VIDEOS
Talk | 01
Talk | 01 "Anticaste Movements in Colonial Bengal"
I was invited by Padmashree Professor Sukhadeo Thorat to deliver this online talk on 17 July 2022. The talk was hosted by the Association for Social and Economic Equality, Nagpur. In this talk I discuss the dialectic of recognition and redistribution in two instances of anti-caste resistance in colonial Bengal.
Talk | 02
Talk | 02 "Importance of Lacan's 'The Family Complexes'"
This talk involves an analysis of Lacan's 1938-text on the family complexes. This text is usually not evoked in the discussion of Lacanian psychoanalysis and an attempt is made to understand why this is the case. This talk was delivered at the request of the Department of English, Midnapore College (Autonomous), West Bengal, on 23 February 2021.
Talk | 03
Talk | 03 "Recognition vs. Redistribution: The Great Poundra Divide in Colonial Bengal"
On the occasion of Ambedkar Jayanti on 14 April 2022, Dr Mandal was invited to deliver an online special lecture on the anti-caste discourse in colonial Bengal with specific reference to the Poundras, one of the numerically major Dalit communities who launched anti-Brahmanical resistance at two, rather opposite, levels, thereby manifesting an intra-community politico-intellectual divide. The talk was hosted by the young scholars of SFRA-Society for Research Alternatives, West Bengal.
Talk | 04
Talk | 04 "Why Hamlet is a Tragedy of Desire"
This talk, inspired by the Seminars of Jacques Lacan and teachings of Professor Santanu Biswas, interrogates the critical discourse that considers Shakespeare's play Hamlet as a revenge tragedy. It argues that at the heart of the play is desire of Gertrude that perplexes and unsettles and paralyses Hamlet even before he discovers that his father has been killed. This talk was hosted by the Department of English, Malda College, West Bengal on 2 July 2021.
Talk | 05
Talk | 05 "Dalit Resistance in Times of Bengal Renaissance"
This talk, located within Dalit historiography, discusses five anti-caste thinkers from colonial Bengal. It is an online presentation, dated 20 October 2021, made in the International Conference on Anti-Caste Thought: Theory, Politics and Culture hosted by the University of Wolverhampton, UK.
Talk | 06
Talk | 06 "Dalit Literature vis-à-vis the Persistence of Caste"
This is an invited class lecture delivered online at the Department of English, Jadavpur University on 29 March 2021. It explores the implications of the Anand Teltumbde's term "persistence of caste" and comments of the proliferation of Dalit literature in the twenty-first century.
Talk | 07
Talk | 07 Psychopathology of Everyday Casteism
This talk tries to study caste atrocities in the light of psychological and psychoanalytic theories of Jung, Freud, and Lacan. Attempts are made to link psychology of racism to that of casteism, through a brief critical engagement with Fanon. This invited talk was delivered online at he Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, on 5 April 2022.