Talks by Padmini Ray Murray
In this keynote address at the Global Digital Humanities Symposium, I make a case for how our res... more In this keynote address at the Global Digital Humanities Symposium, I make a case for how our responsibility as Indian digital humanists (especially those with caste privilege) should not only be to decolonise the archive, but to debrahmanise it, and outline a strategy as to how we might consider moving forward by way of what I'm envisioning as an *archive of the commons* - one which is participatory, inclusive, and opted into, rather than curated.
Chapters in books by Padmini Ray Murray
Padmini Ray Murray explores the potential and need for archiving Indian feminist activism as enac... more Padmini Ray Murray explores the potential and need for archiving Indian feminist activism as enacted on social media, given its increasing visibility and the significant role it plays in the movement. Murray's vision of the archive is one which might enacts a feminist historiography, by seeking to accommodate a multiplicity of voices, both through rigorous and inclusive collection, but also by fostering participatory engagement through invitations to curate and add metadata which will allow different communities to own their ontological self-determination. This, in turn could be seen as a decolonising gesture of resistance as well as one which might allow intersectional possibilities that contemporary Indian feminism currently struggles to address.
(Published in New Feminisms in South Asian Social Media, Film, and Literature: Disrupting the Discourse. Edited by Sonora Jha, Alka Kurian. Routledge, 2017)
The Cambridge History of the Book, Volume 7
The History of Oxford University Press, Volume IV, 1970-2004 (forthcoming)
The History of Oxford University Press, Volume III 1896-1970
Byron in London, edited by Peter Cochrane, 2008
The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland: Ambition and Industry 1800-1880, edited by Bill Bell, 2007
The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland: Ambition and Industry 1800-1880, edited by Bill Bell, 2007
The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland: Ambition and Industry 1800-1880, edited by Bill Bell, 2007
The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland: Ambition and Industry 1800-1880, edited by Bill Bell, 2007
The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland: Ambition and Industry 1800-1880, edited by Bill Bell, 2007
Peer-reviewed journal articles by Padmini Ray Murray
"What is called ‘making’ in North America and Europe is, frankly, a luxurious pastime of wealthy ... more "What is called ‘making’ in North America and Europe is, frankly, a luxurious pastime of wealthy people who rightly recognize that their lives are less full because they are alienated from material culture [...] All over what is called the Global South there are makers everywhere, only they are not called makers."
(Csikzentimihalyi, 2012; p9)
The context for making in the Global South is obviously different to the West. In this article we aim to explore what critical making in India might mean, and in particular how this debate and the practices around it can contribute to the development of digital humanities, particularly in the heritage/public history sector.
We consider two examples in order to demonstrate the role that design might play in helping digital humanities to take account of non-Western contexts. Firstly the Indian practice of jugaad—an indigenous combination of making-do, hacking, and frugal engineering—against the backdrop of making/DIY culture, and how local circumstances might shape intellectual explorations through critical making. Secondly we examine the case study of the design of an “Indian” videogame prototype, Meghdoot, produced as part of the interdisciplinary UnBox festival in New Delhi, 2013, which was used as an exploratory vehicle for what it means to make a culturally-specific digital game in India.
We demonstrate how cultural specificity and local context, with its emphasis on making culture—as opposed to localization and globalization—can contribute meaningfully to current understandings of the digital humanities, and extend the conversation to the Global South in an inclusive and relevant manner.
Book 2.0 , Volume 3, Issue 1, pp. 3-24. , Jun 2013
Publishing Research Quarterly, Oct 2013
Despite the growing sophistication of comics studies as a discipline, it has yet to fully embrace... more Despite the growing sophistication of comics studies as a discipline, it has yet to fully embrace the cultural materialist approaches of book history and publishing studies, a fact that seems rather intriguing in the face of the form’s insistent materiality. These omissions extend to an eliding of the roles played by agents other than the author in the production of a text; a factor of particular significance in comics where there is almost always a supporting cast of artists, pencillers, colourists and letterers who contribute to the finished product. In addition, the role played by publishers and editors in the dissemination and circulation of comics and graphic novels has also been ignored in much of contemporary comics criticism. By drawing on perspectives grounded in the disciplinary contexts of book history and publishing studies, I aim to provide a useful counterpoint to work done in comics studies that tends to focus on author as auteur.
Studies in Comics, Volume 3, Number 1, pp. 129-142(14), Aug 2012
Publishers have always been keen to maximize the multimedia potential of their products, and are ... more Publishers have always been keen to maximize the multimedia potential of their products, and are increasingly eager to make the most of the opportunities afforded to them by digital platforms and technologies. While this sort of treatment is ubiquitous for those intellectual properties belonging to industry behemoths Marvel and DC, it is unusual for those published by smaller independent presses to receive similar consideration. However, Bryan Lee O'Malley's comic book series Scott Pilgrim despite its modest, independently published beginnings, was bought by Fourth Estate and then made into a major motion picture in 2010, the release of which was accompanied by a mobile phone app. This article will explore how the consequences of commercial decisions taken by Fourth Estate and the creators of the app affect the reception of the comic, and is informed by original interviews with the publisher and app creator. It will pay particular attention to the significance of content contained within the print comics that is not contained within the app. My examination will draw on Gerard Genette's definition of the paratext and how it locates the print comic within a creative economy that privileges a DIY practice - demonstrating an allegiance, for example, to webcomic creation, a direct transaction between creator and consumer that bypasses the producer entirely. This analysis will be coupled with an investigation of how the migration of print content to app affects the reading of the comic, and is augmented by a survey of comics readers who are used to reading digital content on-screen. I argue that not only does the intervention of digital technology transform the aesthetic product, the commercial motivations of the publisher/producer are inextricable from our understanding of the comic as artefact, thus emphasizing the need for a more cultural materialist approach in comics studies as a discipline.
ncgsjournal.com
<2>Anthropomorphication of the nation is a concept that has existed almost ... more <2>Anthropomorphication of the nation is a concept that has existed almost as long as the concept of the nation itself. This idea of personification may have originated with the symbol of Pallas Athene, the patron of Athens. She won a contest in which she was pitted against ...
