Jean Baudrillard earned notoriety when he announced that the Gulf War did not take place. Those w... more Jean Baudrillard earned notoriety when he announced that the Gulf War did not take place. Those who opposed him on the ground of a deplorable insensibility which he has written with ignoring the dimension of human suffering missed the argument of Baudrillard that it is the manufactured reality which television caters to us, and not reality per se. The very idea of real is a postmodern problematic because in this image-dominated (televised) hyperreal stage it is impossible to deduce any idea of real by following a simplistic logic of representation mirroring reality. What the television and media in general present to us is a nebulous form of the real whose authenticity can no longer be established because such representations operate on the level of signification without an immediately available signified. Postmodern culture, especially media culture, is marked by a distortion of the real. The distortion does not arise from some technical constraints inherent in the medium; rather, this is deliberately architectured to render the events obscure so as to serve without being seen to serving the interest of those who control its resources.
In a compelling narrative, Mahasweta Devi's "Rudali" scrutinises how the traditional image of a c... more In a compelling narrative, Mahasweta Devi's "Rudali" scrutinises how the traditional image of a crying woman can be subverted against the background of outrageous corruption. Here the women do not cry at their own destitution, but their tears rescue the men from their shame. Engrossed in their lust for property and lacking in emotions, the Rajput men in Chhotanagpur area hire the "rudalis" (professional mourners) to cry at the funeral of their family members. But a powerful bonding between two rudalis who join hands with a host of sexually-exploited women can eventually gather enough potential to confront the hypocrisy surrounding the tyrannical social structure. The present paper focuses on how in a rotten world-order of rustic India tears can also be a thing for sale and how the oppressed women manage to manipulate chaotic situations for their advantage.
Folklore encompasses the entire gamut of a community's worldview-from its myths to rituals to eve... more Folklore encompasses the entire gamut of a community's worldview-from its myths to rituals to everyday existence. The retrieval of native tradition from cultural repressions of the colonial period was provided an impetus by the folklore elements in Africa. The plays of Wole Soyinka, a Western-educated Nigerian writer, embody a hybrid form of theatre deriving at once from his indigenous Yoruba folklore heritage and the Western dramaturgy. His play The Strong Breed builds on the Yoruba custom of ritual sacrifice in which the protagonist Eman is killed. Although he previously refuses to take part in his family's ritual purification, the mature Eman embraces his sacrifice for the well-being of society which recalls the legend of Christ. Eman's sacrifice also alludes to the commemorative Ogun myth of bridging the three worlds of the dead, the living and the unborn which connects the world of human beings with that of the spirits or Gods. The present paper will try to appraise, with particular reference to The Strong Breed, Soyinka's re-deployment of folk elements which permeate the ethnic world of the Yoruba tribe. The paper will also study Soyinka's theatrical methods of employing the Yoruba folklore which is not retrieved unquestioningly, but re-articulated with critical looks.
Incarcerated by the invisible but omnipresent prison of racism, the African-American people can h... more Incarcerated by the invisible but omnipresent prison of racism, the African-American people can hardly get the scope of self-realization. They are always "represented" as inferior, barbaric, uncivilized by the White America which is characterized by its superior opposites.
A study of Indian poet Kamala Das's poem “Summer in Calcutta” from feminist perspectives (especia... more A study of Indian poet Kamala Das's poem “Summer in Calcutta” from feminist perspectives (especially Helen Cixous's Écriture Féminine).
A study of Wole Soyinka's poem "Telephone Conversation" from the perspective of Homi K Bhabha (po... more A study of Wole Soyinka's poem "Telephone Conversation" from the perspective of Homi K Bhabha (postcolonial mimicry and its subversive potential).
The most prominent feature of Ted Hughes's poetry that draws average readers' attention is violen... more The most prominent feature of Ted Hughes's poetry that draws average readers' attention is violence. But the poet equates instances of violence in his Hawk, Jaguar and Crow poems with the emission of cosmic energy in the raw stratum of animal life. Beneath the surface of violent animal poetry a dissatisfaction with contemporary civilization can be discerned which is densified, somewhat equivocally, with the poet's venture in the reincarnation of lively vigour. Similarly, his war poems, like "Six Young Men" and "Bayonet Charge" are exemplification in the power of endurance and will to live in the precinct of lurking death. Violence is not the sole preoccupation of the poet; rather he is concerned with vitality of life that resonates with the indomitable life-force. This article is an attempt to scrutinize Hughes's fabled concern with violence and to examine how far Hughes becomes successful in proclaiming the dominance of vitality over violence.
