SEARCH

Showing 1-8 of 8 results

  • News & article

    Can a righteous resistance ever cross the line?

    Life, Sawarin Suwichakornpong, Published on 22/01/2021

    » Sabotage, in French and in English, indicates the act of deliberately destroying or damaging property. It's an apparatus that aims at weakening an enemy or oppressor through means such as subversion and obstruction. It is a tool that, we are told, has been adopted by French workers as a substitute for strikes, but sabotage doesn't limit itself only to workplaces. Its literature survey connotes that it occurs within a variety of contexts -- in wars, political and social campaigns, or socio-economic programmes that effect someone's livelihood. In all cases, however, the intent of sabotage is analogous -- to use extreme civil disobedience to inflict damage upon goods or properties in order to serve a particular purpose or higher goal. The end justifies the means, according to the saboteurs.

  • News & article

    The humane truth

    Life, Sawarin Suwichakornpong, Published on 11/12/2020

    » In the treatise Politics (328 BC), Aristotle wrote that man was by nature a social animal, and society was something in nature that preceded the individual. The human that didn't partake in society, he opined, was either a beast or god. The English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, delved into a darker side and argued that if men wanted to survive they would voluntarily uphold laws, give up their rights and obey an absolute power that protected them. Left on their own, men were naturally unsociable and didn't depend on anyone but themselves to survive. Self-preservation was their ultimate objective. They perpetually competed against one another. Their natural state was a state of war, in which they distrusted their own species and reasoned with a fist in order to attain power over their fellow beings.

  • News & article

    A deal to save the planet

    Life, Sawarin Suwichakornpong, Published on 04/09/2020

    » The rising temperature of Earth's climate is wreaking havoc on our ecosystems by generating extreme changes in the weather, unresolved seasonal changes, and ecological damage. While there is ample evidence to suggest climate change took place even in prehistoric times, scientists have observed that the rate and degree of change since the mid-20th century has been accelerating, concluding that human activity has been the major driving force underlying this drastic transformation.

  • News & article

    Welcome to the Asian century

    Life, Sawarin Suwichakornpong, Published on 06/03/2020

    » 'The man who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner; he to whom every soil is as his native one is already strong; but he is perfect to whom the entire world is as a foreign land." Hugh of Saint Victor.

  • News & article

    Magic in the mundane

    Life, Sawarin Suwichakornpong, Published on 02/08/2019

    » Hailing from Chon Buri, Duanwad Pimwana is one of Thailand's best known fiction writers. Acclaimed for her imaginative takes on the realities of Thai society, Duanwad has authored numerous literary works, including novels, poetry, short stories and writings that mostly blend elements of magic with social realism that aim to highlight the socio-political conditions of the working class as a means to critique the power structures behind them. Bright, or Changsamran in Thai, Duanwad's first feature novel, won the prestigious SEA Write Award in 2003. By the time it was released in America last year, Bright was the first book by a Thai woman writer translated into English. The book is translated by Mui Poopoksakul, a Berlin-based translator who has done a remarkable job in translating the mundane into the magical.

  • News & article

    Finding the heart

    Life, Sawarin Suwichakornpong, Published on 05/07/2019

    » Elaine Castillo's deep dive into California's Filipino diaspora is warm and layered, filled with wonderful language.

  • News & article

    Overcoming the racial divide

    Life, Sawarin Suwichakornpong, Published on 26/04/2018

    » Shakespeare writes in The Winter's Tale that "there were no age between 10 and three-and-20, or that youth would sleep out the rest". Adolescence, or the marked "teenage years", encompass elements of biological growth and major social transformation, both of which are decidedly products of nature and culture. The time between youth and maturity can be sorrowful, hard, fun, sad and amazing. It never fails to inspire writers of fiction, to attempt to unravel the complexities of this concept of life. Charting into the unknown is always a favourite subject of those who write.

  • News & article

    The good part is ... Prabda, in English

    Life, Sawarin Suwichakornpong, Published on 07/04/2017

    » Loneliness is a quiet dilemma. Many of Edward Hopper's celebrated paintings are a testament to this truism. In New York Movie, for example, the painting splits into halves. The left side depicts a movie theatre with silhouettes of viewers and what's being shown on the screen. We are, however, drawn to the right: An usherette, tall, lean, blonde, has her left hand supporting her elbow, her chin touching her right hand. Her pensive gesture suggests she is far away from the wall that separates her from the moviegoers. She probably has seen the movie countless times but her countenance compels us to wonder what is taking place in her mind.

Your recent history

  • Recently searched

    • Recently viewed links

      Did you find what you were looking for? Have you got some comments for us?