Dr. Subhasis Chattopadhyay

Narasinha Dutt College (non Community College Under The University Of Calcutta)
  • Narasinha Dutt College (non Community College Under The University Of Calcutta)
    Department of English (PG & UG)
    Assistant Professor
University of Calcutta
Alumnus
PhilPapers Editorships
Vedanta
  •  6331
    I believe that as a teacher I must provide high quality content for my students. And all these should be available for free online so that bright students globally can choose which editions of a seminal text they can study. In every UG, PG examination, one is asked about the importance of the title of Shaw's play. In this paper I have illustrated by my own reading how one should and can approach the play. For scholars, my annotations referring to John of Patmos may be interesting. I have deposit…Read more
  •  2534
    Claiming the Domain of the Literary: Mourning the Death of Reading Fiction
    Prabuddha Bharata or Awakened India 121 (June (6)): 505-11. 2016.
    This essay reviews the domain of the literary contrasting it with other intellectual discourses; especially philosophy. It establishes the superiority of literature over philosophy. And mentions the philosophies informing literature. The essay is written consciously with copious endnotes, contrary to current ways of writing. The essay proper is simple; the endnotes often mock jargon and mimic pedantry.
  •  1358
    Left hand Tantra - Vama Marga
    eSamskriti. 2022.
    This clears the muck from Shakta Tantra which has become associated with hedonism and big money. This is written for a lay audience.
  •  1096
    Reflections on Hindu Theology
    Prabuddha Bharata or Awakened India 120 (12): 664-672. 2014.
    The word theology and Hinduism as a lived religion often do not go together. Moreover anything to do with theology or with Hinduism in India today might be construed as right wing rhetoric. Through this article, the author revisits Patristics, Catholic theologians like Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan. This essay is supposed to be read with the preceding essay which appeared in this issue of Prabuddha Bharata. That was written by Gayatri Spivak. The Editor put Spivak ahead of this essay to empha…Read more
  •  1095
    Vedanta and Cosmopolitanism in Contemporary Indian Poetry
    Prabuddha Bharata or Awakened India 121 (September): 648-55. 2016.
    Bashabi Fraser is known the world over as a Scottish-Bengali aka diasporic writer. Further she has also been slotted as a feminist scholar with a huge corpus on Tagore. This essay proves the fallacy of such pigeon-holeing of Fraser and shows that she is as mainstream as Yeats and even before that, like unto Blake. The essay also makes a point for rejecting every other mode of poetry except the Romantic mode. It established the Vedantic nature of the poetic genius. The endnotes are copious and co…Read more
  •  906
    Here is Harold Pinter
    THE BULLETIN OF THE RAMAKRISHNA MISSION INSTITUTE OF CULTURE (December): 561-66. 2005.
    This essay interrogates the philosophy of Pinter through analyses of his language, religious understanding of life and through passing references to Buddhism.
  •  856
    Review of Interdisciplining Digital Humanities: Boundary Work in an Emerging Field (review)
    Prabuddha Bharata or Awakened India 121 (7 (July)): 577-8. 2016.
    This review makes a case for scholars putting up their works online and for removing pay-walls of any kind. Therefore, this review is in sync with the stated aims of philpapers.org.
  •  784
    Review of Swami Vireswarananda: A Biography and Pictures (review)
    Prabuddha Bharata or Awakened India 121 (4): 427-429. 2016.
    This is contextualizing of a monk of the Ramakrishna Order who became one of the Sangha's most perfect and zealous Presidents. When the Western world is clamouring for the removal of celibacy, the Ramakrishna Order and its monks show the real possibilities of lives in the spirit. This is NOT a hagiography. Non-Hindu novice masters will benefit hugely from reading this review and the review book. The review also focuses on the philosophy of monasticism and separately, on seeing or darsana.
  •  765
    This is a very rudimentary draft on comparative study of religions. This is being worked for ultimate deposit here and elsewhere as an open access monograph.
  •  624
    The esse of Milton's Satan
    Literary Voyage. 2015.
    This is an etymological, Biblical and philosophical scrutiny of Milton's Satan. While Satan is a metaphor in Paradise Lost, he is very much real within Christian Studies. This essay revisits the reality of Satan.
  •  607
    AMERICAN GOTHIC MAINSTREAM FICTION
    with Mary Strachan Scriver
    Dissertation, Calcutta University
    This is my (Subhasis Chattopadhyay's) draft of PhD pre-submission. Dr. Scriver has (had) put it up online in her blog and I found it today, that is 1:06 pm, 28th May, 2017. I am grateful to her since intellectual ideas can otherwise be hijacked. She has done a wonderful editorial job.
  •  606
    Review of Vedanta Sadhana and Shakti Puja (review)
    Vedanta Kesari 103 (June (6)): 45-6. 2016.
    This review studies Tantra as essentially Vedantic and comments on Swami Swahananda's genius as a syncretist.
  •  593
    Review of Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism (review)
    Prabuddha Bharata or Awakened India 118 (6): 407-8. 2013.
    Malhotra is generally portrayed by American and European philosophers as a theologian and he is relegated to the backwaters of Hindutva. This review makes a strong case for Malhotra's scholarship and contextualizes him within the domains of philosophy and even Liberation theology. Malhotra's scholarship has been non-pejoratively assessed in this review.
