Papers by Animesh Roy
Bloomsbury Academic eBooks, 2022
This essay is an attempt to look back, exhume, and explore the ecological significance of the epi... more This essay is an attempt to look back, exhume, and explore the ecological significance of the epistemology and pharmacopeia of ethnomedicine as they are practiced by the indigenous communities, and to read it against the more popular and presumed normativity of modern Western medicine. By looking at some of the sociocultural constructions of the categories of body/physicality, mind/emotion, and the abstract theories of disease, treatment, and healing through an ecocritical lens as they are represented in literature, this essay would like to explore how in contrast to modern Western medicine which is primarily concerned with the various biochemical interplays at the organic and somatic level, indigenous medicine, or ethnomedicine is much more ecocultural, being related to both the biotic and abiotic elements, and intimately interconnected with the complex ecological processes of the earth. Such a reading, instead of being a repudiation of the post-Enlightenment tradition of European medicinal science is an attempt to retrieve and uphold those indigenous knowledge forms of human health, disease, and medicine, and their correlation with the ecological coordinates, which stand in sharp contradiction to the dualism inherent in modern Western medicine. By doing so this essay strives for a more humanistic re-consideration of those alternative epistemologies of body/ physicality, mind/emotion, and disease that embraces ecological principles; since arriving at a holistic understanding of disease and health would be difficult without an ecological and cultural rethinking, taking into consideration the ecology, the host, and the culture.
The Bloomsbury Handbook to the Medical-Environmental Humanities
This essay is an attempt to look back, exhume, and explore the ecological significance of the epi... more This essay is an attempt to look back, exhume, and explore the ecological significance of the epistemology and pharmacopeia of ethnomedicine as they are practiced by the indigenous communities, and to read it against the more popular and presumed normativity of modern Western medicine. By looking at some of the sociocultural constructions of the categories of body/physicality, mind/emotion, and the abstract theories of disease, treatment, and healing through an ecocritical lens as they are represented in literature, this essay would like to explore how in contrast to modern Western medicine which is primarily concerned with the various biochemical interplays at the organic and somatic level, indigenous medicine, or ethnomedicine is much more ecocultural, being related to both the biotic and abiotic elements, and intimately interconnected with the complex ecological processes of the earth. Such a reading, instead of being a repudiation of the post-Enlightenment tradition of European medicinal science is an attempt to retrieve and uphold those indigenous knowledge forms of human health, disease, and medicine, and their correlation with the ecological coordinates, which stand in sharp contradiction to the dualism inherent in modern Western medicine. By doing so this essay strives for a more humanistic re-consideration of those alternative epistemologies of body/ physicality, mind/emotion, and disease that embraces ecological principles; since arriving at a holistic understanding of disease and health would be difficult without an ecological and cultural rethinking, taking into consideration the ecology, the host, and the culture.
Revista Interdisciplinar de Literatura e Ecocrítica, Jul 7, 2020
This paper strives to argue how Robert Barclay's Melal is a fictionalisation of the long history ... more This paper strives to argue how Robert Barclay's Melal is a fictionalisation of the long history of military violence and atomic radiation by the USA in the Marshall Islands of the Pacific. Subverting the Western idealistic notion of the Marshall Islands as the Garden of Eden and a tropical paradise unspoiled by modern development, this paper explores how Barclay's Melal serves as an important point of departure to bring to focus how life in the atolls have become synonymous with radiation and a nuclear wasteland, and the different ways in which the indigenous people of the area are forced to grapple with the superpower parochialism. Despite postcolonial studies' preoccupation with issues of marginality, the social and ecological issues of the Marshall Islands have received little or no interest from the field. Melal seems to be a major intervention bringing to public visibility the chilling truth of the socio-political and cultural ramifications of Pacific nuclearisation. By corollary, the paper is also a protest against mainstream Euro/north-American ecocriticism which despite claiming itself as normative, severely failed to voice for the environmental perceptions beyond the European/north-American national borders.
Revista Interdisciplinar de Literatura e Ecocrítica, Jul 25, 2021
Ecocriticism is the interrelationship between literature and the environment, about how the envir... more Ecocriticism is the interrelationship between literature and the environment, about how the environment is reflected in literature. Although literature has dealt with environmental concerns since antiquity, never has the relationship between man and nature been explored with such urgency as it is done today. The paper seeks to explore select poems in Indian English literature from an ecocritical perspective. Although there has been many poems in Indian English literature which deals explicitly with the nature, the attitude towards nature in those poems were that of pastoral impulse, an aesthetic appreciation of nature or a philosophical and mystical attitude towards nature. The paper makes an ecocritical analysis of select Indian English poems to give vent to the general deterioration of the earth’s environment. It makes the theme of those poems much more relevant and transnational.
