Murzban Jal's Books

The Prison House of Alienation

By: Murzban Jal

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The Prison House of Alienation

By: Murzban Jal

The Prison House of Alienation is an exploration of the humanist theme of alienation that Marx theorized in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. It relates this theme of alienation with the themes of haunting in the Manifesto of the Communist Party and accumulation of capital that he outlined in his magnum opus Capital. The volume claims that humanity plagued by ghosts is dwelling in a prison house from which there seems no escape. Yet humanity seeks to escape from this prison house. The essays are a consequent journey in dramaturgy where science and art truly meet to create emancipatory politics that goes well beyond the entire discourse of twentieth-century socialism. The volume begins with Hamlet’s lament in Shakespeare’s tragedy, who, struck by alienation, is haunted by the ghost of his dead father. It then discusses how instead of creating a radical theory for creating a socialist alternative, ‘haunting’ gave way to interpretation as an estranged hermeneutical act that displaces revolutionary theory and praxis. This displacement of revolutionary praxis in turn gave way to violence. This volume therefore also analyzes violence from Clausewitz to Mao, revealing that a rigorous line must be drawn between Stalinism and Maoism on one side, and authentic Marxism on the other side. It concludes by questioning the very idea of ideology, suggesting that ideology is not merely a false consciousness, but a terrible psychotic act that would devour the entire emancipatory project of Marxism itself. Placing the human condition at the centre for alternative twenty-first-century politics, The Prison House of Alienation reveals that there can be no science without art and no politics without humanity. It will be of great interest to scholars of philosophy and politics. The essays were originally published in various issues of Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory.

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302

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Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1000753247

ISBN 13

9781000753240

Essays on Marxism and Asia

By: Murzban Jal

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Essays on Marxism and Asia

By: Murzban Jal

Essays on Marxism and Asia begins with the largely forgotten prophet of ancient Iran Zarathushtra, remembered and immortalised by Friedrich Nietzsche’s Also Sprach Zarathustra. In contrast to the infamous clash of civilisation thesis, this book argues for a humanist theory of civilisations and studies the Parsis or Persians who left Iran to settle in India and make it their home. It claims that Parsis, despite being a migrant community, took strength from their Persian heritage and civilisation and rose to become the architects of industrial modernity in India. This book locates this humanist theory in the larger genre of the Asiatic mode of production with caste as its sub- text. It then takes a phenomenological reading of caste in India and says that India is afflicted by a very strange illness called ‘silent blindness’ where humanity is silenced and blinded in front of the caste apparatus. It then analyzes how capitalism and modernity fashioned caste in the image of capitalism and how the Indian right- wing imagined its fascistic politics of race and racial superiority based on the image of caste hierarchy. The problem in India has been that the liberals could not take caste seriously so as to confront it and then annihilate this violent apartheid structure. This, the book argues, has led to the rise of fascism in India. The book concludes with positing two different strands of secularism, namely liberal or bourgeois secularism which merely separates religion and the state (but mixes these when required) and revolutionary secularism which humanises religion and politics first in order to find the human and class content in both. The chapters in this book were originally published in Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory.

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292

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Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1000479579

ISBN 13

9781000479577

Essays on Marxism and Asia

By: Murzban Jal

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Essays on Marxism and Asia

By: Murzban Jal

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292

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Routledge

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1000479579

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9781000479577

The Magical Lantern

Essays on the Phantasmagoria of Indian Politics

By: Murzban Jal

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The Magical Lantern

Essays on the Phantasmagoria of Indian Politics

By: Murzban Jal

The book The Magical Lantern is a collection of essays on Marxist philosophy. It is based on the philosophical reflection on Marx’s idea of phantasmagoria as the 'magical lantern' that creates eerie images, an idea that is central to Marx’s theory of modern capitalist societies. It talks of the importance of Marx’s philosophy and its application in concrete politics, especially in creating socialist humanist philosophy of human emancipation where global societies can be emancipated from the phantasmagorias that haunt them, thus able to transcend global capitalism which is in terminal and permanent crisis. It then critiques the rise of authoritarian regimes emerging all over the world and seeks to explain the rise of global totalitarianism. But it claims that the answer to authoritarianism is not liberalism since liberalism is part of the late imperialism in permanent crisis as well as it involves what Slavoj Žižek calls the Denkverbot ('the prohibition against thinking') and thus involves the return of the eerie phantasmagoria that does not allow critical thinking. However, the critique of liberalism does not relapse into orthodox Marxism, since this book argues that in the genre of orthodox Marxism the ghosts of Stalin and Mao with their own authoritarianism haunt philosophies of human emancipation. While Stalin is portrayed as a brutal counter-revolutionary who destroyed Marxism by evoking Marxism itself, Mao is presented as the alchemist of the revolution and a peculiar form of Stalinism in rebellion against Stalinism itself! The chapters in this book were originally published in Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory.

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203

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Published Date

ISBN 10

1000798267

ISBN 13

9781000798265

The Prison House of Alienation

By: Murzban Jal

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The Prison House of Alienation

By: Murzban Jal

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302

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Routledge

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ISBN 10

1000753247

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9781000753240

Breathless in Bombay

By: Murzban F. Shroff

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Breathless in Bombay

By: Murzban F. Shroff

Shroff's vibrant narratives in this concept collection of 14 stories set in contemporary Bombay feature a range of beautifully drawn characters in fascinating situations: from the laundrywallas' water shortage problems, to the doomed love affair of a schizophrenic painter and his Bollywood girlfriend, to the wandering thoughts of a massagewalla at Chowpatty Beach, to the heart-warming relationship of a carriage driver and his beloved horse.

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Page Count

324

Publisher

Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0312372701

ISBN 13

9780312372705

The Magical Lantern

Essays on the Phantasmagoria of Indian Politics

By: Murzban Jal

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The Magical Lantern

Essays on the Phantasmagoria of Indian Politics

By: Murzban Jal

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

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Page Count

203

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Published Date

ISBN 10

1000798267

ISBN 13

9781000798265

Book's by Murzban Jal

The Prison House of Alienation

The Prison House of Alienation

Essays on Marxism and Asia

Essays on Marxism and Asia

Essays on Marxism and Asia

Essays on Marxism and Asia

The Magical Lantern

The Magical Lantern

The Prison House of Alienation

The Prison House of Alienation

Breathless in Bombay

Breathless in Bombay

The Magical Lantern

The Magical Lantern

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