The development of car culture in the USA

Jeff Sparrow, ‘The Car Culture that’s Helping Destroy the Planet was by no Means Inevitable,’ Overland (November 2019)

English, the humanities and the Indian scenario

​What is the relevance of the humanities in the twenty-first century? In a world increasingly influenced by computer algorithms, what relevance do the teaching and study of literature, history and philosophy have? The study of languages is essential to making our way in the world, finding means to communicate. Yet not all languages find equal means of support. Languages are closely aligned with identity and thus also with identity politics. Hence, the teaching and study of languages is influenced by political discourse.

​The teaching of literature, on the other hand, is affected by its link with language pedagogy. The teaching of ‘canonical’ literature has often been used as a tool for learning grammar, logic and rhetoric—the ancient trivium. Rather than learning for its own sake, the humanities started out as utilitarian in nature, be it for the Mesopotamian scribes, the medieval European university guilds, or the civic humanists during the Italian Renaissance. Jens Høyrup, in his book Human Sciences: Reappraising the Humanities Through History and Philosophy (Albany: SUNY Press, 2000) points out that it was only during the Italian Renaissance that rather than teaching extracts from literary texts for purposes of the trivium, entire texts were taught to students of the humanities.

​The humanities have been seen as being in a crisis in America and the UK in two recent phases, first in the 1970s and 80s when several subsidies came to be withdrawn from public education, and again after the 2008 financial crisis, when the economy in general in these two countries went through a drastic fall and a subsequent gradual rise. A decline has been seen in India as well. The Ministry of Human Resource Development’s All India Survey on Higher Education for the year 2010-11 reported an undergraduate enrolment of 47% in the arts/ humanities/ social sciences whereas the 2018-19 report mentions 32.69% enrolment in such disciplines. The number of private institutes of higher learning in India is growing at a faster pace than government-aided institutes. Whereas 59% colleges were private, unaided in 2010-11, 64.3% are so in 2018-19. Private, unaided colleges offer more vocational courses than general courses. The humanities prepare students for a broader vocation. Whereas historically students of the humanities became scribes and civil servants, students of the humanities now find themselves without any definite career path. Hence, the unwillingness of private, unaided colleges to offer courses which do not have a unique selling point. Even then, among the three major humanities subjects of history, philosophy and literature—English seems to hold some fascination for private, unaided colleges since the knowledge of the language English itself is seen to make graduates more employable.

​In the US and the UK, rather than majoring in the humanities, students are having to take general courses in the humanities. It is assumed that some exposure to the humanities provides a broader education and such exposure is necessary to understand the human condition and go on to do work in other fields, such as Artificial Intelligence computer programming for instance, in a better manner. The humanities are being sold in other garbs of utilitarianism. Management students can become better managers if they study the humanities, computer programmers can write more humane and just algorithms, economists can understand society much better, etc. Learning for its own sake is not the concern while offering the humanities. It has historically also not been so.

​Literature students are not told that they are signing up for a ‘great books’ reading course when they think of majoring in literature. The English course in India has more often than not in the last two hundred years of English literature pedagogy in India, been seen as a course where students can improve their knowledge of the language and get better jobs rather than as a ‘great books’ course with knowledge about the society which produced such literature. The introduction of race, class and gender in literature courses in the last fifty years was initially met with dismay among many scholars of the pre-1970s age. John M. Ellis’s Literature Lost: Social Agendas and the Corruption of the Humanities (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997) decried the literature-as-a-mirror-of-society approach and tried to invoke the literature-as-being-restricted-to-the-text-only approach. The very reason why literature is now sold to young managers or computer programmers was met with contempt when in the 1990s literature departments found themselves addressing issues of race, class, gender and social equality to a greater extent.

​Indian students of English in the last few decades suffer from a double deception. Not only do they frequently not expect a ‘great books’ course when signing up for the literature course (the course is often titled just ‘English’ and not ‘English language and literature’ or ‘English literature’) but also scribal skills, such as grammar, logic and rhetoric which were part of the pre-modern humanities courses are replaced by a greater focus on using literature to understand society. Language skills and job training—two things which most students expect from the English course are generally missing.

​ The subject ‘Communicative English’ which some institutes of higher learning offer is often closer to what the students expect. However, the ‘Communicative English’ course bears little resemblance to the ‘great books’ course that the ‘English’ course has become.

​The word ‘human’ in the word ‘humanities’ was meant to distinguish the humanities from religious studies. Whereas the humanities studied human beings and their methods of writing and talking, religious studies entailed studying religious canonical literature to understand God. It was only through insistence on academic rigour that scholarship in the humanities became pedantic and the intricacies of grammar, logic and rhetoric became more important than the end goal of such scholarship—to understand fellow humans better and to communicate with them in a more effective manner. Now that after the New Criticism of the 1940s of looking at a literary work in isolation as just a text, we have returned to looking at a text as a mirror of society, we are again at a crossroads in English pedagogy in India. Should it cater to a) improving language skills, b) going through a ‘great books’ course by studying the texts in isolation, or c) use literature in order to improve social equality? Whereas employers often cite the importance of the humanities in making employees more attuned to social needs and hence providing better service to customers and creating better products, it is not unwise to claim that employers would be alarmed if their employees strove for greater social equality. A docile and pliable working population is a must for any employer. The humanities have a dangerous potential. However, in order to reach that potential, students need to possess good language skills and have read through the ‘great books’. Whereas reading through the ‘great books’ is designed into the curriculum, improving language skills are not. Thus, Indian students often suffer at the first crucial step which prevents them from successfully moving on to the next two steps of reading through several great books and imbibing that knowledge to understand and improve society. On the contrary, Indian students, at the end of a humanities course or an English undergraduate course, often find themselves unemployable for their lack of sufficient communication skills.

​The solution to this problem for the English course is to have two clear sets of courses, a ‘Communicative English’ course for picking up language skills, and a ‘great books of English literature’ course for students already possessing the necessary language skills. Offering the latter, when students expect the former, leads to struggling students, disgruntled teachers and disappointed employers.

​What is worse for Indian academia in general is that the lack of communication skills poses a barrier to the employability of other majors as well. Indian industry has routinely lamented about the unemployability of Indian graduates and higher education officials have routinely tried to address this issue by integrating a few language courses in other majors. Language skills, however, are not easily remedied in a few classes. The school level is the appropriate stage for sustained years-long language preparation skills. Shifting it to the other end of the education spectrum is like, as the saying goes, a band-aid on a gangrenous wound.

​Other than language skills, the lack of adequate critical reasoning skills of humanities graduates is also routinely highlighted. However, language remains a barrier to overcoming this. Not only are students not well skilled in any language (be it English or other Indian languages) but also rote learning, from the elementary to the PhD level, is a short-cut to making one’s way through formal education. Thus, though language prevents critical reading and critical writing, being accustomed to rote learning disincentivises critical thinking. Education policy makers routinely speak against rote learning. However, their actions move in the other direction. In India, recently the higher education regulator has come up with a one nation, one syllabus concept. As India moves away from its unity amidst diversity concept to a one size fits all monolith, education also is becoming more enmeshed in a uniform template for all students. The common syllabus across India presents the syllabus as a shared platform where navigation across it also encourages sharing of thought. Thus, students routinely leave their portion of the sharing to ready-made notes. Rather than encouraging individuality, such a system of education encourages herd mentality.

​If the larger aim of the humanities is to develop critical thought in order to produce critical communication, individual thinking and individualism is to be encouraged. It is not surprising that the Italian Renaissance and its focus on individualism also marked one of the great paradigmatic shifts in humanities pedagogy. As India continues to move further away from freedom of individual expression, the raison d’être of the humanities continues to shrink. When the thinking is left to the social and political masters and the writing to the social and political templates, the humanities move away from epistemological concerns to indoctrination.

        ২০১৯-এর অর্থনীতির নোবেল বক্তৃতায় এস্থার ডুফ্লো জানিয়েছেন যে ভারতের স্কুলশিক্ষার দুর্বল মানের কারণের মধ্যে এক হল যে আমাদের শিক্ষাব্যবস্থা উচ্চাভিলাষী। উচ্চাকাঙ্ক্ষা নিঃসন্দেহে জীবনে দরকারী তবে তার বাস্তবের সঙ্গে যোগ কখনই বিচ্ছিন্ন হওয়া উচিত না। স্নাতক-স্তরের কলেজে ইংরিজির অধ্যাপনা করার ফলে আমার সব সময়েই মনে হয় যে ইংরিজির পাঠ্যক্রম আর বাস্তবের মধ্যে এক বড় ফাঁক আছে। বাজারের চাহিদা, ছাত্রছাত্রীদের উচ্চাকাঙ্ক্ষা এবং তাদের বাস্তবের যোগ্যতার মধ্যে সমন্বয়ের অভাব রয়েছে। এই তিন অংশের সামঞ্জস্যের অভাবে ছাত্রছাত্রীদের সাথে এক বড় রকমের ধাপ্পাবাজি চলছে। এই তিন অংশকে একটু বিস্তৃত ভাবে দেখা যাক।

