Temple of Kraden News:
| Greetings, heathen. Perhaps some fortuitous blessing of Kraden's grace hath led you to our humble Temple, or perhaps you are simply curious about this strange and wonderful cult. Should you be willing - and dare to hope - to achieve enlightenment, the door opens before you. Lo! Leave your old life behind! For once you step through, you become something more than just yourself. You become a Kradenette. Are you willing to make the rapturous plunge? Do you have what it takes? One of us! One of us! One of us! Already one of us? Make your presence known: |
| Extending an olive branch | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jun 10 2018, 01:34 AM (498 Views) | |
| Vaèscent | Jun 10 2018, 01:34 AM Post #1 |
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The Westering Sun
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Yes, yes, thank you. Please calm down. No, I haven’t come back to start a fight. I’m here in the spirit of the peace and reconciliation, and to introduce myself as a quasi-new member. Where to start? I’ve, for a the lack of a better statement, been an indignant thorn on the Temple’s side for much of my Kradenette career. It’s complicated and it’s why I haven’t been around for the past year and a half. I wasn’t sure when or if I’d ever return, but I have for selfish reasons, in that I don’t want to be remembered in purely antagonistic terms. Although we may continue to disagree, my hope is to foster an air of mutual understanding. Acknowledging differences and understanding where each of us are coming from—our “positionalities” in sociological terms—, is, in my view even more important than agreement. Positionality, the practice of delineating our position (i.e. race, class, gender, age, education, location, and other dimensions of our social identity) in relation to a context, is something we constantly address in my graduate program and what I hope to be open about here. Speaking of graduate school, I’m an aspiring scholar. I focus on seemingly unrelated topics, from environmental justice movements and watershed ecology to Asian American history and South Asian cultural geography. I’m currently pursing my masters thesis research on opposition to the damming of the transboundary Ganges River of Bangladesh and India and how it may be influenced by debates on legal personhood of rivers. It’s an exciting new chapter of my life as I’m being able to bridge the tender, warm, familial sentiments that characterize my South Asian identity with the intellectual rigor and professionalism of my American identity in such a meaningful and impactful way. I’ve struggled to reconcile the two for most my life, so my family’s as hyped as I am. I hope to continue this work in a doctoral program. What else? I like reading books, both fiction and non-fiction, but they tend to be on aforementioned subjects since those own my life. My main source of non-academic pleasure is probably watching anime, although knowing me, I find ways to relate themes to radical pedagogies and world peace. I’m currently watching Fairy Tail and the clash of magic guilds and their ideologies of family and society reminds of the inter-clan conflict here awhile back and the inter-state conflict, social-ecological views, and activist responses I’m exploring in my masters thesis. Its folk metal soundtrack makes it all the more enjoyable. Mystical folk, whether it's based on Asian, American, or European traditions, is probably my favorite type of music. Bengali Baul songs are the best. Speaking of Bengali, I’m currently learning how to read and write in it. It’s the seventh most spoken language in the world due to the incredibly high population density of its native region of Bengal (Bangladesh and neighboring West Bengal, India), the area where my family and field research is based. There are more Bengali speakers then there are Russian, German, and Japanese speakers, but it’s rarely taught outside Bengal given that there’s relatively little demand for it. Not that it's necessary for me to be literate (English is used in most business and academic circles, thank you British Raj?), but I want to since there’s so much art and culture that I don’t have access to as a result. And more than anything, it's my mother tongue, the prism that has shaped the first notions of the world to me as a child. Many words and concepts I initially learned via my Bengali speaking household. We were the only ones in town, so there wasn’t a demand here to be schooled in the written language. I was so jealous when I found out that Vancouver offers Punjabi language immersion programs in their schools. Am I missing something? Oh yeah. I’m a closet advocate of Kraden’s scholarship. Have been so for years, but unfortunately, he’s not too credible in academic spheres outside the Golden Sun fanbase. *carves a 'V' for Vaescent into a flyer and uses a to stab it onto a surface*(Do olive branches grow in the Temple? I think this is close enough. )
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| Saturos | Jun 10 2018, 05:55 AM Post #2 |
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heart-under-blade
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I never thought of you as either a thorn or an antagonist, Vaescent, so it's good to see you again. =) I've been kind of following your progress via your FB updates, and I'm glad things are going so well for you! That definitely sounds like a worthy Master's topic indeed, and I'm glad you've found so much meaning in academia. I definitely know the tendency to academize anime and the media consumed outside of it, I just wish there was more of a platform to actually express that, haha. Learning your mother tongue sounds awesome! =O And I'm really glad your family is supportive of the progress/path you've chosen. ^_^ Stick around if you like~! |
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| Dreaming Sun | Jun 10 2018, 10:12 PM Post #3 |
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HI VAE |
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| UltaFlame | Jun 11 2018, 12:05 AM Post #4 |
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Thanks Poui.
