The latest media mentions, quotes, profiles, and writings from Division of the Humanities faculty, students, staff, and alumni. Visit us on X, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook for more updates.

Commitment to History
Anandabazar Patrika
Rochona Majumdar (South Asian Languages and Civilizations) pays tribute to Shyam Benegal, who began his career at the height of the Indian new wave. She highlights his work in film, television, and documentary highlighting his commitment to history, radical cinema, and social critique. From Ankur (1974) to Mammo (1994), his films expose systemic oppression while exploring India’s evolving identity.

Snehalata Mukhopadhyay: The teen whose dowry death shook 20th-century Bengal into action
The Indian Express
Rochona Majumdar (South Asian Languages and Civilizations) is featured in the article through her book Marriage and Modernity: Family Values in Colonial Bengal. In it, she examines Snehalata Mukhopadhyay's tragic suicide, which stemmed from her family's inability to afford the dowry required for her marriage, as one of the most debated cases in Bengali and Indian history. Prof. Majumdar provides critical historical context and analysis, linking this personal tragedy to broader themes of family values, societal expectations, and gender oppression in colonial Bengal.

Dipesh Chakrabarty, humanist despite everything
Le Monde
Dipesh Chakrabarty (History and South Asian Languages and Civilizations) is featured for his work bridging postcolonial theory and climate change. Highlighting his book Provincializing Europe, the article explores Prof. Chakrabarty's critique of Eurocentrism, the Anthropocene, and his call for pluralistic historical perspectives.

I Told My Son to Always Be Himself. Was I Wrong?
The Wall Street Journal
In this op-ed, Agnes Callard (Philosophy) reflects on how teaching philosophy changed her view of acting, which she once criticized for requiring you to abandon your true self. By inhabiting the perspectives of thinkers like Descartes and Hume in class, she saw parallels with performance. Callard now acknowledges acting as essential but insists it should serve a meaningful story—work she trusts her filmmaker son to judge.

Shadow of a Childless Woman: The Mythic Roots of Strauss’s ‘Frau’
The New York Times
In this op-ed, Wendy Doniger (South Asian Languages and Civilizations) reflects on the Met Opera’s revival of Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten (through Dec. 19), exploring its complex libretto, mythical roots, and themes of fertility, mortality, and humanity. While ideologically fraught, its transcendent music elevates this operatic masterpiece.

Agnes Callard's (Philosophy) book Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life has attracted widespread recognition, receiving both acclaim and critical perspectives in recent reviews. A selection of these reviews is listed below.

Should You Question Everything?
The New Yorker

Argue Your Way to a Fuller Life
Nautil

The Secret to a Good Life? Thinking Like Socrates.
The New York Times

‘Open Socrates’ shows why philosophy isn’t a spectator sport
The Seattle Times

Agnes Callard on why we must revive Socratic virtue
The Spectator World

What if the philosophical life really is the only one worth living?
The Washington Post