        সাহিত্য, ইতিহাস, দর্শন, ভাষা – এই সবই মানবিকবিদ্যা বা হিউম্যানিটিস বিদ্যার বিষয়। ভাষা বেঁচে থাকার অঙ্গ, কিন্তু সব ভাষা সমান নয়। ভাষা পরিচয় রাজনীতির সাথে যুক্ত এবং ফলে রাজনৈতিক ও সামাজিক কারণে পৃষ্টপোষকতা পায়। সাহিত্যের পঠনপাঠন ভাষা শিক্ষার সাথে অটুট ভাবে যুক্ত। মানবিকবিদ্যা কোন কালেই সামাজিক প্রয়োজনীয়তার থেকে সম্পূর্ণ রূপে বিচ্ছিন নয়। প্রাচীন মেসোপটেমিয় সভ্যতার পেশাদার পত্রলেখক থেকে শুরু করে, ইউরোপীয় মধ্যযুগের বিশ্ববিদ্যালয় সমবায়-সঙ্ঘগুলি বা ইতালীয় রেনেসাঁসের নগরীয়-মানবিকবিদ্যাচর্চায় নিযুক্ত পেশাদাররা সাহিত্যচর্চা বা মানবিকবিদ্যাকে এক পেশার প্রশিক্ষণ হিসেবেই গন্য করতেন। কিছু গবেষকরা মনে করেন ইতালীয় রেনেসাঁসের সময়ই প্রথম একটি সম্পূর্ণ পাঠ ছাত্রছাত্রীদের পড়ানো হত। তার আগে স্রেফ আংশিক ভাবে ভাষা বা যুক্তির বিশ্লেষণে কিছু সাহিত্যিক পাঠের টুকরো ব্যবহার হত।

        গত দশকে পৃথিবীর সর্বত্রই মানবিকবিদ্যার ছাত্রছাত্রীর সংখ্যার ঘাঠতি হয়েছে। এর কারণ কী? এক, মানবিকবিদ্যা কোন নির্দিষ্ট পেশার প্রশিক্ষণ না দিয়ে ছাত্রছাত্রীদের কেবল পৃথিবী সম্বন্ধে বেশি ওয়াকিবহল করার প্রয়াস করে। ওয়াকিবহল হওয়া খুবই ভাল কথা। কিন্তু জানা আর বোঝানো—দুটো আলাদা। শুধু জেনেই থাকলে তার মূল্য কম। সেই বিদ্যা প্রয়োগ করতে বলতে এবং লিখতে জানতে হয়। চক্রাকার দুর্ভিক্ষের মত ভালো বলতে ও লিখতে না জানলে স্কুল কলেজের পাঠ্যক্রমই বিশাল বোঝা হয়ে ওঠে। নির্দিষ্ট পাঠ্যসূচীর বাইরের বই পড়ার সময় বা ইচ্ছা কোনটাই হয় না। বই দেখলেই অনিচ্ছা জাগে। ফলে, পৃথিবী সম্বন্ধে বেশি ওয়াকিবহল হওয়া হয়তো হয়, কিন্তু তা পাঠ্যসূচীর বই থেকে নয়, বৈদ্যুতিন সামাজিক মাধ্যম ও বন্ধুবান্ধবদের সঙ্গে গল্প করায় হয়। এই রকম ওয়াকিবহল বেশির ভাগ মানুষই হয় যাদের এই সব কাজের সময় থাকে। কিন্তু নির্দিষ্ট পেশার প্রশিক্ষণটা আর পাওয়া যায় না। এর ফলেই ওই ওয়াকিবহল হওয়ার বাজার দর কম। বাজারে মানুষে চায় তাদের কলেজ-উত্তীর্ণ কর্মচারীরা চিন্তাভাবনায় বিচক্ষণতা প্রদর্শন করবে ও উত্তম মানের বিবরণ বা প্রতিবেদন লিখতে পারবে। মানবিকবিদ্যার ছাত্রছাত্রীদের থেকে এই দুটিই সব চেয়ে বড় চাহিদা। কিন্তু সেই ছাত্রছাত্রীরা বলতে, লিখতে, এমনকি তাদের ভাবনায় বিশাল জ্ঞানের পরিচয় ও পাওয়া যায় না।

        ‘কৃত্রিম মেধা’ আজকালকার চালু শব্দ। সেই শব্দের গুনগত পরিমাপ না করে স্রেফ সেই কৃত্রিম মেধা বেঁচনেওয়ালাদের মানবিকবিদ্যার উপর ভরসা আওড়ে যাওয়ার কারণ হিসেবে বলতে হয় যে চিন্তাভাবনায় বিচক্ষণতা প্রদর্শনই এর একমাত্র কারণ। কিন্তু, তা আগেই লিখেছি যে যদিও বাজার চাইছে, আমরা সামাজিক ভাবে তা দিতে পারছি না। এর কারণ কী?

        আমাদের দেশে ছাত্রছাত্রীর যখন ইংরিজি শেখার জন্য কলেজে ভর্তি হয়, তখন তাদের অনেকেই এক বড় ধাপ্পাবাজির শিকার হয়। তারা ভাবে যে তারা স্কুলে এই ভাষার যতটা শিখেছিল, তার চেয়ে আরো উন্নত ভাবে শিখবে। তাদের এই ভাষা শেখার একটাই কারণ—একটা ভালো চাকরি হতে পারে ভালো ইংরিজি বলতে বা লিখতে পারলে। স্কুলে যারা দুটোর মধ্যে একটাও ভালো ভাবে করতে পারতো না, তারা আরো বেশি আগ্রহী হয়ে কলেজে ইংরিজি পড়ার জন্য। তারা ভাবে স্কুলে তো শিখতে পারলাম না, কলেজে গিয়ে নিশ্চই ইংরিজি বলতে লিখতে শিখে যাবো টি.ভি.তে দেখা ক্রিকেটার, হিন্দি, বাংলা, তামিল অভিনেতা-অভিনেত্রীদের মত। কিন্তু আশ্চর্য্যের বিষয় যে কলেজে গিয়ে দেখে যে এখানে তো ইংরিজি শেখাচ্ছেই না বরং আরো কিসব আবল-তাবোল দুর্বোধ্য ইংরিজি পাঠ ঘাড়ের উপর চাপিয়ে দিচ্ছে। জীবন আগেই একবার বাস্তবের সঙ্গে তাল না মিলিয়ে উচ্চাকাঙ্ক্ষার নামে স্কুলে ধোকা দিয়ে দিয়েছিল। কলেজেও একই গল্প! কোন সুরাহা নেই! ফলে স্কুলের বিদ্যাই আরেকবার। ফের বেরিয়ে আসে এক গাদা নোটবই, না বুঝে গাঁতানো ও যাই প্রশ্ন হোক গরুর রচনাটাই লিখে আসা। নম্বরের খেলায় নম্বরটা লাল না হয়ে নীল হলেই হল।

        এই দুঃখজনক অবস্থার কারণ উচ্চাকাঙ্ক্ষা। মানবিকবিদ্যা মানে ধর্মীয়বিদ্যার বিপরীত। ভগবানকে জানার প্রয়াস না করে, মানুষকে জেনে অন্যান্য মানুষদের সঙ্গে বেশি ভালোভাবে কথোপকথন করা। ভাষার খুঁটিনাটি এই জানার একটা চরম রূপ। কিন্তু চিন্তাভাবনায় বিচক্ষণতা এবং ভালোভাবে কথোপকথন এর কোন বিকল্প নেই। সাহিত্যচর্চার মূল উদ্দেশ্য তিন প্রকারের হতে পারে, (ক) ভাষার জ্ঞান বাড়ানো, (খ) প্রখ্যাত বই পড়া ও (গ) সমাজ সম্বন্ধে অনেক জেনে সমাজের উন্নতি করা। বর্তমান স্নাতক ও স্নাতকোত্তর সাহিত্যবিদ্যা শেষের দুটি করার চেষ্টা করে প্রথমটা সম্পূর্ণ বাদ দিয়ে। কারণ ধরে নেওয়া হয় প্রথমটা স্কুলেই হয়ে গেছে, একই জিনিস আরেকবার করার কোন মানে হয় না। কিন্তু সমস্যা অন্য জায়গায়। সমস্যা হল আমাদের শিক্ষানীতি বানায় সমাজের উচ্চশিক্ষিত ব্যক্তিরা যারা নিজেদের জীবনের অনেক উচ্চাকাঙ্ক্ষাই পূর্ণ করতে পেরেছে। কিন্তু বেশির ভাগ মানুষের ক্ষেত্রেই সেটা প্রযোজ্য নয়। ভারতেই বেশির ভাগ মানুষের ক্ষেত্রেই পড়াশোনা খুব কঠিণ ও সহজ ভাবে বোধগম্য নয়। প্রখ্যাত বই পড়ার জন্য দরকারী ভাষার জ্ঞান ও দুনিয়ার সম্বন্ধে জ্ঞান স্কুল কলেজে পড়ার সময় হয়ে ওঠে না। কিছু জিন্যের নিশ্চয় হয়। কিন্তু তারা খুব আল্প সংখ্যায়। দুই স্তরের জন্য দুটো আলাদা ব্যবস্থা না রেখে, দুটোকেই এক করে দেওয়া হয়েছে। ফলে, যাদের সামাজিক ও সাংস্কৃতিক মূলধন আছে, তারা এই ব্যবস্থার ফায়দা নিতে পারে, আর যাদের নেই তারা উচ্চাকাঙ্ক্ষা আর বাস্তবের মধ্যেকার গর্তে পড়ে গিয়ে উপরের দিকে তাকিয়ে দেখে তাকে কেউ তুলতে আসছে কি না। কিন্তু যারা সেই গর্তে পড়েনি, তারা তো মাটির উপর দিয়ে হাঁটতে ব্যস্ত। নীচে গর্তে পড়ে যাওয়া মানুষদের অস্তিত্ব জানে, কিন্তু এত জন পড়ে আছে, তার একার তো কিছু করার নেই, এই ভেবে হাঁটতে থাকে। গর্তে যারা পড়ে তারা পড়ে কারণ তারা উপরের দিকে তাকিয়ে থাকে, উচ্চাকাঙ্ক্ষা নিয়ে।

