It's HOT!!!!!!

Just a quick update from this part of the world...our camera has broken, unfortunately, so there will be a bit of a break in sending pictures until I can get it fixed. Anyway, the summer semester has started, so Azfar and I are back into the swing of classes. I'm teaching research writing and "business and professional speaking." I'm not exactly thrilled about teaching such a business-oriented course, but I'm trying to move beyond the traditional parameters of such a class and encourage students to think critically about how education has been increasingly turned into a business. It's particularly clear in the private universities in Bangladesh that education is a business--it's all about how fast you can get your degree so you can go out and make alot of money. So much for the concept of critical education. (Sigh.) Anyway, Azfar is teaching creative writing, a course called "the Experience of literature," and a graduate seminar on contemporary literary theory. He is also still writing every week for the New Age newspaper. You can read one of his recent articles at this link: http://www.newagebd.com/2007/apr/27/liti.html. Other than that, the other exciting news is that we recently joined the American Club, which is quite close to our house (we can just take a 10-minute rickshaw ride to get there). The most exciting aspect of this is that the club has A POOL, which is a relief to have in this sweltering heat. So Salma and I frequent the club quite often to cool down. As the weather has been heating up, the electricity is getting cut more and more often. It's basically an inverse proportion: if the weather is cool, we don't get the electricity cut. And when it's hot, the electricity gets cut all the time--at least 3 or 4 times a day. So that's really frustrating, not only because it's HOT, but it's also hard to get anything done on the computer, etc. Anyway, enough griping. Generally, we're all doing fine. Salma will be two years old in a couple of months, which I can't believe! We just celebrated Jasra's (her cousin) second birthday the other day, which was alot of fun. More soon...

Check Out Our Newspaper Articles

Azfar and I have both been writing for The New Age newspaper in Bangladesh. Here's some links for some of our articles, if you want to read them.

My articles:
- "Going Places: US Imperialism Gone Global"
- "Women and labour in the twenty-first century: some questions and concerns"
- "The Birth of a Revolutionary: Film Review of Fidel"

Azfar's articles:
- "Micronarratives, Sequence Seven: Of Words and Works and Worlds"
- "Dirty theses from the streets in Asia, Africa, and Latin America: Imperialism Again"
- “Micronnaratives, sequence 3: How Flexible is ‘Monsieur le Capital’?”
- “Contemporary Poems by Palestinian Women”
- “‘Dem accuse me of assault on de Oxford dictionary’: Talking b(l)ack in Caribbean poetry”
- “Theses on Place”
- “Dhaka and Dirty Dialectics: A Prose Poem in Seven Microcantos”
- “Money and language: transaction, translation, and tension”
- “El Fisgon’s political cartoons and visual activism: history and humour”
- “Meeting Slavoj Žižek: Coffee, Chocolate, Coke, and Colonialism”
- “Contemporary Latin American poetry: when you rub those words, they catch fire”
- “Three Poems”

By both of us:
- "We Say No to Bayonets, Bullets, and Bombs: Three Rally Poems"

Azfar writes articles for the The New Age newspaper every Friday. You can check out his stuff by clicking on the "Literati" link on www.newagebd.com.

My first article published in Bangladesh!

Hello all,
Just thought I'd share that I had my first newspaper article published in a national newspaper (the second largest paper in Bangladesh)! You can read it at: http://www.newagebd.com/store/anni06/gender.html#3

--Melissa

We're in the news!

Hey all,

We made it in the news! Check out this article about my and Azfar's "joint" lecture . . .

Wish I was already a "Dr" . . . (sigh) -- their mistake.

Here's the link to the article (I pasted it below as well):

http://www.financialexpress-bd.com/index3.asp?cnd=6/29/2006&section_id=8&newsid=&spcl=yes

--------------------------------------- Witty criticisms at seminar on Post-al theory

