knowledge, skills, training and experience of learners with special educational needs.  Educators have difficulty in identifying ADHD learners.  Educators needed to change their teaching methods to accommodate learners with diverse educational needs. The study concludes with a summary and findings from the literature study and descriptive statistics. Based on these findings the following recommendations were made:  The development of curricula, institutions and methods of assessments must include a variety of strategies to accommodate learners with special educational needs, such as ADHD learners.  The basic training of educators must include compulsory courses such as orthopedagogics that will enable them to cope with the demands for inclusion of learners with special educational needs.

My dissertation, "Only Connect": Friendship, Belonging, and Space in the Works of J. M. Barrie, E. M. Forster, and J. R. Ackerley, argues that early- and mid-twentieth-century narratives of friendship bring a sense of openness to spatial regimes and social boundaries of the period. In conversation with recent scholarship on Victorian friendship--especially Richard Dellamora's Friendship's Bonds (2004), Leela Gandhi's Affective Communities, and Sharon Marcus's Between Women (2007)--and queer and affect theory, my readings of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan (1911), E. M. Forster's Howards End (1910) and A Passage to India (1924), and J. R. Ackerley's My Dog Tulip (1956) cover a variety of fictional spaces spanning metropole and empire--such as the Victorian nursery, Neverland, pastoral England, the colonial social club, the Marabar Caves, the animal clinics and public parks of London--in order to locate and better understand friendship as a recurring set of affects and practices between selves and others that are horizontal and emerging, not hierarchical and foreclosed. Mapping different formations and moments of friendship in a range of spaces, my dissertation highlights the extent to which friendship, as a narrative trope and theoretical framework, affords new ways of thinking about being, belonging, and becoming with others. My dissertation also examines the different ways in which Barrie, Forster, and Ackerley's narratives of friendship confound major themes of the Victorian novel, such as gender-specific separations of private and public life, the marriage plot, bourgeois subject-formation, nation-building, and the racialization of colonial subjects. While mindful of higher-stake concerns over identity-formation, ideological debates over subjectivities and their corresponding communities of belonging, the four chapters in this dissertation are more interested in bearing out the affective energies of friendship, and the unpredictable or non-teleological ways in which they are invoked in certain moments and places but not others.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / The dissertation investigates our moral obligations in the face of injustice. Contemporary political philosophers have largely neglected this issue, focusing instead on what they call the "problem of political obligation"; that is, whether subjects of just and nearly just societies have a moral duty to obey the law because it is the law. Philosophers fail to consider the obligations of citizens in polities with significant and pervasive injustice. They sometimes recognize that civil disobedience may be morally justified, but they never consider the possibility that it might be morally required. This failure to consider the possibility that one may have a duty to disobey unjust laws and resist injustice is surprising given that the paragons of civil disobedience-to wit, Henry D. Thoreau, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr.-treated resistance to injustice as a matter of moral obligation. The dissertation shifts attention away from the orthodox question, Is there a moral duty to obey the law?, towards the morally urgent question, When is one morally required to disobey the law? Chapter 1 examines the literature on political obligation and civil disobedience, and elaborates on the dissertation's project and motivation. To inquire into citizens' obligations in the face of injustice, the dissertation employs the normative principles commonly used to ground a moral duty to obey the law. Chapters 2-5 are each devoted to one standard ground of political obligation, namely: the principle of fairness, the natural duty of justice, the Samaritan duty, and associative duties. Each chapter clarifies the normative principle under consideration, and develops an account of the duty to resist injustice and disobey the law based on that principle. Chapter 6 summarizes the resulting "multiple principle" theory of obligations in the face of injustice, and complements it with an account of second-order duties focused on overcoming obstacles to the perception of injustice and recognition of one's responsibilities. / 2031-01-01

This thesis concentrates on literature during India's battle for independence from the British Empire. These publications look at the outcomes of Europe's intent to colonize and its impact on the marginalized, colonial subjects down to the personal level. Delving into the tragic reality of colonialism and investigating its impact as portrayed in the novels selected, this thesis argues that the selected texts operate as resistance literature subverting the colonial discourse in retrieving South Asian culture and history. This project explores specific forms of resistance within the tropes of memory, history, and gender to pose a larger question of decolonial futures in the postcolonial aftermath. The explorations of Ahmed Ali's Twilight in Delhi, Rabindranath Tagore's The Home and the World, and R.K. Narayan's Waiting for the Mahatma all represent multiple ways of studying the independence movement in their resistance frame. Analyzing these works through a postcolonial perspective unveils underrepresented voices and the intricacies of the Independence landscape. Ahmed Ali incorporates nostalgia as an argument for abolition and articulates Muslim identity in India's rapidly transforming environment. Tagore writes from his real experiences, recounting the confusion and disarray that plagued the Independence movement as disputes erupted on how to fight for India's sovereignty. R.K. Narayan embraces the ‘Quit India' protest and Gandhi's pacifist ideals while worrying about the future after the Mahatma's death. These writers decolonize readers' minds, and campaign for India's independence against the Empire Such literature gives the colonized a voice as they actively resist the British colonization in every aspect of existence.