The act of identity formation is especially problematic in the Third World transnationalism where... more The act of identity formation is especially problematic in the Third World transnationalism where inter-community and intra-community conflicts jostle with each other. These conflicts are manifested in Taslima Nasreen's novel Pherā which addresses the issues of migration and diaspora identity at the backdrop of Partition and succeeding communal discord. The novel has an all-encompassing sense of nostalgia for the lost home of the protagonist Kalyani who was A Search for the Lost Root: Bangladeshi Migration and Communal Disharmony, Diaspora Identity and Elements of Nostalgia in Taslima Nasreen's Pherā 200 forcibly sent to India for her safety. But her Calcutta life highlights the difficulties she must survive in to fulfill her account of losses at the commotion of a wicked time. Kalyani returns to her homeland after twenty-six long years only to discover that the bonds of her former relations are severed. Her pathetic recognition of the changed landscape dominated by religious intolerance is evocative of her still-cherished love for her birthplace, which, however, catches her in a complex nexus of sociopolitical upheaval.
Rupkatha Journal is an international journal recognized by a number of organizations and institut... more Rupkatha Journal is an international journal recognized by a number of organizations and institutions. It is archived permanently by www.archive-it.org and indexed by EBSCO, Elsevier, MLA International Directory, Ulrichs Web, DOAJ, Google Scholar and other organizations and included in many university libraries.
The Indian short story is not merely a derivative of the Western genre, but owes much to the grea... more The Indian short story is not merely a derivative of the Western genre, but owes much to the great story-telling tradition of Indian antiquity. The mythical and legendary tales as well as folktales have provided a fertile soil for the modern Indian short story to germinate. Beginning towards the end of the nineteenth century, the Indian short story flourished in the twentieth century. It became evident by the end of the past century that the canon is attuned to Indian landscape whose heterogeneous people and their diverse experiences it reflects so faithfully. The Indian short story as a distinct genre resembles a “multicoloured glass” scattering myriad hues which is analogous to the diversity of our country itself. The variegated and unbeaten genre righteously deserves critical attention which it has been deprived of.
With twenty-seven scholarly articles by academics, professors and researchers, the present critical volume is a tribute to an affluent but neglected genre of Indian literature. In accord with the genre itself, the scope of the book allows for such diversity as the classic writers like Tagore and Manto; the feminist writers like Ismat Chughtai, Kamala Das, Shashi Deshpande and Indira Goswami; the dalit writers like Bama and Ajay Navaria; the diaspora writers like Bharati Mukherjee and Jhumpa Lahiri. The reworking of myth by Mahasweta Devi, the nature lore of Ruskin Bond, the saga of exile by the Kashmiri Pandits, the satire of Hari Shankar Parsai, the macabre tales of Satyajit Ray, the problematics of identity in Manoj Das and memory in Temsula Ao—all are taken into consideration within the structure of a single volume to make this a stimulating overview for students and scholars of Indian literature.
Jean Baudrillard earned notoriety when he announced that the Gulf War did not take place. Those w... more Jean Baudrillard earned notoriety when he announced that the Gulf War did not take place. Those who opposed him on the ground of a deplorable insensibility which he has written with ignoring the dimension of human suffering missed the argument of Baudrillard that it is the manufactured reality which television caters to us, and not reality per se. The very idea of real is a postmodern problematic because in this image-dominated (televised) hyperreal stage it is impossible to deduce any idea of real by following a simplistic logic of representation mirroring reality. What the television and media in general present to us is a nebulous form of the real whose authenticity can no longer be established because such representations operate on the level of signification without an immediately available signified. Postmodern culture, especially media culture, is marked by a distortion of the real. The distortion does not arise from some technical constraints inherent in the medium; rather, this is deliberately architectured to render the events obscure so as to serve without being seen to serving the interest of those who control its resources.