        সাহিত্যবিদ্যার এই গর্ত থেকে এই সংখ্যাগরিষ্টকে উদ্ধার করার উপায়, তাদেরকে মুখটা মাটির দিকে করার ব্যবস্থা করে দেওয়া। তাতে হয়তো তারা গর্তে না পড়ে, ঠিক উপর দিয়ে হেঁটে যেতে পারবে এবং হয়তো কোন দিনও যাদের সামাজিক ও সাংস্কৃতিক মূলধন আছে, তাদের থেকে তাড়াতাড়ি হাঁটতে পারবে। কী করণীয় সাহিত্যবিদ্যার এই উচ্চাকাঙ্ক্ষার গর্ত থেকে মুক্তি দেওয়ার জন্য। প্রথমত, দুই ধরনের ছাত্রছাত্রীদের জন্য দুই ধরনের শিক্ষাব্যবস্থা রাখা। যেহেতু উচ্চাকাঙ্ক্ষার গর্তে পড়ে যাওয়া মানুষই বেশি, তাই সে রকম শিক্ষাব্যবস্থার সরঞ্জামই বেশি রাখা উচিত। সঙ্খ্যালঘু সাংস্কৃতিক মূলধনের উপার্জন অল্প জনই করতে পারে। ফলে সে রকম শিক্ষাব্যাবস্থা অল্প সংখ্যায় রাখা উচিত।

        এত ক্ষণ অনেক নিন্দা করে গেছি। এবার কিছু প্রশংসাও করি। এখনো পর্যন্ত আমাদের দেশে এন.এ.এ.সি. নামক এক সংস্থার দরুন সঙ্খ্যালঘু সাংস্কৃতিক মূলধনে পরিমার্জিত কিছু শিক্ষা প্রতিষ্ঠানকে চিহ্নিত করা হয়েছে। তবে, সেখানেও ভবিষ্যতে ফাঁকি দেওয়ার নানা ব্যবস্থা করা আছে। সেই আলোচনায় আপাতত নাই প্রবেশ করলাম। কিন্তু, এই সকল শিক্ষা প্রতিষ্ঠানেই স্রেফ প্রখ্যাত বই পড়া ও সমাজ সম্বন্ধে অনেক জেনে সমাজের উন্নতি করা উচ্চাকাঙ্ক্ষাকে সীমিত রেখে বাকি কলেজগুলিতে ভাষার জ্ঞান বাড়ানোর উপর জোর দিলে ছাত্রছাত্রীদের লাভ, সমাজের ব্যবসার লাভ কারণ যোগ্য কর্মচারী বেশি মাত্রা পাওয়া যাবে এবং সব চেয়ে বেশি লাভ ছাত্রছাত্রীদের উচ্চাকাঙ্ক্ষার নামে প্রতারণার থেকে রক্ষা করে। কমিউনিকেটিভ ইংলিশ নামক একটি বিষয় কেবলই ভাষার জ্ঞান বাড়ানোর উপর জোর দেয়ে। সেই বিষয়টাই এখনকার বেশিরভাগ কলেজের ইংরিজির অধ্যাপকেরা পড়ালে, প্রখ্যাত বই না পড়িয়ে, সমাজের কল্যাণ হবে।

        ‘গ্যাংগ্রিনের উপর ব্যান্ড-এড’ – এই শব্দসমূহের আজকাল বেশ চল। আমাদের শিক্ষাব্যবস্থাতেও রেমেডিয়াল ইংলিশ বলে নাম-কে-ওয়াস্তে কিছু অংশ আজকাল সব বিষয়ের পাঠ্যক্রমে চালু করা হচ্ছে, সে গণিত পড়তে আসুক, উর্দু পড়তে আসুক আর ইংরিজির প্রখ্যাত বই পড়তে আসুক। কিন্তু ব্যাপারটা হল সেই নির্দিষ্ট পাঠ্যসূচীর চাপ। তাতেই ছাত্রছাত্রী হাবুডুবু খাচ্ছে। তার মধ্যে এই ‘গ্যাংগ্রিনের উপর ব্যান্ড-এড’ শিক্ষক ও ছাত্রছাত্রী উভয় পক্ষই খুব দ্রুত শেষ করে ফেলার চেষ্টা করে এবং একটা যা হক করে পরীক্ষা নিয়ে দায় শেষ করে ফেলে। এতে লাভের চেয়ে ক্ষতি হয়ে বেশি। মূল বিষয়ের থেকে সময় নিয়ে অফলপ্রসূ চেষ্টা করা হয়। যখন বারো-তেরো বছর স্কুলে পড়ে ইংরিজি ভাষা শেখা ঠিক মত হয় না, তখন অল্প কয়েকটি ক্লাসে সেই ক্ষত পূর্ণ হবে, এই আশা উচ্চাকাঙ্ক্ষার উদাহরণ।

        আরেকটি শিক্ষায় উচ্চাকাঙ্ক্ষার নামে প্রতারণার উদাহরণ বিচক্ষণ ভাবনাচিন্তা করার প্রশিক্ষণ দেওয়া। সকল সরকারি নীতিবিদরা পাখির বুলির মত আওড়ে যান যে উচ্চশিক্ষা এই প্রশিক্ষণ দেবে। কিন্তু, সেই প্রশিক্ষণ পাওয়ার যাবতীয় পথ তারা কাঁটায় ভরিয়ে দেন। ‘মিলে সুর মেরা তুমহারা’ থেকে আমরা যখন ‘এক দেশ, এক নীতি’ দিকে এগিয়ে যাচ্ছি, তখন এটা খুব আশ্চর্যের নয় যে সরকারি নীতি গোটা দেশ কে এক পাঠ্যসূচীতে বাঁধতে চাইছে। এটার পোশাকি নাম ‘চয়েস বেস্‌ড ক্রেডিট সিস্টেম’ বা ‘ইচ্ছা মত অঙ্কপ্রদান প্রথা’। সমস্যা একটাই। বাস্তবে ছাত্রছাত্রীদের ইচ্ছা-মত পড়ার অল্প অবকাশ থাকে কারণ অত সংখ্যক শিক্ষক ও শিক্ষাকক্ষ নেই। শিক্ষকদের থেকে সব ইচ্ছা ও মত কেড়ে নেওয়া হয়ে যে তারা কী পড়াতে চায়। নতুন কেন্দ্রীয় শিক্ষানীতিতে এর বিপরীত বলে আচ্ছে সত্যিই। কিন্তু, ইচ্ছা ও ‘মিলে সুর মেরা তুমহারা’র বাজার দর এখন কুব কম। ‘এক দেশ, এক পাঠ্যসূচী’ মানে ছাত্রছাত্রীদের বলা যে সারা দেশের সব ছাত্রছাত্রী একই উত্তর লেখো পরীক্ষার খাতায়, কারণ যেহেতু একই পাঠ্যসূচী, ফলে ঘুরিয়ে ফিরিয়ে কয়েকটাই প্রশ্ন এবং যদি প্রশ্ন গোটা দেশ ও বাজারই এক সঙ্গে জানে, তাহলে একই উত্তর সবার মুখের সামনে উচ্চাকাঙ্ক্ষার চাবিকাঠি হিসেবে লেলিয়ে দেওয়া সহজ।

        বাস্তবের সঙ্গে মনের ইচ্ছার এই যে ব্যবধান, এইটিকে না কমাতে পারলে আমাদের শিক্ষাব্যবস্থা চিরকালই হতাশাজনক রয়ে যাবে।

“And you read your Emily Dickinson...”

Seth Perlow, ‘Who Gets Emily Dickinson?’ Los Angeles Review of Books, 9th September 2019