Nahid Kaiser Toma

6/25/2006

I have had the privilege of attending the inaugural seminar session of the Literature and Cultural Identity in Post-Colonial Contexts series, arranged by the Department of English, Jahangirnagar University held on Saturday, 17 June 2006. The seminar took place at room 103, Faculty of Arts and Humanities. It presented two lectures : “Theoria, like Vodka, can Do Crazy Things: Some Questions about Post-al Theory" by Dr Azfar Hussain and "Seas, Slaves and Cents: Reading Political economy in Wide Sargasso Sea and A Small Place” by Dr Melissa Hussain. Dr Azfar Hussain taught at Bowling Green State University (BGSU) before his recent move to North South University (NSU). Hussain has published in both English and Bangla nearly a hundred academic, creative, and popular pieces, including translations from several languages. His fourth book-in-progress titled Towards a Political Economy of Land, Labor, Language, and the Body has recently been solicited by Routledge for publication in the Routledge series called "Literacy Theory and Cultural Criticism". Hussain previously taught at Jahangirnagar University and Washington State University. Dr Melissa Hussain's research interest includes twentieth-century American literature, third-world literature in English, feminism, contemporary rhetoric, postcolonical theory, Marxisim and political economy, cultural studies, comparative ethnic studies etc. Dr. Melissa Hussain is interested in the questions of political economy in relation to European imperialism and colonialism. In her paper 'Seas, Slaves and Cents' she argues that it is impossible to examine imperialism and colonialism adequately without simultaneously analysing political economy, particularly the political economy of capitalism as it remains fundamentally tied to imperialism. Besides, she says, 'In this paper, I argue a case for how the analytical tools of political economy can be used to read modernist and post colonial literary texts emanating from the "third world". Dr. Azfar Hussain's lecture was a presentation-performance-one-man-show rolled-in-one. It covered multidimentionally his own theory of 'Land, Language, Labour and the Body', his severe que of the 'uncritically high held' theorists, such as, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, and his witty criticism of post-al (post-colonialism, post-modernism, post-structuralism, post-feminism, post-anything!). Hussain attacks Foucault for being Eurocentric. He points Foucault's negligence towards the micrologies and macrologies of capitalism, for his silence on Algerian revolution, and for his concentration on White Body. Besides, Foucault's dismissal of Frantz Fanon infuriates Hussain. Nor does he forgives Derrida's theory of 'endless texuality', raised in Derrida's famous essay "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Science". Hussain finds the theory of 'endless texuality', politically problematic in the sense that it does not let us stand on our own or allow us to say/resist. Empire must write back to the centre, if there's no centre to whom the oppressed Empire will write back? Focusing on his own theory, Hussain points the four sights of oppression: land, labor, language and the body. He thinks the concept of freedom involves these four areas' freedom. He also points the four evils that resist the true freedom: capitalism, imperialism, patriarchy and racism. In response to an audience's question about his conception of 'body', Hussain says that whenever he thinks of the body he keeps Lalan's 'Dehatatwa' in mind. Body, to Hussain is the one which is oppressed, the one that delivers labour and language, who fights for land. On my questioning the relevance between Hussain's theory and the question of diaspora, he enthusiastically explained how the very absence of land, lingual fetishism, exploitation of middle-class diaspora labour and the loss of body brought by disembodiment relate his theory with the questions and issues of diaspora. In the question of diaspora, Melissa, comes forward and points the plight of immigrated labour. She explains how the poor women immigrated from third world as labour are mistreated and dehumanised by the white women of first world. She points to the irony that those white women fights for feminine rights but practice the dichotomised standards when dealing with third world poor women labour. She also focuses on the importance of concentrating on the 'poor diaspora' rather than the upper and middle- class. Criticising the globalization fever, she points to the fact that Europe, underdeveloped Africa and that First World cannot exist without Third World. On the question of 'minority', Hussain says paradoxically 'Minority is Majority: together all the oppressed minority makes the majority. He adds, 'Oppression makes you minor'. In this point he also criticises Hegel for his racism. Hussain mentions how Hegel in his book 'Philosophy of History' claims that the African has no history. Being a student of post-colonial literature and theory, I am impressed by the seminar and hail JU for the effort which will undoubtedly lead to a better understanding of this area of studies. Finally, I can't resist thanking Shamsad Mortuza, chairperson, department of English, JU and Mashrur Shahid Hussain, chairperson, seminar committee, 2005-2006, for the brilliant effort.

It's SO HOT here!

Just dropping another note to say hi. Azfar and Salma and I are all doing well. I think we're going to finally get an internet connection at our apartment tomorrow, so that will make keeping in touch over email much easier! I'm still using an internet cafe today.

Classes are keeping us plenty busy. And Azfar's been writing for some newspapers--he had an article appear today in one of the most prominent newspapers in Dhaka--about his mentor who is a nationally celebrated scholar.

Salma's doing great. She's learning so many signs now, connected to words. She waves and says "hi" and "bye" and she gives kisses now, which is just the sweetest thing. She still isn't much interested in crawling, but she's trying to pull herself up on things now. I think she'll just skip crawling and go straight to walking.

It's miserably hot here now. This month is the hottest month of the year. Just walking outside, you get drenched in sweat. The humidity is through the roof. I'm hiding out as much as I can inside, in air conditioned rooms.

Politics continue to rage here. Just as I was walking to the internet cafe, a parade of trucks stuffed with people in the backs passed by, holding banners for the oppositional political party. The political parties are really getting into heated debates, and it'll only get more intense until elections in October.

Anyway, since we're getting internet tomorrow, hopefully, I'll keep this short. Hope you're all doing well!