Funded research by Padmini Ray Murray
The project marks the start of a major programme to share the wealth of Indian printed books held... more The project marks the start of a major programme to share the wealth of Indian printed books held by the British Library dating from 1714 to 1914. The collection, which spans at least 22 South Asian languages and millions of pages, is the most significant held anywhere outside the Subcontinent. Many of the books are unique and many are also in delicate condition due to their age, so the mass digitisation of these items will not only make them widely available to people around the world, but will also help preserve the fragile originals for future generations.
The pilot project will digitise 1,000 books in Bengali, amounting to 200,000 pages, as well as enhancing the catalogue records of more than 2,000 titles to automate searching and aid discovery by researchers. Also planned are major engagement initiatives to stimulate digital scholarship and collaboration, as well as building skills and digital research capacity with partner institutions in India.
Uploads
Talks by Padmini Ray Murray
Chapters in books by Padmini Ray Murray
(Published in New Feminisms in South Asian Social Media, Film, and Literature: Disrupting the Discourse. Edited by Sonora Jha, Alka Kurian. Routledge, 2017)
Peer-reviewed journal articles by Padmini Ray Murray
(Csikzentimihalyi, 2012; p9)
The context for making in the Global South is obviously different to the West. In this article we aim to explore what critical making in India might mean, and in particular how this debate and the practices around it can contribute to the development of digital humanities, particularly in the heritage/public history sector.
We consider two examples in order to demonstrate the role that design might play in helping digital humanities to take account of non-Western contexts. Firstly the Indian practice of jugaad—an indigenous combination of making-do, hacking, and frugal engineering—against the backdrop of making/DIY culture, and how local circumstances might shape intellectual explorations through critical making. Secondly we examine the case study of the design of an “Indian” videogame prototype, Meghdoot, produced as part of the interdisciplinary UnBox festival in New Delhi, 2013, which was used as an exploratory vehicle for what it means to make a culturally-specific digital game in India.
We demonstrate how cultural specificity and local context, with its emphasis on making culture—as opposed to localization and globalization—can contribute meaningfully to current understandings of the digital humanities, and extend the conversation to the Global South in an inclusive and relevant manner.
Funded research by Padmini Ray Murray
The pilot project will digitise 1,000 books in Bengali, amounting to 200,000 pages, as well as enhancing the catalogue records of more than 2,000 titles to automate searching and aid discovery by researchers. Also planned are major engagement initiatives to stimulate digital scholarship and collaboration, as well as building skills and digital research capacity with partner institutions in India.
(Published in New Feminisms in South Asian Social Media, Film, and Literature: Disrupting the Discourse. Edited by Sonora Jha, Alka Kurian. Routledge, 2017)
(Csikzentimihalyi, 2012; p9)
The context for making in the Global South is obviously different to the West. In this article we aim to explore what critical making in India might mean, and in particular how this debate and the practices around it can contribute to the development of digital humanities, particularly in the heritage/public history sector.
We consider two examples in order to demonstrate the role that design might play in helping digital humanities to take account of non-Western contexts. Firstly the Indian practice of jugaad—an indigenous combination of making-do, hacking, and frugal engineering—against the backdrop of making/DIY culture, and how local circumstances might shape intellectual explorations through critical making. Secondly we examine the case study of the design of an “Indian” videogame prototype, Meghdoot, produced as part of the interdisciplinary UnBox festival in New Delhi, 2013, which was used as an exploratory vehicle for what it means to make a culturally-specific digital game in India.
We demonstrate how cultural specificity and local context, with its emphasis on making culture—as opposed to localization and globalization—can contribute meaningfully to current understandings of the digital humanities, and extend the conversation to the Global South in an inclusive and relevant manner.
The pilot project will digitise 1,000 books in Bengali, amounting to 200,000 pages, as well as enhancing the catalogue records of more than 2,000 titles to automate searching and aid discovery by researchers. Also planned are major engagement initiatives to stimulate digital scholarship and collaboration, as well as building skills and digital research capacity with partner institutions in India.
This installation which will be exhibited in a museum space and travel to book festivals, will provoke viewers and users to think about what it means to read in a world full of digital text, that can be delivered instantaneously, rather than the slow time of traditional publishing. It will also allow viewers to consider how community frames our reading experiences.
As our conceptions of text are increasingly shaped by the concepts of data and content, Colophonic was an experiment that played with the idea of the multimedia book object, and what the ‘soundtrack’ of a book might sound like.
While the premise of this game was largely whimsical, we were congratulated by the Culture Hack judges on how Shakey could make Shakespeare interesting and appealing for primary school students, who would be encouraged by the game to act out parts from Macbeth and then be judged by their peers on their performances.