The perils of AI essay assessment

    Dear reader, given a choice between doing a work slowly incurring greater costs and doing a work fast, inaccurately and most importantly, cheaply, what would you choose? More details about the context? I am here to discuss with you today a phenomenon sweeping across global standardised testing. It is the rise of computers, instead of human beings, grading not only objective multiple-choice questions but rather subjective prose.
    The right to education ensures an increasing numbers of students every year given the rise in population. The investment in the education sector in increasing the number of service providers or teachers does not keep pace with the rate of growth of students. As a result, teachers are often over-burdened. There are two primary aspects of education—one, where the student hears or sees, and the second where the student writes or performs based on what s/he has learnt. While the first aspect, that is making students hear or see a part of the curriculum often finds less difficulty in tackling increasing student populations (solution: cram the classrooms or pre-record the lectures and make the students see the same spiel without any fresh contribution from the teacher), what the education sector struggles with is handling the assessment of the students’ contributions.
    If the baby’s bath water is dirty, you throw out the water, and sometimes also the baby. When subjective answers where students had to write or perform a calculation in detail became difficult to tackle, the first change that policy makers adopted was to abandon this assessment system and adopt a multiple-choice question pattern, where one had to fill in a circle beside the correct answer. The standard mark of the filled-in circle was read by an optical machine reader thereby eliminating the need for subjective assessment by human assessors.
    Some policy makers still wanted to incorporate subjective prose answers as part of the assessment exercise. The problem was how to not involve too many human beings in the exercise and find a cheaper solution. A solution has been found which is fashionably labelled ‘artificial intelligence’ whose earlier manifestations were more humbly termed ‘pattern recognition’. What it implies is that computer programmes are trained to look at a large sample set of human-graded essays, find patterns in it, look for those patterns in other essays and mark them similar to what human beings had done in the sample set. Where lies the problem, you may ask. Isn’t that the way all human learning is structured?
    We learn to speak our first words by observing our guardians and repeating noises that they make while doing the things that we want to do. The problem is our guardians are not always the best role models to follow. It is true that our guardians shape our consciousness significantly but we are not circumscribed by our circumstances. Some revolutionaries begin by rebelling against their guardians and their morals. The sample set of patterns is neither always the ideal set of patterns nor always inclusive of all iterations. A pattern is a trait which has multiple iterations. Original enunciations (neologisms) or sole iterations (hapax legomenon) are not part of existing patterns. If one were to compose out-pattern utterings, machine learning would fail to recognise it as conforming to high standards and would penalise such composition. Thus, machine learning rewards conventionality. Machine learning and artificial intelligence are often described as self-learning algorithms. The problem with self-learning machines is that if it is both learning and performing its task (grading essays in this case) at the same time, by the time a neologism becomes a pattern through multiple iterations, many essays have already been marked where it has not been assessed properly for not conforming to high standards.
    One may argue that learning and performing a task is one of the fundamental ways of learning on the job. Medical trials are held according to this process whereby the effects of a placebo are compared to the effects of the drug under study and whichever set of patients come off worse are considered collateral damage for the greater good. However, in medical trials, often there are no alternatives whereby damage can be minimised. On the contrary, in the case of self-learning algorithms, the alternative is that if humans were to assess the essay, there would be less damage to the greater good.
    If it is a sole iteration, such algorithms fail to recognise its validity. One is thus cast into an echo chamber where each cry loudens the dominant echo and it takes a deluge of a different sort to drown out the initial echo. However, drowning out an initial echo by a different one implies that the new echo has become the convention. What the system rewards is conventionality. There is little scope for original expression.
    Even if one were to assess conventionality, however huge a sample set is, it is rarely inclusive of the entire corpus. The entire corpus of English prose writing is unimaginable as it is like the concept of present time that cannot be grasped. Every culture and sub-sect has its own style of writing. Black American English, Dalit Indian English, Raymond Chandler and James Joyce—all have significantly different language registers. A software package that a testing agency may buy may not have been trained on such texts. Different communities may find their essays being graded low for not conforming to high standards as per the sample set on which the algorithm was trained. Thus, cultural hegemony of a kind is imposed.
    Would this bias not be there had there been human assessors instead of computers? Would they not be subconsciously incorporating their biases while grading subjective prose? They would but human assessors are trained to grade answers according to coherence of arguments, accuracy of claims and also usage of language. It is easier for a human being to spot neologisms or specificity of language registers as opposed to a computer. Such features of human cognition have not yet been successfully incorporated by computer ‘natural language processing’.
    Coherence of argument is also a critical aspect of assessment where humans outperform computers. The scope of arguments is infinite. Diversions are often the means of progression in an argument. Extremely long diversions, such as in Homeric epic similes, may not be found in most essays fed to a computer. Nor is allusive discourse very prominent. Answers written in the style of George Orwell’s Animal Farm may not be common among student essays. However, the point is that they can be there. Unconventional forms of writing are what make reading and writing about common topics less tedious. More than tedium, writing is a form of human expression and one of the fundamental rights. One world, one style or universality of a certain style is not only politically incorrect but also hugely restrictive.
    Dear reader, I do not wish to come across as a luddite, forsaking technological experimentation for the sake of safety. However, the effort should be to minimise the damage. Many American testing agencies already employ AI-driven essay assessment and their makers have sometimes publicly acknowledged the concerns that this piece raises.
    Since solutions have not yet been found, it is better to conduct trials with small sets where both humans and machines are asked to assess the same essay, and a third human adjudicator can choose which grade to formally associate the essay with. However, financial imperatives demand urgent reduction of investment in human capital. As a result, machines are what we are often left with. Even in situations where this technological investment has already been made, it is best to include the role of a human assessor who uses the warnings of errors in spelling and inconsistencies of grammar pointed out by the software in the digital output created by students, to make a more human assessment of an exercise which is difficult to strait-jacket. Countries, such as India, which have not yet invested much in this technological experimentation, are better off carrying out small tests before implementing such models on a large scale.

An article about teaching reading

Natalie Wexler, ‘Elementary Education Has Gone Terribly Wrong,’ The Atlantic (August 2019)

100% marks

      5,000,000 units of currency—enough to last a long time? Apparently not if you were in Venezuela in July 2018. At most, it would have got you one kilogramme of tomatoes. With hyperinflation surging in Venezuela, the Venezuelan government started issuing larger bank notes from 2016. It introduced a 500 unit note in 2016. By 2017, it was forced to issue a 100,000 unit note. By August 2018, it was forced to issue a new currency altogether, which lobbed off five zeroes from its existing one. Thus, one kilogram of tomatoes started to cost 50 units of the new currency as opposed to 5,000,000 of the earlier one. Devaluation of currency is sometimes a strategic tool to increase foreign reserves. However, coupled with inflation, devaluation of currency leads to an economic and political crisis. The real notional value of the country’s currency starts to lose value for foreigners who remain wary of the currency (either old or new) losing further value and becoming junk.
      Dear reader, let me not dissemble any longer. I am not here to inform you about either Venezuela or tomatoes though I have nothing against these two venerable entities. My concern here is academic marks in India. The only point of comparison among both these aspects being hyperinflation.
      Gone are the days when 60% or a first class was considered respectable. 98% in all subjects in your school-leaving examinations may leave you wondering whether you can get past the portals of the higher education institute of your choice in India which admits students solely on the basis of school-leaving examination marks. The reason being 98% is passé. There are likely to be several holders of that distinction of your age wanting to get into the exact course in the exact same institution you want to attend. Rhetorical flourishes aside, the point is we are in the midst of a hyperinflation of marks at the school level. Such economic indiscipline regarding marks is a trait across most Indian school certificate boards.
      What is the problem with such inflation? Is it a case of sour grapes? Since your humble writer could not achieve such high-hanging fruit in his time, does he despise juniors who managed to strive, to seek and to find such fruit? I am afraid not. There is something else that is rotten in the state of academic marks in Indian schools.
      What do marks mark? They mark the ability of a student to have mastered a subject to a level that is considered appropriate for his or her peers. Why are marks taken as a cut-off mark? Institutions often have lesser supply than demand. Hence, their wares are sold only to the highest marks holders. What then is the problem with the current system where, in certain institutions high up the National Institute Ranking Framework where students are admitted solely on the basis of marks obtained in school-leaving examinations, a student with 98% marks may not make it through but someone with 98.1% may just manage to get past?
      The problem is epistemological in nature. Can a student solve every mathematical problem expected to be solved by his or her peers? Yes, so 100% marks. Can a student interpret literary texts to the best level that can be expected from his or her peers? Yes, so 100% marks once again.
      Let us relook at these two questions. Can a student solve every mathematical problem expected to be solved by his or her peers to the fullest extent possible? Can he or she solve it in such a way that it is not mathematically possible to solve it any further irrespective of age or skills? Yes, so 100% marks. Can a student interpret literary texts to the best level possible so that they cannot be interpreted in a more nuanced manner irrespective of age or expertise? This, my dear readers, is a difficult question. Interpretation and absolutism are not always the best partners. I would argue that we can never interpret a literary text to its absolute extent. Thus, 100% marks in literary interpretation is epistemologically untenable for me.
      Are we splitting hairs here? Ay, there’s the rub! Pedagogy expects students to follow what is being taught. It is desirable that students understand what is being taught. In order to improve this exercise, it is sometimes (but not always) useful that students prove in some manner that they have imbibed the knowledge imparted. One way of proving that is through academic exercises which must be evaluated in order to judge whether the understanding is correct. Textbooks with answers provide a format for self-evaluation. Software with answers provides machine evaluation. Human instructors carrying out the evaluation also understand whether their students have followed what they attempted to teach. So far, so good.
      Assigning marks to evaluation is not necessary in an ideal world. However, since few things in life are ideal, not all evaluations are without marks. Some academic evaluations are without marks though. Think of research degree examinations. One either passes or fails. Marks are not assigned. Either the research is acceptable according to certain standards or it is not. Why then do other academic programmes such as school-level examinations, undergraduate and graduate examinations assign marks? For the first two categories, it is often a question of supply and demand. The supply of further avenues of higher education is limited but the demand is high. Hence, highest marks holders acquire the right in most cases. Other factors such as reservation on the basis of background, other abilities such as sporting abilities and financial abilities are also factors but even within such categories, academic marks are an important criterion for admission to higher educational institutes. What about the last category—graduate examinations? What is the point of master’s degree marks? Perhaps the reason why marks are awarded in master’s degree programmes but not in research degree programmes is that students study set courses in master’s degree programmes and hence there is a concept of peers where several people are studying the same course and are expected to acquire almost similar knowledge by the end of it. Thus, one can think of assigning marks and comparing them to find out who has managed to acquire it and address queries in a manner deemed desirable.
      Returning to the two cultures of mathematics and literature, in mathematics, irrespective of expertise, ‘x’ can sometimes be found in one manner only. In literature and the humanities, not so. How do I love thee? Sometimes you can count the ways and sometimes it is to the depth and breadth and height one’s soul can reach. Three hundred or three thousand Ramayanas? Not all that can be thought is measurable. What cannot be measured cannot be marked. When I was in school, my English teachers used to deduct 0.5 for every grammatical mistake in a long answer. If it was a one sentence answer, one grammatical mistake ensured that the answer was marked zero even if one exhibited knowledge about the specific question being asked. As an undergraduate college teacher of English literature, I make up my mind that 60% in a long essay ensures that there are almost no grammatical mistakes, the answer addresses the question and displays awareness of the relevant details of the text. 65% if the answer is nuanced, 70% if it shows evidence of relevant secondary critical opinion, 75% if it shows evidence of a high amount of relevant secondary critical opinion, 80% for an answer I would have been proud of had I written it as an undergraduate, 85% for answers which are as good as research papers, 90% for answers which are as good as the best research material I have ever read on the subject.
      Dear reader, you may be disappointed by my climax interruptus. Your humble writer cannot epistemologically think of 95% or 100% marks for a long answer in the humanities. Thus ends the limits which my mind can fathom. It is either a failure of my imagination or an expression of my belief that not all which can be imagined has already been imagined. The humanities rarely deals in absolutes. 100% marks in the humanities is incongruous with my belief system.
      Irrespective of my beliefs, where does hyperinflation in academic marks lead to? I was not mentioning 98% marks being passé simply for the sake of rhetoric. St. Stephen’s College, Delhi has regularly been setting 99% cut-off for certain students seeking admission to their English honours course.
      When I mark my undergraduate English students much less than the marks they were used to receiving in English in school (mostly because of their incapacity to string a few sentences together as a result of various disadvantageous circumstances which they were subject to while learning English in school), they are often shocked by this sudden fall in marks and by the different evaluation norms. It is not that your writer is trying to detract from the hard work that students have put in to achieve academic success (irrespective of the method of evaluation). As a teacher, academic excellence in students is what one works towards. The bone of contention is regarding the expectation of absolutism in the interpretation of the humanities. The inflation plaguing our schools is not so hyper in our colleges yet, though with objective questions in the humanities, it is perhaps not too long before the republic of higher education is also beset by the economy of hyperinflation of marks.
      Will this hyperinflation lead to devaluing of the Indian marking system? If so, it only affects foreigners who have to deal with our Indian marks. They may devalue our marking system. However, coupled with press reports and practical experience of the poor academic quality of most of our students, overseas academic institutions may be wary of both our quantity of marks as well as the quality of our education. Devalued currency runs a high risk of becoming junk currency for foreigners. However, only a minuscule proportion of our students ever come into contact with overseas educational institutes. Thus, the problem may not be portentous.
      For domestic academic transactions, the problem of high marks can easily be replaced by the concept of percentile. Then, if most students get more than 80% marks, the value of 79% marks will be in a low percentile. However, epistemologically, a percentile value of 99 in the humanities is much more acceptable to your writer than a percentage value of 99.
      Improving the quality of our education system is a tedious task which most educational administrators seek to achieve. As for the quantity of marks that our evaluation system produces, is it time to start lobbing off a few tens from school marks, especially in the humanities?

