Talk:Wendy Doniger - Misplaced Pages

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New controversy addition

I removed the latest addition to the controversy section. One source is a letter to the editor of the NYT. These letters are not at all fact checked, are purely opinion, and are not at all reliable for facts. The other source is an opinion column in the Henderson NC Times-News. Also not reliable for matters of fact. These particular claims may have some truth to them, but better sourcing is needed to add contentious claims to a WP:BLP. — goethean 15:16, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

She is a "Mickey Mouse" historian. Prejudice and bias masqurading as history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.56.244.11 (talk) 16:48, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

I disagree with Goethean. There are multiple sources that confirm that Doniger did write the article titled "A Very Strange Enchanted Boy" in The New York Times Book Review, on Feb 2, 1992, pp. 7-8. References to this article appear in:

1. http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1665&dat=19920221&id=D3obAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Sk4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=2342%2C4929273

2. http://books.google.co.in/books?id=ud9x63jUFu8C&lpg=PA48&ots=iTtUpeuSRA&dq=Wendy%20Doniger's%20review%20of%20A%20fire%20in%20the%20mind&pg=PA50#v=onepage&q&f=false

3. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/22/books/l-a-fire-in-the-mind-848692.html

4. http://www.flavinscorner.com/5-14-99.htm

I would like to add the following:

In 1992 Wendy Doniger wrote an article in the New York Times Book Review on Joseph Campbell, titled: "A Very Strange Enchanted Boy". In the article she calls Campbell 'anti-semitic' among other things. The article also talks about her dissatisfaction with Campbell's interpretation of Indian myths. This is particularly fascinating in the light of the recent controversy around her book, "The Hindus". She has been quoted as saying: "When thousands of people are walking around happy in their understanding of Hinduism or the Navajos because of Joseph Campbell, who am I to point out that they don't understand Hinduism or the Navajos, because Campbell didn't understand them? Does it matter? I think it does. It matters not just for the record - what else is scholarship? - but, more importantly, for the sake of Hindus and the Navajos, who deserve to have their stories truly known. Out of respect for them, we must take the trouble to get their stories right."

She also gave a keynote speech in Columbia University in which she made an 'anti-Campbell' speech. Priyav24 (talk) 17:15, 12 February 2014 (UTC)Priya

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In 1992 Wendy Doniger's wrote an article in the New York Times Book Review on Joseph Campbell, titled: "A Very Strange Enchanted Boy". In the article she calls Campbell 'anti-semitic' among other things.

The article also talks about her dissatisfaction with Campbell's interpretation of Indian myths. This is particularly fascinating in the light of the recent controversy around her book, The Hindus. She has been quoted as saying:

When thousands of people are walking around happy in their understanding of Hinduism or the Navajos because of Joseph Campbell, who am I to point out that they don't understand Hinduism or the Navajos, because Campbell didn't understand them? Does it matter? I think it does. It matters not just for the record - what else is scholarship? - but, more importantly, for the sake of Hindus and the Navajos, who deserve to have their stories truly known. Out of respect for them, we must take the trouble to get their stories right.

She also gave a keynote speech in Columbia University in which she made an 'anti-Campbell' speech: http://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/22/books/l-a-fire-in-the-mind-848692.html

Priyav24 (talk) 15:21, 12 February 2014 (UTC)Priya

This is particularly fascinating in the light of the recent controversy around her book, The Hindus. -- violates WP:OR
In 1992 Wendy Doniger's wrote an article in the New York Times Book Review on Joseph Campbell, titled: "A Very Strange Enchanted Boy" --violates WP:V, WP:BLP
In the article she calls Campbell 'anti-semitic' among other things -- violates WP:V, WP:BLP
Doniger quotation on Campbell -- no reason to include this particular quotation; therefore, inclusion would violate WP:NPOV — goethean 16:41, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
- There may be serious problems with most of the material you removed, Goethean, but I wonder whether there wouldn't be a case for including Doniger's criticism of Campbell? Doniger is certainly not the only person to have questioned the quality of Campbell's scholarship. Other people - including people as different from each other as Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and Camille Paglia - have said similar things about him. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 04:09, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, of course. Feel free to add or propose material which is well-sourced and neutral, unlike the above proposal. — goethean 19:20, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Although what this article really needs is more about Doniger's books, rather than the responses to them, which is currently more than half the article. — goethean 19:21, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

"Use of psychoanalysis widely considered controversial"

