Since the early 1990s hundreds of thousands of Tamil villagers in southern India have participated in literacy lessons, science demonstrations, and other events designed to transform them into active citizens with access to state power. These efforts to spread enlightenment among the oppressed are part of a movement known as the Arivoli Iyakkam (the Enlightenment Movement), considered to be among the most successful mass literacy movements in recent history. In The Light of Knowledge, Francis Cody’s ethnography of the Arivoli Iyakkam highlights the paradoxes inherent in such movements that seek to emancipate people through literacy when literacy is a power-laden social practice in its own right. The Light of Knowledge is set primarily in the rural district of Pudukkottai in Tamil Nadu, and it is about activism among laboring women from marginalized castes who have been particularly active as learners and volunteers in the movement. In their endeavors to remake the Tamil countryside through literacy activism, workers in the movement found that their own understanding of the politics of writing and Enlightenment was often transformed as they encountered vastly different notions of language and imaginations of social order. Indeed, while activists of the movement successfully mobilized large numbers of rural women, they did so through logics that often pushed against the very Enlightenment rationality they hoped to foster. Offering a rare behind-the-scenes look at an increasingly important area of social and political activism, The Light of Knowledge brings tools of linguistic anthropology to engage with critical social theories of the postcolonial state.

James Bradley arrived on a slave vessel, defied death multiple times, and worked tirelessly toward purchasing his own freedom. Once emancipated, Bradley made his way to Lane Theological Seminary, joining a passionate group of students, to be known as the Lane Rebels. These so-called Rebels would find a home at Oberlin College, where Bradley became the first Black student admitted by way of official institutional policy in American higher education. The story of abolition in America cannot be told without Oberlin. By 1860, Oberlin enrolled more Black students than any institution of higher education. Oberlin created opportunity for both women and students of color when the issue of slavery had brought a fledgling country to the brink of civil war. Oberlin hired an African American female as a faculty member in 1864--one hundred years before the Civil Rights Act. How does such a thing transpire? How does a seemingly inconsequential college in a seemingly inconsequential town influence a decisive movement in American history? The answers to these questions trace their roots to a zealous group of students gathering over the course of eighteen nights to win the heart of a campus on the imperative question of their day.

Since the early 1990s hundreds of thousands of Tamil villagers in southern India have participated in literacy lessons, science demonstrations, and other events designed to transform them into active citizens with access to state power. These efforts to spread enlightenment among the oppressed are part of a movement known as the Arivoli Iyakkam (the Enlightenment Movement), considered to be among the most successful mass literacy movements in recent history. In The Light of Knowledge, Francis Cody’s ethnography of the Arivoli Iyakkam highlights the paradoxes inherent in such movements that seek to emancipate people through literacy when literacy is a power-laden social practice in its own right. The Light of Knowledge is set primarily in the rural district of Pudukkottai in Tamil Nadu, and it is about activism among laboring women from marginalized castes who have been particularly active as learners and volunteers in the movement. In their endeavors to remake the Tamil countryside through literacy activism, workers in the movement found that their own understanding of the politics of writing and Enlightenment was often transformed as they encountered vastly different notions of language and imaginations of social order. Indeed, while activists of the movement successfully mobilized large numbers of rural women, they did so through logics that often pushed against the very Enlightenment rationality they hoped to foster. Offering a rare behind-the-scenes look at an increasingly important area of social and political activism, The Light of Knowledge brings tools of linguistic anthropology to engage with critical social theories of the postcolonial state.

James Bradley arrived on a slave vessel, defied death multiple times, and worked tirelessly toward purchasing his own freedom. Once emancipated, Bradley made his way to Lane Theological Seminary, joining a passionate group of students, to be known as the Lane Rebels. These so-called Rebels would find a home at Oberlin College, where Bradley became the first Black student admitted by way of official institutional policy in American higher education. The story of abolition in America cannot be told without Oberlin. By 1860, Oberlin enrolled more Black students than any institution of higher education. Oberlin created opportunity for both women and students of color when the issue of slavery had brought a fledgling country to the brink of civil war. Oberlin hired an African American female as a faculty member in 1864—one hundred years before the Civil Rights Act. How does such a thing transpire? How does a seemingly inconsequential college in a seemingly inconsequential town influence a decisive movement in American history? The answers to these questions trace their roots to a zealous group of students gathering over the course of eighteen nights to win the heart of a campus on the imperative question of their day.

Drawn to the Light, by Dutch author Ella Evers-Meinardi, is a reflection on her life shattered by the shock of the tragic death of her husband, a life-changing event when she was nine months pregnant with her second child. Deep in grief, the author wants to know where her deceased husband has gone and ponders the meaning of life, which takes her in a spiritual direction. Drawn to the Light shows the reader her lifelong pursuit for true knowledge, often resulting in illuminating mystical revelations. The appearance of an indescribable diamond-like light slowly leads her into higher spiritual realms. With courage and tenacity, she overcomes obstacles seekers of truth may find along the spiritual path. Ultimately, her search leads to traveling eleven times to India, an ancient land of God-wisdom. Her spiritual journey includes dreams, alternative healing, meditation practices, esoteric studies, and philosophy found in the Indian scriptures. Drawn to the Light offers extensive information about the awakening process through Kundalini, as taught by her guru, an enlightened siddha master in India. Even though her story is mainly of a spiritual nature, the author also writes about herself as an ordinary woman, wife, and mother of two.

This book traces the rise of a formal model of science in thirteenth-century Europe and resultant changes in assumptions about Knowledge of God in the world, investigating scholastic antecedents to modern science and reconceptualizing medieval schools of thought. The print edition is available as a set of two volumes (9789004119475).