  •  583
    This is what Daniel Simpson has to say of it: An entertaining polemic that takes heartfelt swipes at Western scholars, accusing them of misreading Tantra. "Hinduism is Tantric in essence," the essay says, without proving that Tantra predates other influences, or that "Yoga in its various forms, arises out of Tantra". The latter seems at odds with the earliest descriptions of austerities, or the ascetic objective of bodily transcendence (which Tantric teachings later modified, as evinced by hat…Read more
  •  560
    This is the conclusion of the hermeneutical problems related to Biblical exegesis. This brief survey concludes with the problematics posed by Object-Oriented Ontology. The limitations of OOO is illustrated with examples from the Kashmiri Trika. Further, we interrogate the Biblical Fall and the story of Yama and Yami. This is part of an ongoing project of Biblical exegesis and this is just the third part of this project.
  •  503
    Review of the New Princeton Edition of Erasmus's The Praise of Folly (review)
    Prabuddha Bharata or Awakened India 121 (4): 429-431. 2016.
    This is a review of Erasmus and during the process of the review, the reviewer rethinks the Renaissance, theology and comments on the rise of the ISIS in the Islamic Levant.
  •  486
    Review of Ethics and Culture: Some Contemporary Indian Reflections Vol. 2 (review)
    Prabuddha Bharata or Awakened India 122 (5): 480. 2017.
    The reviewer finds the much obfuscated (sic) logos explained in this gem of an anthology. The reviewer picks up the notion of the logos and his review turns around this philosophical stonewall. The genius of one of the contributors is in connecting logos to the Tao.
  •  468
    This is made open access for students worldwide. The bulleted points deal with Fowles' engagement with Victorian morals. This draft which will not be published shows how this novel is not a historical novel, though it portrays historical facts. This is for self-study during this ongoing COVID 19 pandemic. Students are advised to follow the hyperlinks embedded within the body of the text. This is a non-plagiarised paper to serve the needs of intermediate students.
  •  464
    Review of Julia Kristeva's Hatred and Forgiveness (review)
    Prabuddha Bharata or Awakened India 121 (10): 721-22. 2016.
    Julia Kristeva shines in this book. The review makes a case for us studying Kristeva as the most relevant psychoanalyst of our time. She should be read over Lacan. Her understanding of this century is more incisive than any other psychoanalytic thinker alive today. At least, in this book. Kristeva's contention is that hatred gives way to paranoia.
  •  454
    Review of Bengal Partition Stories: An Unclosed Chapter (review)
    Prabuddha Bharata or Awakened India 121 (September): 670-2. 2016.
    Bashabi Fraser is a poet in her own right. She is also a creative translator. This is a review of her edited volume on the Partition of Bengal. The review highlights our need to read the partition event as a warning for future and ongoing genocides. The review also shows the superiority of literature over history. And finally it has something to say about translation and separately, on P Lal. For instance, this reviewer in many other reviews too insists on the superiority of Fr Mignon SJ over Pr…Read more
  •  441
    Review of Exploring Mysticism: A Methodological Essay (review)
    Prabuddha Bharata or Awakened India 119 (6): 404-5. 2014.
    This review works to create a hermeneutic of reading Indian/Hindu texts as treatises on mysticism.
  •  434
    Review of Manifesting Inherent Perfection (review)
    Vedanta Kesari 442-3. 2015.
    This review makes a case for holistic education and calls for revamping Indian education, using the pedagogical methods available in this book.
  •  415
    Review of Philosophers of Our Times (review)
    Prabuddha Bharata or Awakened India 125 (03): 380-382. 2020.
    Ted Honderich's edited volume, with introductions to his chosen philosophers shows his contempt/ignorance of the non-white world's thinkers. Further, this review points out the iterative nature of Western philosophy today. The book under review is banal and shows the pathetic state of philosophising in the West now in 2020.
  •  409
    Review of Hindu Samskaras: Socio-religious Study of the Hindu Sacraments
    Prabuddha Bharata or Awakened India 119 (8): 501-2. 2014.
    This review addresses issues regarding the very shaping of Hinduism and the resistance that such shaping faces from non-Hindus. Non-Hindu polemic is challenged using Western methods.
  •  405
    Review of Paul Ricoeur's Evil: A Challenge to Philosophy and Theology (review)
    Prabuddha Bharata or Awakened India 121 (June (6)): 529-30. 2016.
    This review shows how Pierre Gisel's comments on Ricoeur are redundant; how Graham Ward gets Ricoeur's understanding of evil clearly; but then it goes on to show how both Gisel and Ward do not understand/mention the influence of St. Paul and Jürgen Moltmann on Ricoeur.
  •  405
    The Princeton Handbook of World Poetries (review)
    Prabuddha Bharata or Awakened India 124 (7): 573. 2019.
    Roland Greene and Stephen Cushman have revived the 1950s' edition of this book. & it is worth reading even by philosophers for in the final analysis, from Plato to Blanchot to Jean-Luc Marion are all poets. Where does poetry end and philosophy begin!!??
  •  395
    This was a draft written in a hurry for a submission somewhere. Like all submissions done in a hurry this is not the perfected work. This paper shows how modernist Yogic praxes are totalitarian in the sense in which Hannah Arendt discusses totalitarianism. Further it attacks structuralist critiques of Yoga and comments on the state of Hindu and even, Buddhist studies today. One has to be cautious in reading this paper since the author ranges through many references which have not been brought ou…Read more
  •  394
    The purpose of all philosophizing is to also reach a general, popular audience. In this 900 words' plus essay, the author discusses the possible dangers of reading/practising/discussing Tantra. The first photo is that of Mother Dhumavati, the next one is of Sri Ramakrishna and finally of Sri Ramanujacharya. The essay is a cautionary one advising against the miraculous or esoteric. It also speaks of clinical psychosis.
  •  387
    Review of Terry Eagleton's On Evil (review)
    Prabuddha Bharata or Awakened India 121 (March (3)): 383-385. 2016.
    Terry Eagleton has been reviewed in the light of theism; especially Christianity which he had earlier disowned.