The best article I read in 2018

Matthew Stewart, ‘The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy,’ The Atlantic (June 2018)

Rhetorical devices/ figures of speech most amenable to computer detection

Devices which use repetition of a specific word or a sequence of words are most amenable to automatic computer detection algorithms.

Thus, these figures of speech are easier to detect than other rhetorical devices

Anadiplosis

Anaphora
Epanalepsis
Epiphora or epistrophe
Conduplicatio
Epizeuxis or palilogia
Mesodiplosis
Polysyndeton
Symploce

Other figures of speech which are also similarly amenable are

Alliteration — one or more letters at the beginning of a word, rather than an entire word, being repeated
Anti-metabole — the word order is reversed, so slightly tougher for the computer to detect
Homeoteleuton — reverse of alliteration. One or more letters at the end of a word, rather than an entire word, being repeated

যবনিকা, যবন, Ionia

‘যবনিকা’ শব্দটির অর্থ ‘পর্দা’, তা সে নাটকের অভিনেতার সামনেই হোক, বা পিছনে ‘drop scene’ হিসেবে। এই শব্দটি বাংলায় প্রবেশ করেছে প্রাচীন গ্রীক ও ভারতীয় সভ্যতার মেলামেশার কারণে। ‘যবনিকা’ শব্দটি ‘যবন’ শব্দ থেকে এসেছে। ‘যবন’ শব্দটির মানে ‘গ্রীক মানুষ’। এই ‘যবন’ শব্দটি এসেছে  ‘Ionian’ শব্দের থেকে। Ionia প্রাচীন গ্রীস-এর একটি জায়গার নাম, যে জায়গাটি বর্তমান টার্কি-তে।

Hunting in War and Peace and Fowling in Anna Karenina

Hunting in War and Peace and Fowling in Anna Karenina

Abstract

            This paper looks at the depictions of hunting in Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace and fowling in Anna Karenina to figure out the kinds of multi-species leisure politics in these two novels. Both these novels are well-known for presenting well-rounded depictions of human characters. However there is a lack of depth in depicting non-human animal characters in these two works and this paper places such narrative techniques in the broader literary career and life of Tolstoy. The paper associates the depth of depiction with sensitivity and empathy towards non-human animals. It looks at leisure activities in these two novels where other animals, in addition to humans, derive pleasure. However, it points out that whereas pleasure of some non-human animals is emphasised, empathy towards other non-human animals is not evoked. It points to a hierarchy of relationships. The paper seeks to explore the politics and ethics of such relationships.

            The paper also comments on the general nature of the hunt, and cites secondary scholarship on the politics and leisure of multi-species leisure activities involving dogs. The paper highlights the relevance in the twenty-first century of revisiting literary artefacts from an earlier period, such as the nineteenth century, in order to foreground ethical and political issues and use it to frame our present and future actions. The paper concludes by positing imaginative literature as an apt method for imagining another species and highlights these two novels as being prime examples of reading such imagination or empathy for another species.

Keywords

culture, history

Article

Introduction

            Multi-species leisure is a term which is open to interpretation. Are humans privy to the mental thought-process of any species other than itself? Even if humans think that they can empathise with another species, can humans represent that species? Or is the issue of representation of another species an exercise in anthropomorphism, where other species may not be represented in terms of human behaviour and according to a human paradigm, but where the non-human species is thought of using human parameters. These are some of the larger issues that perhaps have no single answer but remain open to subjectivity.

            Literature provides an apt perspective for addressing this issue. A literary text, in the form of a poem, a play-text, or a novel or a short story, is a work presenting the author’s subjectivity. It rarely lays claim to presenting an objective view of its topic of representation.

            Animals often feature in literary works. Most often, animals feature in human language in the form of metaphors, and this use of language is carried forward into literary works. Metaphors usually say more about the subject being compared rather than the object to which the subject is being compared. Animals usually feature as objects in metaphors. Claude Lévi-Strauss, in his work Totemism, writes that natural species are chosen as totems because they are ‘good to think’ with (Lévi-Strauss, 1991). Going beyond Durkheim’s and Radcliffe-Brown’s reasonings for choosing animals as totems, Lévi-Strauss cites Rousseau and writes:

Metaphor, the role of which in totemism we have repeatedly underlined, is not a later embellishment of language, but is one of its fundamental modes. Placed by Rousseau on the same plane as opposition, it constitutes, on the same ground, a primary form of discursive thought. (Lévi-Strauss, 1991, p. 102)

Writers use animal metaphors because metaphor is one of the primary forms of discursive thought. Animals in metaphors are usually zoomorphised humans, and usually the subjects of the comparison are human beings, whereas animals only feature tangentially as objects of the comparison. However, animals also feature in literary works in other forms, such as animals that serve as identifiers of the natural world and provide a backdrop or a setting for a discourse on human nature, such as in pastoral literature; or anthropomorphised animals, reflecting on human nature. Very few animals appear in literature as animals per se, where the work tries to present either an interior view of the mental faculties of animals in order to understand them as fellow creatures of the writer, or a view of animal-human relations in society. Animals are often presented, even in this category, with human beings, but the focus is firmly on the animals and either their inner lives or their relationship with humans, as opposed to the focus on humans in the earlier three forms.

            One may question even this last form of representation, and question whether the non-human species is ever actually represented or whether it is ultimately a human projection of animals and ultimately a kind of anthropomorphism, but one which reflects on human-animal interaction rather than reflecting solely human behaviour. However, this form remains the best method to understand multi-species interaction in literature. Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty (1877) is one of the most famous examples of such representation. There are several other such examples of literary multi-species interaction. However, when it comes to multi-species leisure, the number of examples is obviously fewer.

            Multi-species leisure is perhaps always thought of in terms of the definition of leisure according to human parameters. Thus, running, walking and swimming (not for work but for relaxing) are thought of as leisure for animals as well. Human beings can ultimately perhaps understand another species only by its own parameters and project unto another species its own ideas, and defined by multi-species interaction, analyse the other species again by human parameters. The other species thus lies in a relationship of interaction, followed by external projection by humans, then reflection by humans and finally representation by humans.

            Hunting is one of these human-animal interactions which human beings often classify as leisure. Hunting is often also classified as work and not as leisure. The essay also analyses these aspects of the hunt. The main focus of this essay, however, is to look in detail at representations of hunting and allied activities in two exemplary works of literature, Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Anna Karenina, in order to analyse other issues concerning multi-species leisure. These two novels are chosen because they are well-known literary works and also because among the myriad topics that these two novels address, multi-species leisure is an activity which stands out. Whereas in War and Peace, the multi-species leisure is often difficult to trace and a reader needs to read with special focus in order to find such markers, in Anna Karenina, multi-species leisure is highlighted more strongly.

Body

            Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace (first published in its entirety in 1869) and Anna Karenina (first published in its entirety in 1878) are well-known for presenting balanced views of its characters where the view-point of most major characters are presented and used as a tool for understanding their actions. There are no explicitly villainous or evil characters in these two works. Anna Karenina and Vronsky’s actions form one of the central plots in the text in spite of leaving behind a trail of broken lives in their wake. The novel is based on the reader empathising with these two characters despite their actions which destruct not only them but also those around them. Similarly, in War and Peace, Anatol Kuragin’s affair with Natasha Rostova is marked by Kuragin’s for-the-nonce pleasure. If there is one character in War and Peace who is portrayed in a relatively negative light, it is Anatol Kuragin. Yet, Tolstoy’s style of depicting most major characters involves giving the reader an idea of the character’s thought-process. Anatol is not described as a villain. Rather he too is described as a human being with his own ways of thinking. In not de-humanising any character and not marking a character out as a villain, it may be argued that the third-person omniscient narrator does not condemn this character’s treatment of other characters. On the contrary, all kinds of actions are condoned by the narrator in a kind of a way. Such however is the narrative style that Tolstoy follows in these two novels.

