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Teardrops of Time: Buddhist Aesthetics in the Poetry of Angkarn Kallayanapong (SUNY Press, 2020) Focusing on one of the most significant poets of the twentieth century, Angkarn Kallayanapong (1926–2012), this book makes a unique contribution to understandings of non-Western literary modernity. Arnika Fuhrmann investigates how the Thai poet adapts Buddhist understandings of time to create a modern Asian aesthetic imaginary. While Angkarn’s poetry conjures the image of an early modern Thai cosmopolitanism, it also pioneers a poetics reflective of present-day globalization. The result is an experiment in Buddhist cosmopolitan aesthetic modernity. As Angkarn’s work aligns itself with contemporaneous global trends in poetry, the book reads it alongside the work of Paul Celan and Allen Ginsberg. “Arnika Fuhrmann’s ambitious project to investigate all possible aspects of Angkarn’s oeuvre, ranging from Buddhist temporal ontologies to transnational trends in modern poetics, is laudable, as it paves a new path for Thai literary studies beyond national boundaries and nationalist ideology. By contextualizing Angkarn’s works within the local literary culture under the military regimes in Thailand as well as within global literary movements and global cultural production, Fuhrmann is able to offer a better understanding of Angkarn’s innovative poetics and identify the literary and political impacts of his works.” — Chusak Pattarakulvanit, Thammasat University "Arnika Fuhrmann's TEARDROPS OF TIME is a profound study of Angkarn Kallayanapong's poetry, a work of warm sensitivity and formidable scholarship. Poetry born out of Buddhist aesthetics, a postwar authoritarian straitjacket, formative modernity, sublime cosmology, Cold War politics, etc. The book also situates Angkarn (อังคาร กัลยาณพงศ์) alongside his mid-century contemporaries—Allen Ginsberg and the great and enigmatic Paul Celan—and thus expands the ontology of Thai poetry into the global stream of linguistic modernism and poetic philosophy. Arnika's translations of Angkarn's verses are indisputably masterful." — Kong Rithdee, Independent Critic |
Press
• Podcast, Teardrops of Time: Buddhist Aesthetics in the Poetry of Angkarn Kallayanapong. Interview with Patrick Jory, “New Books in Southeast Asian Studies,” New Books Network, 2021.
• "Angkarn Kallayanapong Translations," The Allen Ginsberg Project," February 15, 2021.
• Kate Blackwood, "Book: Thai Poet Uses Buddhist Principles to 'Re-enchant' the Modern World," College of Arts and Science, February 4, 2021.
• Podcast, Teardrops of Time: Buddhist Aesthetics in the Poetry of Angkarn Kallayanapong. Interview with Patrick Jory, “New Books in Southeast Asian Studies,” New Books Network, 2021.
• "Angkarn Kallayanapong Translations," The Allen Ginsberg Project," February 15, 2021.
• Kate Blackwood, "Book: Thai Poet Uses Buddhist Principles to 'Re-enchant' the Modern World," College of Arts and Science, February 4, 2021.
"Syndromes and a Century: Contemporary Queer Thai Cinema."
(September 2021).
Image: Fashion creator MADEOW
“This Area is [NOT] Under Quarantine: Rethinking Southeast Asia Through Studies of the Cinema.”
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Still from Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)
"The Story of Untold Displacements: Buddhist-Muslim Intimacies and Visions of Ethnic Coexistence in a Thai Queer-Feminist Filmic Archive."
(2019)
Still from Pimpaka Towira's The Island Funeral (2015)