That claim was in the intro section, with a spurious ref that was flagged as not supporting the contention. I thus cut it as (1) unsupported, (2) weaselly ("widely considered"?), (3) inappropriate for an intro section, (4) too vague to be meaningful (how does she "use" it? in her personal life?) and (5) redundant at best - psychoanalysis is controversial in general these days. --Tbanderson (talk) 19:35, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Reviews of The Hindus

Two long quotations from reviews of Doniger's The Hindus have been added, one from Shrimali, and the other from Locher. I appreciate the need to include critical reviews of Doniger's work, but those quotations are much, much too long, and need to be cut back. We need only the basic points made by the reviewers, not lengthy quotations whether disparaging or not. See WP:UNDUE. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 19:33, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm aware of WP:UNDUE. But, Misplaced Pages places academic peer-reviewed sources above all others. There are two other reviews available in scholarly sources, but by lesser-known scholars, and they are not particularly complimentary either. The quotes are certainly not UNDUE as reflection of scholarly response in the scholarly literature.

Moreover, as it stands, the article has plenty links to best book lists, everyday reviews and everyday reviewers. An open-letter by Arundhati Roy which describes Penguin (founded in the mid-1930s to supply a market for cheap paperbacks in depression-era England) as "one of the oldest, grandest publishing houses in the world. You existed long before ... mosquito repellent or scented soap" has been cited twice (This, when OUP and Cambridge have been around since the 16th century, and commercial perfumed soaps and mosquito repellents (not to mention birch bark) have been sold at least since the 18th century) Why then does Ms. Roy's "we're all in this" suddenly become reliable and notable? Doniger herself, no expert on Indian law, describes the "real culprit" to be a section of Indian law (section 295A of the Indian Penal Code), when the case never went to trial. Why is that notable and reliable? Fowler&fowler «Talk» 20:58, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

PS The point needs to be made that The Hindus is a shabby book, written by an author who has bitten off more than she can chew. A book which relies on popular trade histories such as Keay's India: A History, which even Misplaced Pages's India page does not allow to be used in its references, cannot be a rigorous scholarly effort. The book, moreover, is littered with errors of historicity (such as the "Bengal famine of 1850–56," for the Bengal famine of 1770, which are more than misprints, evidence of half-digested understanding; myriad others, abound on other pages. This has nothing to do with the insidious design of the Hindu nationalists, but needs to be pointed out as part of a scholarly assessment. Doniger has written great books in the past. This, sadly, is not one of them. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 21:02, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

The long quotations are flagrantly inappropriate, as F&F no doubt understands. This is a biographical article on Wendy Doniger. It is supposed to be about her entire life and career, not on two reviews of her latest book. I have removed the long quotations. — goethean 22:03, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Why then do you have a separate section on The Hindus? Fowler&fowler «Talk» 22:04, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Because it was banned in India, which is a highly notable event in Doniger's biography. The fact that a book designed for a popular audience has received "scant attention" in academic journals is not only unsourced and unsourcable, but a complete non sequitur. — goethean 22:09, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Why then does Ms. Roy's "we're all in this" suddenly become reliable and notable? Doniger herself, no expert on Indian law, describes the "real culprit" to be a section of Indian law (section 295A of the Indian Penal Code), when the case never went to trial. Why is that notable and reliable

I've removed facts sourced to Roy per your comment. One would think that Doniger's statement in response to the bruhaha is notable to her own biography, her knowledge of Indian law notwithstanding. — goethean 22:24, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

OK. I hadn't really looked at the article's history, which I just did. Didn't realize that The Hindus section was just added. I've read most of WD's books going back to Siva the Erotic Ascetic, and I think she is a splendid scholar; the other books need some coverage as well, as do the Hindu nationalist motivations, reactions, and responses, none of which are particularly scholarly, but have considerable scholarship devoted to them. Sadly, I'm flat out of time, and I've already spent more time that I had for this page. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 22:44, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