            One of his descriptions of Anatol Kuragin is as follows.

Anatol was always content with his position, with himself and with others. He was instinctively and thoroughly convinced that it was impossible for him to live otherwise than the way he lived, and that he had never in his life done anything base, but he was quite incapable of considering how his actions might affect others, or what the consequence of this or that action might be. He believed that just as a duck had been created to live in water, so God had created him to spend thirty thousand a year and always to occupy a prominent position in society. He was so firmly convinced of this that looking at him others were persuaded of it too, and refused him neither a leading place in society nor the money he borrowed right and left, obviously with no notion of repaying it...All that he cared about was pleasure and women; according to his ideas there was nothing ignoble in these tastes, and as he was incapable of considering what the gratification of his desires entailed for others, he was quite sincere in regarding himself as an irreproachable man, felt genuine contempt for wrongdoers and scoundrels, and with a clear conscience held his head high.

   Rakes, those male Magdalens, cherish a secret belief in their own innocence similar to that of female Magdalens, and based on the same hope of forgiveness. “All will be forgiven her, for she loved much; all will be forgiven him, for he enjoyed much.” (Tolstoy, 1980, Vol.2, Part 5, Chapter 11, pp. 686–687)

Anatol’s behaviour is justified if the reader looks at him as he looked at himself.

            The point of this example was to highlight the balanced and well-rounded style of portrayal of characters that Tolstoy uses in these two novels. Tolstoy’s style of depicting the mental thoughts of characters is not restricted just to human characters. He also depicts the mental workings of non-human animal characters, especially hunting dogs. However, Tolstoy fails, in these two novels, to present a well-rounded style of portraying hunted or preyed upon animals and birds. He also does not write much about the horses used for riding out to the hunt, be they riders on horseback or in carriages drawn by horses. The horses in Tolstoy, more often than not, are barely discussed.

            The nineteenth century Russian land-owning aristocracy which Tolstoy depicts in these two novels was heavily invested in hunting. Tolstoy himself partook of such pleasures before his spiritual conversion in the 1880s, after which he renounced not only hunting but also eating meat. One of Tolstoy’s early works, ‘The Bear Hunt’ (published in 1872, about a real-life n incident in 1858) is a testament to Tolstoy’s early hunting phase. Whereas in War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Tolstoy as a writer is able to attribute a mental thought-process to the hunting dogs, it took Tolstoy till the 1880s to also be able to empathise with the hunted animal, and which in turn led him to renounce hunting completely.

            Empathy with animals is a developing trait in Tolstoy’s works and one can thus argue also in his life. Josephine Donovan, in an article titled ‘Tolstoy’s Animals’ (Donovan, 2009), looks very briefly at depictions of animals in a few shorter fictional works by Tolstoy—‘Snow Storm’ (published in 1856, a story about getting lost where animals play a very minor part), ‘Strider: The Story of a Horse’ (published in 1886, though begun in 1861, a story which deals primarily with a horse and is almost like a bildungsroman; it belongs to that uncommon genre of imaginative literature which deals primarily with animals and human-animal relations), ‘Master and Man’ (published in 1895, similar in theme to ‘Snow Storm’ and where animals, again, play a minor part) and ‘Esarhaddon, King of Assyria’ (published in 1903, a story about empathy and imagining oneself in another creature’s position and then behaving unto that creature — including animals — as one would unto oneself). Donovan points out that while his later works, especially ‘Strider’ and also ‘Esarhaddon’ to an extent, deal with animals in a more sensitive manner, his earlier works also carry some traits of his sensitivity which developed more fully later on.

            A more explicit statement of Tolstoy’s beliefs can be found in his aphoristic work, A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul, a kind of common-place book, which has several entries dealing with human-animal relations. This work, A Calendar of Wisdom, was written across a period of almost twenty years and was one of Tolstoy’s last major works to be published. Tolstoy’s changing sensitivities regarding animals could also be gauged from an earlier work, his 1892 preface (titled ‘The First Step’) to Howard Williams’ The Ethics of Diet. In that preface Tolstoy describes his experiences in visiting slaughterhouses, where he used to go in order to see what industrialisation had concealed from public view—the slaughtering of animals for meat. Tolstoy wanted to be responsible for his actions and so he wanted to visit his scenes of crime as it were, in order to let its full moral effect sink into him.

            Ivan Turgenev, with whom Tolstoy had a difficult association, once visited Tolstoy at his estate, Yasnaya Polyana, and wrote about the strong impression that Tolstoy’s close sense of kinship with animals, especially a horse, made on Turgenev. Jospehine Donovan also mentions this in her article cited earlier (pp. 45–46). Even those who did not have unqualified admiration for Tolstoy, also remarked on Tolstoy’s affinity with animals, in the later stages of his life.

            All these works, both fictional and non-fictional, highlighted the changing and changed sensitivities of Tolstoy. However, War and Peace and Anna Karenina are works from a different period of Tolstoy’s life, pre-spiritual conversion as it were, and though the reader can read a heightened sensitivity towards non-human creatures in these two novels, the works lack sensitivity towards hunted animals.

            For what they are worth, the depiction of the hunting scenes in these two novels, present a kind of multi-species leisure—human master and faithful dog on one side, and the hunted bird or animal on the other. The dog is as interested in the hunt as the human master, if not sometimes even more, as Tolstoy depicts. Whereas in War and Peace, there is a depiction of hunting mammals, in Anna Karenina, it is shooting of birds or fowling. Fowling and hunting are two distinct activities, yet they are connected by their concepts of the game.

            In my earlier research, I had analysed some aspects of the hunt (Ghosh, 2017). It is worthwhile to recapitulate some salient points over here. The word ‘hunt’ descends from a proto-Indo-European word meaning ‘to catch, to seize’. Hunting has conventionally been understood to refer to the hunting of animals by animals (this includes humans in both roles). Other forms of human activity often use this as a metaphor, such as ‘hunting for the truth’, ‘sexual predator on the hunt’ and so on, and the hunting scenes in both War and Peace and Anna Karenina can also be read metaphorically (such as the hunt in War and Peace providing a contrast for Nikolai’s success on the battlefield, or the fowling in Anna Karenina providing examples of Oblonsky’s self-sufficiency, Velsovsky’s casual attitude and Levin’s wavering luck), but even if one restricts oneself to hunting of non-human animals by humans, what constitutes hunting is a difficult question.

            Conventional common sense is that when humans hunt, the hunted animal has to be big enough for the hunter to see from a distance of say ten metres or so, because it is difficult to hunt animals smaller than the size of say a bird. Thus, flies are not hunted in the conventional sense of the term ‘hunting’ though ‘catching’ or ‘seizing’ such small creatures is a common human practice. The hunted animal’s fastest speed of movement is also an important factor. Animals whose fastest speeds are significantly slower than the fastest speed of humans, such as cows, are usually not ‘hunted’. They are captured, seized, devoured, but the verb ‘hunt’ is not usually used in case of cows. Rather, the verb used is ‘butcher’. Fishes are also not ‘hunted’ in this sense. Size and maximum speed are perhaps the only two conditions which are common to the animals commonly ‘hunted’ by humans.

            From my study of the reasons why humans hunt, I think the kinds of hunting can roughly be categorised as follows.

1. Hunting for food

2. Hunting to remain safe from wild animals

3. Hunting to kill vermin

4. Hunting for pleasure

5. Hunting as a show of status

6. Hunting out of peer-pressure

7. Hunting for obtaining medical, cosmetic and sartorial goods

8. Hunting as a mark of protest

9. Hunting as a show of bravado

10. Hunting as training

The hunting in War and Peace and the fowling in Anna Karenina fall into the fourth category listed above, that is, hunting for pleasure.

            The hunt in War and Peace takes place in Book 2, Part 4, Chapters 3-6. There are three distinct hunts that take place though all happen on the same trip. The first is a hunting of a wolf, the second is a hunting of a fox, and the third of a hare. In Oscar Wilde’s 1893 play A Woman of No Importance, one of the characters says ‘...one knows so well the popular idea of health. The English country gentleman galloping after a fox — the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.’ It is interesting to note the choice of prey in War and Peace — only the hare is conventionally consumed by humans. Wolf meat and fox meat were and still are rarely eaten by humans. The wolf and the fox were not the primary choice of prey till the 19^th century. They were most often viewed as vermin and fell into the third category above. The deer was the primary prey in 16^th and 17^th century Europe. When over-hunting had drastically reduced the deer population by the 19^th century, wolves and foxes became significant animals hunted for pleasure in Europe, and from their status as vermin, they changed to animals hunted for pleasure.

            In War and Peace, like in a lot of hunting narratives, the depiction of the hunt offers vicarious participation for the reader. Through the detailed portrayal of the almost-successful-yet-momentarily-unsuccessful-but-finally-successful hunt, Tolstoy offers the readers similar kinds of anguish and tension that the portrayed characters also seemingly endure. Several features of the depiction of the hunt stand out.