In a compelling narrative, Mahasweta Devi's "Rudali" scrutinises how the traditional image of a c... more In a compelling narrative, Mahasweta Devi's "Rudali" scrutinises how the traditional image of a crying woman can be subverted against the background of outrageous corruption. Here the women do not cry at their own destitution, but their tears rescue the men from their shame. Engrossed in their lust for property and lacking in emotions, the Rajput men in Chhotanagpur area hire the "rudalis" (professional mourners) to cry at the funeral of their family members. But a powerful bonding between two rudalis who join hands with a host of sexually-exploited women can eventually gather enough potential to confront the hypocrisy surrounding the tyrannical social structure. The present paper focuses on how in a rotten world-order of rustic India tears can also be a thing for sale and how the oppressed women manage to manipulate chaotic situations for their advantage.
Folklore encompasses the entire gamut of a community's worldview-from its myths to rituals to eve... more Folklore encompasses the entire gamut of a community's worldview-from its myths to rituals to everyday existence. The retrieval of native tradition from cultural repressions of the colonial period was provided an impetus by the folklore elements in Africa. The plays of Wole Soyinka, a Western-educated Nigerian writer, embody a hybrid form of theatre deriving at once from his indigenous Yoruba folklore heritage and the Western dramaturgy. His play The Strong Breed builds on the Yoruba custom of ritual sacrifice in which the protagonist Eman is killed. Although he previously refuses to take part in his family's ritual purification, the mature Eman embraces his sacrifice for the well-being of society which recalls the legend of Christ. Eman's sacrifice also alludes to the commemorative Ogun myth of bridging the three worlds of the dead, the living and the unborn which connects the world of human beings with that of the spirits or Gods. The present paper will try to appraise, with particular reference to The Strong Breed, Soyinka's re-deployment of folk elements which permeate the ethnic world of the Yoruba tribe. The paper will also study Soyinka's theatrical methods of employing the Yoruba folklore which is not retrieved unquestioningly, but re-articulated with critical looks.
Incarcerated by the invisible but omnipresent prison of racism, the African-American people can h... more Incarcerated by the invisible but omnipresent prison of racism, the African-American people can hardly get the scope of self-realization. They are always "represented" as inferior, barbaric, uncivilized by the White America which is characterized by its superior opposites.
A study of Indian poet Kamala Das's poem “Summer in Calcutta” from feminist perspectives (especia... more A study of Indian poet Kamala Das's poem “Summer in Calcutta” from feminist perspectives (especially Helen Cixous's Écriture Féminine).
A study of Wole Soyinka's poem "Telephone Conversation" from the perspective of Homi K Bhabha (po... more A study of Wole Soyinka's poem "Telephone Conversation" from the perspective of Homi K Bhabha (postcolonial mimicry and its subversive potential).
The most prominent feature of Ted Hughes's poetry that draws average readers' attention is violen... more The most prominent feature of Ted Hughes's poetry that draws average readers' attention is violence. But the poet equates instances of violence in his Hawk, Jaguar and Crow poems with the emission of cosmic energy in the raw stratum of animal life. Beneath the surface of violent animal poetry a dissatisfaction with contemporary civilization can be discerned which is densified, somewhat equivocally, with the poet's venture in the reincarnation of lively vigour. Similarly, his war poems, like "Six Young Men" and "Bayonet Charge" are exemplification in the power of endurance and will to live in the precinct of lurking death. Violence is not the sole preoccupation of the poet; rather he is concerned with vitality of life that resonates with the indomitable life-force. This article is an attempt to scrutinize Hughes's fabled concern with violence and to examine how far Hughes becomes successful in proclaiming the dominance of vitality over violence.