This dissertation reveals the long-term implications of Transnational Advocacy Networks (TANs) on domestic environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) in India. It asks two questions: i. what opportunities and challenges do Indian NGOs face while addressing environmental issues within a transnational framework? ii. in what ways can southern domestic activists reduce the challenges of TAN neocolonialism and Indian state repression? It argues that TANs fail to leverage indigenous interests in the global South and that TAN activity increases Indian activists’ exposure to state repression. Existing transnational relations literature downplays the neocolonial side of transnationalism in favour of the short-term benefits of international recognition and material and financial aid. Drawing on over 50 research participant interviews and print documents collected over the course of six-months in New Delhi and Bengaluru, the research teases out the everyday lived experiences and histories of domestic activists in TANs. It analyzes how certain traditional rural-based advocacies that adopt a Gandhi-based approach such as the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) and Pathalgadi movements reject transnational alliances with international NGOs for fear of dominance and oppression, while urban-based advocacies that receive material and financial security from abroad such as Greenpeace India, ActionAid India, and Amnesty International view TANs as a boon for the Indian environmental advocacy sector. The research argues that Indian environmentalists would benefit if they shifted away from TANs towards a ‘global solidarity’ model that incorporates intersectionality between movements and South-South Transnational Advocacy Networks (SSTANs). / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p>The concept of resistance provides a primary framework for the critical project of postcolonialism. Despite its significance, however, resistance has been under-theorized within the field. In postcolonial criticism and theory, resistance signifies any opposition to, or subversion of, colonial authority. This study analyzes the dominant constructions of resistance within the field of postcolonial studies and argues for a theory of resistance that identifies the way in which acts and practices transform the discursive and material structures of colonial power rather than simply subvert or oppose certain aspects of these structures. Chapter One analyzes the concept of resistance as it is constructed within Homi Bhabha's colonial discourse theory. Critics argue that the theoretical deconstruction of colonial power ignores the material structures of colonialism and the agency of the colonized; South Asian resistance to repression in early Twentieth Century South Africa, however, reveals the way in which colonial authority was challenged at the level of its cultural assumptions. Chapter Two identifies an oppositional paradigm of resistance with origins in the work of anti-colonial intellectuals such as Frantz Fanon. Oppositional models of resistance often reinforce colonial representations of power and reduce the identity of the colonized to a function of the anti-colonial struggle. Chapter Three demonstrates how Gandhism constructs the end and means of struggle as interdependent. Gandhi constructs colonial authority in terms of the cooperation of the colonized; resistance requires the transformation of the colonized subject. Finally, Chapter Four investigates the way in which the concept of reconciliation - as it has been theorized within the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa - aims at transforming the antagonistic relationship of colonial authority. As models of resistance, both Gandhism and reconciliation construct the experience of colonial power much differently than do the dominant conceptions of resistance within postcolonialism.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p>The Bhagavadgītā, the most popular religious text of Hinduism, has become the social and political gospel of India in the Twentieth Century. What is attempted in this study is an examination of the Hindu religious consciousness as reflected in the various recent interpretations of this religious text. In this, we have examined the writings of Twentieth Century national and religious leaders of India and their reinterpretations of the age-old Hindu concepts of dharma, karma and mukti. The main line pursued is to discern the attempt by the moderns to integrate dharma and mukti and to render the message of the Gītā relevant to the problems of contemporary India. We examine this attempt by these national leaders against the background of recent ideologies such as nationalism, socialism and secularism that have made deep inroads into the sub-continent. The "counter-ideologies" (à la Harry M. Johnson) that sprang up from the new interpretations of the Gītā by national leaders such as B.G. Tilak, M.K. Gandhi, Sri Aurobindo and others are examined in depth. The modern commentators also attempt to relate the teachings of the Gītā to the needs of a modern secular society, and in particular to the problems of religious pluralism which confront modern India. These commentators however, did not limit the relevance of this text to India, but have been eager to point out its relevance for a wider humanity.</p> <p>This study aims to be both descriptive and critical. I have sought to describe what modern Indian thinkers selected as essential to the tradition and have also sought to understand their determination to come to terms with not only spiritual but also national and social issues. It is clear that they understood that reconstruction work in India could not be envisaged without giving it a basis in religious tradition which in their mind was most succinctly represented by the Bhagavadgītā. The writer after critical study, has come to the conclusion that these commmentaries taken together have successfully pointed out the significance of the Bhagavadgītā as a text that can accommodate varieties, and as a text which, without losing the clarity and rigour of its central spiritual perception, can provide legitimation, for the social and political forces that underlie a secular state.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)