            One is the sincerity and passion of the hunters. Nikolai Rostov, in the heat of the moment, thinks the hunt is the most important aspect of his life. This getting carried away by the present and the constant changing of priorities is a characteristic feature in both these novels. Pierre Bezukhov’s changing priorities, Nikolai Rostov’s changing love interests, Levin’s changing agricultural schemes—one of Tolstoy’s distinctive narrative style in these two novels is to show that life is unexpected and what may seem very important at one point of time in life may seem insignificant in the larger scheme of things. It is the same with Tolstoy’s notion of history, where seemingly important historical actions are often of little consequence in shifting the stream of a larger historical narrative.[1] The reasons for Napoleon’s defeat and the course of the war, as analysed by Tolstoy, bear testimony to this claim. Tolstoy also claimed that whereas the historian often has to bend events to fit into a grand narrative, the artist, on the other hand, is free to not have any narrative and on the contrary present as many views as possible.[2] This is one of the reasons why characters in Tolstoy’s works are often well-rounded and balanced, as he chooses a narrative style of presenting multiple views about most of his major characters. Also, just as Tolstoy encourages the reader in War and Peace to read against the dominant narrative and to read between the lines and make all possible connections; similarly, Tolstoy’s own narrative can also be read against, and it is in the spirit of Tolstoy to read between the lines of Tolstoy’s narrative and try to uphold issues such as those concerning animals and multi-species interactions and leisure.

            During the hunt, Nikolai Rostov is depicted as thinking of the hunt as of supreme importance in his life.

…Nikolai, with a shamefaced awareness that at the sight of the hunting weather, the hounds, and the huntsman, he was being carried away by that irresistible passion for the chase which makes a man forget all previous intentions, as a lover forgets everything in the presence of his mistress. (p. 597)

[Nikolai] prayed with that passionate compunction with which men pray in moments of intense emotion arising from trivial causes. “Why, what is it to Thee,” he said to God, “to do this for me? I know Thou art great and that it is a sin to ask this, but for God’s sake, make the wolf come my way and let Karai get his teeth in his throat and finish him off…”No, that won’t be my luck,” thought Rostov. “It would be worth anything! But it won’t happen. I’m always unlucky — in cards, in war, in everything!...Just once in my life to run down a full-grown wolf — I want nothing more!” he thought…(pp. 604–605)

“Ulyulyu!” cried Nikolai in a voice not his own… (p. 605)

That instant when Nikolai saw the wolf in the gully struggling with the dogs, saw her gray coat and outstretched hind leg under them, her head with her ears laid back in terror and gasping (Karai had her by the throat), was the happiest moment of his life. (p. 606)

Nikolai is extremely high-strung and passionately involved during the hunt.

            The second important feature of the hunt in War and Peace, as opposed to the fowling in Anna Karenina, is the participation of women. Natasha Rostova is compared to Diana by one of the huntsmen, Ilagin. However, she plays a minimal part in the actual hunting though she is clearly impressed by it and is joyous at its successful completion. This is in contrast to the fowling in Anna Karenina where the shooting functions as a male get-together away from the world of women and offers Levin a world where he can indulge in manly activities with his male acquaintances away from the world of cares and familial obligations. This dichotomy is not implicit and is not left to the reader to deduce. Tolstoy makes Levin explicitly aware of it. In doing so, it may be that Tolstoy was offering a critique of the exclusively male hiatus, or maybe he was depicting a more realistic view of the way society functioned. Levin’s awareness of this dichotomy bothers him and attracts him at the same time.

            The opulence of the landed class in these two novels is striking and extends to the hunt as well. About a hundred and fifty dogs were used in chasing an old she-wolf and her cubs in the Otradnoe forest in War and Peace.

            What is missing from the description of the hunt though is empathy for the prey. It is interesting to note that even wolf cubs do not elicit any empathy from Tolstoy the narrator. This sentence quoted earlier to illustrate a different point — ‘That instant when Nikolai saw the wolf in the gully struggling with the dogs, saw her gray coat and outstretched hind leg under them, her head with her ears laid back in terror and gasping (Karai had her by the throat), was the happiest moment of his life’ — is the only mention of the horror that the prey feels.

            The hunt was a social activity with its own set of rules and etiquettes. The character referred to as ‘Uncle’ cuts off a pad off the hare and gives it to the dog, Rugai, who had managed to kill the hare. This was in keeping with hunting etiquettes mentioned regularly in hunting manuals in Europe over the course of several centuries, such as The Boke of St. Albans (first published in 1486) and Jacques du Fouilloux’s La vénerie (first published in 1561).

            The fowling in Anna Karenina involved guns, unlike the hunting in War and Peace. The fowling in Anna Karenina is also less elaborate and less opulent than the ones in War and Peace. There are no ventures involving one hundred and fifty dogs to hunt primarily one prey! The shooting in Anna Karenina always involve Levin, and mostly take place when Stepan Arkadyevich Oblonsky goes to Levin’s estate primarily to shoot. Levin’s estate in the countryside with a lot of animals, appears to Oblonsky mostly as a game preserve. He makes specific trips to Levin’s estate only to indulge in fowling. It is a kind of leisure tourism or a shooting or fowling tourism. The first shooting takes place in Part 2, Chapter 15 (Tolstoy, 2016) when Oblonsky and Levin shoot woodcocks. The second shoot is very briefly described and does not take place on Levin’s estate but rather when Levin goes to visit Nikolay Ivanovich Sviyazhsky in Pat 3, Chapter 26 (p. 332).

            The hunting dogs in War and Peace often appear very eager in the hunt. In Anna Karenina, Levin’s old dog, Laska usually appears more eager than even Levin and other humans in participating in the venture. During the shooting of the woodcocks in Part 2, Chapter 15, Levin asks Oblonsky whether Kitty had gotten married to Vronsky and Oblonsky replies that the marriage was called off and Kitty had fallen ill. On the heels of this discussion came this bit of the narrative:

As they were speaking, Laska had pricked up her ears and was gazing both up at the sky and also reproachfully at them.

‘A fine time to talk,’ she was thinking. ‘There’s one on the way…Sure enough, here it is. They’ll miss it…’ thought Laska. (p. 168)

Unlike War and Peace where the hunted animals are chased down by the dogs and the humans on horseback, in Anna Karenina, the shooting is usually of birds which are gunned down by the humans and brought back to them by the dogs. There is also an extremely brief mention of a bear hunt in Anna Karenina in Part 4, Chapter 1–2 (p. 359) with the help of a peasant stalker (Russian: obkladchik) who tracks the bear and drives the animal towards the hunter, and the subsequent measuring of the bear-skin (Part 4, Chapter 7, pp. 378–379).

            The most detailed depictions of fowling in Anna Karenina take place in Part Six, Chapter 8–10, 12–13 when Oblonsky brought along Vasenka Veslovsky to Levin’s estate with the express purpose of shooting in another example of fowling or shooting tourism. Oblonsky, Veslovsky and Levin go away on a two-day shooting trip. The scene begins with the depiction of the eagerness of Laska, Levin’s old dog, and Oblonsky’s dog, Krak.

The next day, the ladies had not yet risen before the trap and the little cart which made up the two hunting vehicles were standing by the front steps, and Laska, aware since early morning that they were going shooting, and having yelped and leapt about to her heart’s content, was sitting next to the coachman in the trap and looking anxiously and with disapproval, due to the delay, at the door, through which the sportsmen had still not emerged. The first to appear was Vasenka Veslovsky, wearing new high boots…Laska came bounding up to greet him, and after leaping about, asked him in her own way whether the others were going to come out soon, but when she received no reply from him she returned to her waiting-post and again sat stock still, with her head cocked to one side and one ear pricked. At last the door opened with a crash and Stepan Arkadyich’s gold-brindle pointer Krak flew out, spinning round and turning over in the air, followed by Stepan Arkadyich himself, with a gun in his hand and a cigar in his mouth. ‘Down, Krak, get down!’ he reprimanded the dog affectionately when it thrust its paws on his stomach and chest, and got them caught up in his game-bag. (p. 577)

Later when Levin comes out to inspect the trap, there is the following passage.

‘Sorry, gentlemen!’ he said, running out onto the steps. ‘Have you put the lunch in? Why is the chestnut on the right? Well, it doesn’t matter. Stop it, Laska, go and sit down!’ (p. 578)

The best descriptions of the multi-species leisure evident in a hunt is to be found in passages like these, where the eagerness of the human hunter is matched with the eagerness of the hunting dog, for both of whom the hunt provides an eagerly looked forward to pleasure activity. The depictions of the hunting dogs are in keeping with Tolstoy’s style of creating well-rounded balanced characters and trying to see events from all possible sides. As mentioned earlier, he however fails to depict the perspective of the hunted prey to any significant extent.

            Just like Anna Karenina and Vronsky’s actions which form one of the central plots in the novel, leave behind a trail of broken lives in their wake and Anna Karenina is based on the reader empathising with these two characters despite their actions which destruct not only them but also those around them, similarly the descriptions of the fowling in Anna Karenina encourages the reader to empathise with the human shooters and their successes and failures, and even with Laska, the dog in the company of Levin, one of the major characters in the novel. The text does not encourage the reader to empathise with the hunted animal or bird. It is only in reading against the grain that one can choose to view the hunted animal or bird at all, who is otherwise obliterated in the discourse of the narrative.