The act of identity formation is especially problematic in the Third World transnationalism where... more The act of identity formation is especially problematic in the Third World transnationalism where inter-community and intra-community conflicts jostle with each other. These conflicts are manifested in Taslima Nasreen's novel Pherā which addresses the issues of migration and diaspora identity at the backdrop of Partition and succeeding communal discord. The novel has an all-encompassing sense of nostalgia for the lost home of the protagonist Kalyani who was A Search for the Lost Root: Bangladeshi Migration and Communal Disharmony, Diaspora Identity and Elements of Nostalgia in Taslima Nasreen's Pherā 200 forcibly sent to India for her safety. But her Calcutta life highlights the difficulties she must survive in to fulfill her account of losses at the commotion of a wicked time. Kalyani returns to her homeland after twenty-six long years only to discover that the bonds of her former relations are severed. Her pathetic recognition of the changed landscape dominated by religious intolerance is evocative of her still-cherished love for her birthplace, which, however, catches her in a complex nexus of sociopolitical upheaval.
Rupkatha Journal is an international journal recognized by a number of organizations and institut... more Rupkatha Journal is an international journal recognized by a number of organizations and institutions. It is archived permanently by www.archive-it.org and indexed by EBSCO, Elsevier, MLA International Directory, Ulrichs Web, DOAJ, Google Scholar and other organizations and included in many university libraries.
The Indian short story is not merely a derivative of the Western genre, but owes much to the grea... more The Indian short story is not merely a derivative of the Western genre, but owes much to the great story-telling tradition of Indian antiquity. The mythical and legendary tales as well as folktales have provided a fertile soil for the modern Indian short story to germinate. Beginning towards the end of the nineteenth century, the Indian short story flourished in the twentieth century. It became evident by the end of the past century that the canon is attuned to Indian landscape whose heterogeneous people and their diverse experiences it reflects so faithfully. The Indian short story as a distinct genre resembles a “multicoloured glass” scattering myriad hues which is analogous to the diversity of our country itself. The variegated and unbeaten genre righteously deserves critical attention which it has been deprived of.
With twenty-seven scholarly articles by academics, professors and researchers, the present critical volume is a tribute to an affluent but neglected genre of Indian literature. In accord with the genre itself, the scope of the book allows for such diversity as the classic writers like Tagore and Manto; the feminist writers like Ismat Chughtai, Kamala Das, Shashi Deshpande and Indira Goswami; the dalit writers like Bama and Ajay Navaria; the diaspora writers like Bharati Mukherjee and Jhumpa Lahiri. The reworking of myth by Mahasweta Devi, the nature lore of Ruskin Bond, the saga of exile by the Kashmiri Pandits, the satire of Hari Shankar Parsai, the macabre tales of Satyajit Ray, the problematics of identity in Manoj Das and memory in Temsula Ao—all are taken into consideration within the structure of a single volume to make this a stimulating overview for students and scholars of Indian literature.
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With twenty-seven scholarly articles by academics, professors and researchers, the present critical volume is a tribute to an affluent but neglected genre of Indian literature. In accord with the genre itself, the scope of the book allows for such diversity as the classic writers like Tagore and Manto; the feminist writers like Ismat Chughtai, Kamala Das, Shashi Deshpande and Indira Goswami; the dalit writers like Bama and Ajay Navaria; the diaspora writers like Bharati Mukherjee and Jhumpa Lahiri. The reworking of myth by Mahasweta Devi, the nature lore of Ruskin Bond, the saga of exile by the Kashmiri Pandits, the satire of Hari Shankar Parsai, the macabre tales of Satyajit Ray, the problematics of identity in Manoj Das and memory in Temsula Ao—all are taken into consideration within the structure of a single volume to make this a stimulating overview for students and scholars of Indian literature.
With twenty-seven scholarly articles by academics, professors and researchers, the present critical volume is a tribute to an affluent but neglected genre of Indian literature. In accord with the genre itself, the scope of the book allows for such diversity as the classic writers like Tagore and Manto; the feminist writers like Ismat Chughtai, Kamala Das, Shashi Deshpande and Indira Goswami; the dalit writers like Bama and Ajay Navaria; the diaspora writers like Bharati Mukherjee and Jhumpa Lahiri. The reworking of myth by Mahasweta Devi, the nature lore of Ruskin Bond, the saga of exile by the Kashmiri Pandits, the satire of Hari Shankar Parsai, the macabre tales of Satyajit Ray, the problematics of identity in Manoj Das and memory in Temsula Ao—all are taken into consideration within the structure of a single volume to make this a stimulating overview for students and scholars of Indian literature.