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You're cool. Helloooo |
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| Crystallux | Jun 11 2018, 05:49 PM Post #5 |
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I was super inactive for a long time so I have no idea who you are, and don't give a shit what you think you've done in the past. That's just it: the past. You've got a clean slate. I'm not here to judge you. Also your masters topic sounds really interesting! Glad to hear that everything is going well for you! |
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| King in the North | Jun 11 2018, 05:57 PM Post #6 |
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I don't know what everyone else is talking about, I've always known you're actually Doctor Doom
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| Vaèscent | Jun 11 2018, 07:54 PM Post #7 |
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The Westering Sun
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*sends an escort to collect Kit's existence* I'm sorry, did I hear someone cry out my name? Oh, hi Insul and Ulta! Really, Crystallux? I remember you well from last year. Re: my masters thesis, its genesis can be traced to conversations with my relatives about the state of our rivers. The dam I'm studying is situated eight miles upstream from the India-Bangladesh border and a major source of conflict between the two countries. If you're not familiar with the geography of South Asia, the Ganges river flows from the Himalayas in India (the country which hosts the dam), has tributaries coming down from Nepal, and forms, along with the Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers, the vast Bengal Delta of Bangladesh (the downstream country). The combined river system includes Bhutan, Tibet (China), and is a lifeline for millions of people (see map). My hope is that my reasearch will support the river advocates participating in it (i.e. literature for their organization’s newsletters and reports) and will be disseminated in South Asian and global academic spheres. Same. One of the things I've always liked about the Temple was the ability express anime and other media influences in my thinking. It helps that this is a Golden Sun forum. I can't say the same for academic and activist spaces I'm part of, even my Facebook feed. I'm wondering if it's a generational thing or a broader cultural phenomenon. |
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| Poui | Jun 13 2018, 02:19 AM Post #8 |
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I... have never encountered this concept before What sorts of media would you say are fair game to draw influence from in academia? Is all fiction out or is it fine to talk about say, classic literature or film? also hi it's nice to see you /o/ |
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| Kiki | Jun 13 2018, 06:03 AM Post #9 |
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Kiki Martius Chantico
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I don't remember anyone getting into any beef with you. Glad to see you again! |
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| Vaèscent | Jul 4 2018, 12:27 AM Post #10 |
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The Westering Sun
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Great to see you, Kiki!Last year, the Whanganui River in New Zealand and the aforementioned Ganges River were recognized as living entities with all the rights of a legal person, an approach proponents hope will help to protect watersheds against damming and other degradation. See the articles I've linked for more on the concept, but recognizing rivers and other ecosystems as living beings has long been advocated as a way to bring indigenous/non-Western perspectives on nature and property into modern legal systems. In most academic/environmental justice circles I'm in, however, the Whanganui is highlighted with no mention of the Ganges, despite it being the third largest river in the world. I've wondered why this was and it turns many people haven't even heard about it. I wondered if it was because it was understudied, or because my audience is unfamiliar with the South Asian region. It turns out it's a little of both, and its personhood status is much more complicated since only the state of Uttarakhand in India declared it a living entity while the river winds through multiple Indian states, has tributaries coming down from Nepal, and a major river and delta that encompasses virtually all of Bangladesh. Add to the mix the Ganges is one of the most engineered rivers in the world, with multiple river diversion projects along its 1500 mile course. This context is very different from the Whanganui, much of which flows through a national park in a small, thinly populated country. These are among the reasons I decided to pursue my thesis research on the Ganges. That's a good question and I think it depends on the program/field you're in, their tolerance for nontraditional forms of learning/scholarship, and moreover what you're referencing that media source in (masters thesis to be published by the university, an analytical paper for one class, an oral presentation, in a seminar discussion, etc). I can't see classic literature/film being a problem in most circles. And nice to see you again, too! One of the students in my program cohort has family from Trinidad and Tobago. I've thought about you in conversations, since you're the only other Trinidadian I've encountered. She's of Indo-Caribbean descent and it's crazy how similar and yet how radically different our worlds are despite both of us tracing our roots to the Indian subcontinent/South Asia. I grew up on the West Coast of the US (California) with a very Asia-Pacific upbringing, while she grew up on the East Coast (Florida) with a Caribbean upbringing. You couldn't ask for a sharper contrast. |
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to stab it onto a surface*













7:39 PM Jul 10