This edit makes no sense and should be reverted. References to reviews of a popular book in all the book reviews should be presented before reviews in two academic journals. Also, the long pointless descriptions of the professors titles and universities is unhelpful (this coming from an editor who, hilariously, just removed the name of Doniger's professorship from her own biography!) — goethean 22:47, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree that the book's exceeding popularity deserves a mention before its academic reviews, and that it is pointless to write out the names of reviewers. But I respectfully disagree that popular reviews are more important. A principal factor in the book's popularity is Doniger's claim to academic expertise in India. Shii (tock) 22:51, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Reply to both Shii and Goethean: Academic peer-reviewed sources take precedence over popular reviews. I am happy to summarize the content of the academic reviews without naming reviewers. In addition, there are two other academic reviews that I could find; I'm happy to add them, as well. They are not gushing either. Professorships, especially painfully long ones that the University of Chicago is wont to grandiosely invent (e.g. Charles R. Walgreen (of drugstore fame) Distinguished Service Professor in the Booth School of Business, Professor in the Department of Economics, Professor in the Department of Sociology, and the College) are unencyclopedic. Can you find any such cockamamie formulations in Britannica? Why should Doniger have such a turgid fruit salad in her lead when much better-known Indologists such as Max Müller (Taylorian professor of MEL, later of Professor of Comparative Philology at Oxford) and Robert Charles Zaehner, Doniger's own Oxford adviser (and holder of the Spaulding Professorship of Eastern Religion and Ethics) have nothing, simply descriptions of what they did? I'm strapped for time, saddled with family emergencies, as my user pages proclaims. I have already wasted enough time. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 23:10, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

PS I dispute that this book was popular either in India or the US. For starters, it cost Rs 999 (=$22 in 2009 money) in India beyond the range of most middle-class Indians. It was number one in the Hindustan Times nonfiction best seller list during the week of October 15, 2009. We have no idea how these lists are computed and what the sales were. English language books typically sell poorly (in absolute numbers in India). VS Naipaul said in an interview that his Indian market was insignificant. A few thousand copies sold push you to the top of these lists. Penguin New York, for example, are now rushing only some 3,000 books to India in light of this controversy. If they had anticipated a bigger market, they would have shipped more. We need some numbers for its sale in the US and Britain to gauge popularity. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 23:44, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

PPS According to a BBC story, the top two English language nonfiction bestsellers in India for 2011 had sales of 47,000 each (averaged). Moreover, the market had grown 45% in the previous six months. Based on this, if we take the yearly rate increase of the previous two years to be conservatively 60% per year, the top nonfiction bestseller in 2009 would have had sales in the range of 18,000 for the year 2009, and in all likelihood fewer. Doniger's book was No 1 for that week. A couple of weeks later it had slipped to number 4 or 5. In other words, we are talking about relatively minor sales. Western English language non-fiction bestsellers sell more than that in one day. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 16:01, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I see you have shifted the quotations to a footnote. I'm afraid that seems completely pointless. I don't think the quotations serve a useful purpose, and would be in favor of removing them entirely. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 01:57, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't see how you can object to them. They amplify the scholarly objections. Besides, the journals are subscription only; the quotations provide proof that the summary is accurate. One review is 15 pages long, more detailed than any published review of the book anywhere, written by one of the foremost historians of ancient India; the other three pages long by one of the foremost Indologists. Quotes are routinely included in scholarly citations. There is a good reason that both Sfn and Citation templates have "arguments" for quotations. There is also a good reason, why the {{Request quotation}} template exits on Misplaced Pages. ~~You apparently simply want to gloss over Doniger's errors.~~ She was a good scholar, but she sadly overreached, and is looking silly, especially in the early-modern and modern sections of the book. It is painfully obvious that she's not a historian, excellent translator and expositor of Sanskrit texts though she might be. That's not my fault, nor the Hindu nationalists' (though they have plenty other issues). It's hers alone. She should have stuck to what she knows best. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 02:52, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

The quotations prove nothing at all if people cannot access the original scholarly journals and verify their accuracy. They thus don't serve any real purpose. (Since you raise the question of my motives, I should add that I haven't read Doniger's book, of course have no opinion about it, and couldn't care less about protecting it or its author from criticism). FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 18:30, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Many editors (college and graduate students and academics) do have access to these journals through their institution's subscription. Misplaced Pages relies on them to keep editors who create content honest. The larger number of editors who don't have access rely both on the quotations for more details and on the former group for vetting those details. Quotes are not unusual for articles on controversial topics (see for example Death of Subhas Chandra Bose. Besides, the internet gives easy access, in this instance to the views of both the Hindu nationalist hatchet men (Rajiv Malhotro) and the liberal shallow water waders, such as Pankaj Mishra, William Dalrymple, and Arundhati Roy. The sober academic reviews written by the experts blush unseen in the desert air. I apologize for insinuating that you were attempting to snuff criticism of the book. I have scratched the comment above. Again, please accept my apologies. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 10:12, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure you've noticed but if not, The Hindus: An Alternative History has been created. --NeilN 14:35, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

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