            Reading against the grain also raises the issue of human-horse relationship in these two novels and specifically in the hunt in War and Peace. There is not too much scope for reading against the grain here for there is very little material to read into. In Anna Karenina, there is the scene of the horse race (Part 2, Chapter 25) in which Vronsky takes part with the horse Frou-Frou. The scene describes the close harmony where both Vronsky and Frou-Frou know exactly what to do and when and when one anticipates the movement of the other. However, the reader’s belief is shattered when the narrative takes a turn for the worse and the close synergy between horse and man is shown as false and empty, as Vrosnky fails to keep pace with Frou-Frou and due to his incorrect movements, Vrosnky ends up accidentally fatally breaking Frou-Frou’s spinal cord. The horse is later euthanised by being shot. The multi-species leisure activity that the horse and the man take part in ends disastrously for the man and fatally for the horse. There are no other leisure activities with significant depiction of horses in either novel. Some concern is shown for the horses, such as horses being driven too fast during regular transportation, or Vronsky’s estate managers being stingy with grains for horses of visiting guests—but such activities are not leisurely activities, nor do such passages say or intend to say much about the horse. Those passages primarily reflect human characteristics, such as reflections on Vronsky’s estate, or eagerness of the human riders in riding the horses too fast. In War and Peace, there is very little description about the horses during the hunt.

            Other examples of passages in Anna Karenina which depict multi-species leisure are when the shooters reach the first and the second shooting spots.

They had barely managed to stop before the dogs were already haring off towards the marsh, racing one another.

‘Krak! Laska!...’

The dogs came back.

‘Not enough room for three people. I’ll stay here,’ said Levin, hoping they would not find anything other than the lapwings, which had soared up away from the dogs and were crying plaintively above the marsh, wavering as they flew.

‘No! Come along, Levin, let’s go together!’ Veslovsky called.

‘Really, there won’t be room. Laska, come back! Laska! You won’t need another dog, will you?’ (pp. 580–581)

When they reached the second marsh…Krak went straight for the tussocks. Vasenka Veslovsky was the first to run after the dog…

Levin was beginning to be consumed with huntsman’s envy. He handed the reins to Veslovsky and walked into the marsh.

Laska, who had long been whining pitifully and complaining about the injustice, sped off ahead, straight to a reliable patch of boggy ground covered with tussocks which Levin knew, where Krak had not yet been.

‘Why don’t you stop her?’ shouted Stepan Arkadyich.

‘She won’t scare them off,’ answered Levin, pleased with his dog and hurrying after her.

(pp. 581–582)

The humans and the dogs seem to be deriving equal amounts of pleasure. The ‘hunstman’s envy’ that Tolstoy attributes to Levin is comparable to the hunting-dog’s envy that Tolstoy also depicts between Krak and Laska. When Levin’s shooting was going haywire, he came across a more successful Oblonsky. The meeting is described as follows.

Before he saw Stepan Arkadyich he saw his dog. Completely black from the stinking mud from the bog, Krak leapt out from behind the upturned root of an alder and began sniffing Laska with the air of a conqueror. (p. 587)

The longest stretch of the narrative devoted to Laska occurs on the second day of the hunt and occupies most of pages 595 and 596, and hence too long to quote in full. The passages describe Laska’s style of hunting and the close synergy between man and dog and the equal amounts of pleasure that both derive from the exercise.

            As can be seen from these examples of hunting and fowling in War and Peace and Anna Karenina, multi-species leisure is an important aspect of these activities. Yet certain species are privileged over others. Animals are segregated into three kinds—one that of the hunted prey; two, that of the intermediary between the hunting human and the hunted non-human animal. This intermediary is also a non-human animal. The third kind of animal belongs to the species homo sapiens. This relationship involving three parties, where two parties derive pleasure at the expense of the third, and the entire relationship is co-ordinated by only one of the parties—casts the parties into a clear hierarchy with the human animal on top lording over the canine intermediary and the base of the ladder occupied by the mammalian or avian prey.

            Neil Carr, in a book titled Dogs in the Leisure Experience, analyses several aspects of this relationship and hierarchy among humans, hunting dogs and hunted animals. His work does not discuss Tolstoy or literary artefacts but is rather concerned with social practices. Carr points out several issues which are relevant to the discussion here. He briefly points out the debates surrounding the legality of the fox hunt in the United Kingdom (pp. 43–44) and whether the joy the hunting dog may feel (pp. 51–53) justifies the pain and the fear that the hunting dog, which is ultimately used as a tool or an intermediary or a middle animal (in the way we have middle-men or agents) as it were by the human hunter, may feel (pp. 46–48). Carr however does not provide any answers as to how multi-species leisure can be truly multi-species and not primarily subservient to human needs. He recognises that hunting dogs would be bred less and perhaps even made extinct if there is a lack of a ready market for employing such hunting dogs. Dogs which will serve well as pets in small apartments and so on would be bred more. However, Carr, like Tolstoy, does not question the ecological sustainability of the practice of hunting.

            In the twenty-first century when climate change is one of the most pressing concerns and is even responsible for multi-national wars (such as the Syrian war), ecological sustainability is a pressing concern. Multi-species leisure has to take into account whether it is sustainable over a long term. Hunting for pleasure, as opposed to killing for food, or killing for medicines or cosmetics or sartorial goods to be used by humans, can be unsustainable. Think of the deer in early modern Europe and the paucity of such practices in the twenty-first century. Even if one were to discount the ethical conundrums that Tolstoy faced later on in his own life and which forced him to change his views and lifestyle, whether hunting can be a multi-species sustainable leisure activity is an ethical, political and vital question for human beings in the twenty-first century.

            Carr points out in his work that dogs like running and humans who like dogs want their dogs to be happy and run. Hunting, however, is one of the least natural forms of encouraging a dog to run. Advocates of hunting may perhaps use the examples from War and Peace and Anna Karenina to point out the multi-species leisure that hunting entails. What such a reading however obliterates is the lack of empathy for the hunted creature, the lack of sustainability of such a practice, and the ethical issues of using one animal as an intermediary to express dominance over another creature.

            When we think of leisure in the twenty-first century, revisiting literary artefacts from an earlier period, such as the nineteenth century, helps in foregrounding ethical and political issues which were often overlooked in earlier times. Our modern concerns make us excavate the past and reconsider it, in order to form a better idea of the present and the future. For instance, leisure tourism in Anna Karenina is often fowling or shooting tourism when it comes to Oblonsky in Levin’s estate. Whereas in the nineteenth century such tourism was rarely considered unethical or unsustainable, such tourism in the twenty-first century is usually extremely debatable. Organisations such as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) often promote articles where hunting tourism is considered good for the hunted species and for other non-hunted animals in general. Such is the thrust of an article by Chris Brown of the Namibian Chamber of Environment (Brown, 2017), who points out that rather than pitting humans against animals in a battle for resources, where humans would undoubtedly dominate over animals, if humans can use animals for their economic benefit, they would try to look after the animals as in doing such ‘husbandry’, humans too stand to gain monetarily. Chris Brown, in that article, points out two kinds of animal conservation — one followed by Namibia where hunting tourism is encouraged (and where over 70% land is used for wildlife management) and one followed by Kenya, where it is not supported, and points out that Namibia has now a greater amount of wildlife than in the last 150 years, whereas in Kenya wildlife continues to decrease despite discouragement of hunting tourism. He also points out that once forest land is converted into agricultural land or industrial land or buildings, there is very little chance of recovering the forest and the wildlife within. Then wildlife is only restricted to natural reserve pockets rather than large masses of land.

            On the other hand, conventional wildlife conservation practices would emphasise separation of wildlife husbandry and wildlife consumption from wildlife tourism, and making humans gain economic benefits from such tourism through other means, such as in the form of tourism service providers. This debate about best practices of wildlife conservation is not the main thrust of this article and this debate has very little significance with respect to the two novels by Tolstoy. However, this debate provides a modern concern about multi-species leisure, whereas one can read other concerns about multi-species leisure in War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

Conclusion

            When one thinks of multi-species leisure, humans can only guess at what other species may understand by leisure and pleasure. Imaginative literature occupies a unique space in its ability to represent human projections about the mental thoughts and concerns of other species. Empathising with another entity requires one to imagine oneself in place of the other. Literature enhances the ability and scope for imagining oneself in other roles, and thus enhances the ability to empathise with another entity, be it even an entity of a different species. Thus, when one thinks of multi-species leisure, one is forced to imagine the other species and empathise with it. Literary texts provide a good example of such empathising, and these two novels in the realist mode by Tolstoy are prime examples of such methods of understanding multi-species leisure.

Works cited

Brown, C. (2017). The important link between hunting & tourism in Namibia both working for conservation. The Conservation Imperative. Retrieved from http://theconservationimperative.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Hunting-and-tourism-key-partners-for-conservation-April-2017.pdf

Carr, N. (2014). Dogs in the Leisure Experience. Wallingford: CABI.

Donovan, J. (2009). Tolstoy’s Animals. Society and Animals 17, 38–52.

Ghosh, D. (2017). Writings on Animals in Early Modern England. Ph.D. diss. Jadavpur University.

Lévi-Strauss, C. (1991). Totemism, trans. Rodney Needham. London: Merlin Press.

Tolstoy, L. (2014, rpt. 2016). Anna Karenina, trans. Rosamund Bartlett. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Tolstoy, L. (1968, rpt. 1980). War and Peace, trans. Ann Dunnigan. New York: Signet.

---

[1] More analyses of Tolstoy’s notion of history can be found in Jeff Love, The Overcoming of History in War and Peace (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004); and in a review of the previous work by David Sloane in Tolstoy Studies Journal 17 (2005), pp. 104–108. Two different approaches to this theme can be found in John Givens, ‘The Fiction of Fact and the Fact of Fiction: Hayden White and War and Peace,’ Tolstoy Studies Journal 21 (2009), pp. 15–32; and Andreas Schönle, ‘Tolstoy’s Critique of Modernity in War and Peace: Intersections with Foucault,’ Tolstoy Studies Journal 25 (2013), pp. 42–51.

[2] It is not strictly just a post-modernist trait. Tolstoy uses this technique in exemplars of nineteenth century realism.