Alexander Stille, "The Ganges' Next Life," and:

• Marcia Angell, "Science in the Courtroom"
• Karen Armstrong, "Does God Have a Future?"
• Jan Willis, Selections from Dreaming Me: An African American Woman's Buddhist Journey and Mitchell Stephens, "Thinking 'Above the Stream'"
  

The Scientist's Identity in Stille and Angell

"Please consider them an endangered species, these people who still have this faith, this living relationship with the river," Mishra says with passion. "If birds can be saved, if plants can be saved, let this species of people be saved by granting them holy water" (Stille 60).

In "The Ganges' Next Life," Alexander Stille focuses on Veer Bhadra Mishra's collaboration with William Oswald to use "sustainable technology" to clean up India's holy river. Stille is intrigued by Mishra's "complex double identity" (58) and spends much of his piece trying to make sense of how Mishra can be both a devout Hindu and a scientist at the same time. Stille seems surprised that Mishra can maintain such an identity. Why is this, do you think?

As you read Stille's essay, I would like you to consider the following questions: What is a "complex double identity," exactly? Does everyone have one? Or only a few people? That is, what makes an identity "double"? What makes an identity "complex"? What are the virtues of having such an identity? The costs? What other types of identity are there? What is the relationship between "identity" and "evidence"?

Then, when you have completed Stille's essay and reviewed the two chapters from Angell, I would like you to write an essay that discusses Mishra's identity and Angell's identity. Both Mishra and Angell are identified as being scientists, but what does "being a scientist" mean in these two readings?

Make certain that you cite from each assigned reading at least three times. You are welcome to expand your discussion of the scientist's identity to include other scientists mentioned in the readings: Oswald, Lappé, et. al. Doing so may give your more terms and examples with which to think.

Richard E. Miller, Fall 1999

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Stille and Armstrong: The "Death of God" in the East and in the West

When Armstrong refers to the future of God, she has in mind primarily the notions of God embraced by theologians and philosophers in Western Europe and the United States. In "Ganges Next Life," however, Alexander Stille offers a portrait of religious life among Hindus in South Asia. After reading both Armstrong and Stille, would you say that the "death of God" is a problem only for the West? What forces does Amstrong identify with the gradual decline of religious conviction? Given what Stille tells us about India, are those same forces at work in Veer Bhadra Mishra's world, or does his society face challenges very different from the ones that Armstrong describes?

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Stille, Willis, and Stephens: The Role of Tradition in the Contemporary World

In your last assignment, I asked you to use Jan Willis' "Selections from Dreaming Me: An African-American Woman's Spiritual Journey" and Mitchell Stephens' "Thinking 'Above the Stream': New Philosophies" to explore the relations and the potentials for action between media and selfhood. In his essay "The Ganges' Next Life," Alexander Stille explores Veer Bhadra Mishra's "complex double identity" (598) as both a manhant and an engineer, and the relationship of this identity to Mishra's attempt to save the Ganges River-a holy space of ancient Indian culture-through modern Western science.

What role should we assign to tradition in the contemporary world? Are traditional ways of thinking and living ultimately obsolete in the twenty-first century? If so, what does humanity lose in this transition, and what does it gain? How can we prepare ourselves for this change? If it is possible to sustain tradition within the contemporary world, is this always a desirable action, or are there losses involved as well? How might we achieve such a fusion most effectively? Can tradition provide a useful solution to the problems that the contemporary world poses? Is the relation between tradition and modernity different for cultures and individuals, or for different cultures? Should it be? Who should be given the power to make these decisions, and why?

For this paper, you are required to closely analyze relevant material from Stephens, Willis, and Stille at least three times each to explore your position-do not merely use their language to narrate your discussion. Your goal is to develop an independent project that is both engaged with and responsible to the perspectives and theories the authors present, but does not merely paraphrase their ideas or adopt them as your own, and to then explore that project through analysis of their perspectives and theories. In doing so, your paper should think creatively, connectively, and multiply.

If you feel it would help strengthen or develop your project, you may also discuss any of the others authors we have previously discussed, although you are not required to do so.

Paul Benzon, Fall 2002

For the rest of this assignment sequence, see the Contemporary Visions of the Self, Character, & Tradition sequence.

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