The Southern challenge to mainstream or Euro/north-American ecocriticism arises out of a desire t... more The Southern challenge to mainstream or Euro/north-American ecocriticism arises out of a desire to defeat and dismantle the hegemony of ecocritical theory and praxis which for quite some time has projected itself as the vanguard of ecocritical consciousness. Drawing references from both history of the environment as well as fictional and non-fictional texts writers and critics of the global South argued that mainstream ecocriticism while proposing itself as normative and egalitarian, not only failed to reflect the environmental perceptions of the global South, but its very representation of the environment is highly parochial, skewed, irrelevant and elitist. The Southern challenge thus consists in writing back against the West’s self proclaimed epistemological centrality of ecocritical enquiry by giving voice to the disenfranchised of the global South, by allowing he margins to speak and thereby to articulate their environmental realities which till now had been un/under-represente...
Lexington Books, 2023
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or m... more All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
Bloomsbury, 2022
This essay is an attempt to look back, exhume, and explore the ecological significance of the epi... more This essay is an attempt to look back, exhume, and explore the ecological significance of the epistemology and pharmacopeia of ethnomedicine as they are practiced by the indigenous communities, and to read it against the more popular and presumed normativity of modern Western medicine. By looking at some of the sociocultural constructions of the categories of
body/physicality, mind/emotion, and the abstract theories of disease, treatment, and healing through an ecocritical lens as they are represented in literature, this essay would like to explore how in contrast to modern Western medicine which is primarily concerned with the various biochemical interplays at the organic and somatic level, indigenous medicine, or ethnomedicine is much more ecocultural, being related to both the biotic and abiotic elements, and intimately interconnected with the complex ecological processes of the earth. Such a reading, instead of being a repudiation of the post-Enlightenment tradition of European medicinal science is an attempt to retrieve and uphold those indigenous knowledge forms of human health, disease, and medicine, and their correlation with the ecological coordinates, which stand in sharp contradiction to the dualism inherent in modern Western medicine. By doing so this essay strives for a more humanistic re-consideration of those alternative epistemologies of body/ physicality, mind/emotion, and disease that embraces ecological principles; since arriving at a holistic understanding of disease and health would be difficult without an ecological and cultural rethinking, taking into consideration the ecology, the host, and the culture.
Religions, 2024
Although secular criticism, as Edward Said defined it, has been central to the study of postcolon... more Although secular criticism, as Edward Said defined it, has been central to the study of postcolonial literature and its ambitions, it is also clear that traditionally secularist readings of postcolonial literature have not given full account of the ways in which religion, spirituality, and indigenous and idiosyncratic connections to the natural world in various postcolonial contexts have been suppressed by colonial structures and remain sources of potent resistance to them. Given the significant advancements in ecotheology in recent years and the call of many religious and civic leaders for religion to join the cause of sustainability, the time is ripe
for an investigation into the areas of potential collaboration and synergy between postcolonial literature and ecotheology. Though postcolonial literature and ecotheology are two distinct areas of critical inquiry, their mutual imbrication might offer a unique frame to explore profound ways about how literary, cultural, spiritual and ecological narratives converge.
While postcolonial literature is primarily concerned with exposing how the history of colonial violence and erasures are embedded in the earth, ecotheology attempts to integrate ecological and theological perspective toward a better stewardship of the planet. This raises the questions: Can postcolonial literature be a source of ecotheological wisdom? Can ecotheology provide a unique lens to read postcolonial literature?
Revista Interdisciplinar de Literatura e Ecocritica, 2021
Revista Interdisciplinar de Literatura e Ecocritica, 2020
This paper strives to argue how Robert Barclay's Melal is a fictionalisation of the long history ... more This paper strives to argue how Robert Barclay's Melal is a fictionalisation of the long history of military violence and atomic radiation by the USA in the Marshall Islands of the Pacific. Subverting the Western idealistic notion of the Marshall Islands as a Garden of Eden and a tropical paradise, unspoiled by modern development, this paper explores how Barclay's Melal serves as an important point of departure to bring to focus how life in the atolls have become synonymous with radiation arid a nuclear wasteland, and the different ways in which the indigenous people of the area are forced to grapple with this superpower parochialism. Despite postcolonial studies' preoccupation with issues of marginality, the social and ecological issues of the Marshall Islands have received little or no interest from the field. Melal seems to be a major intervention bringing to public visibility the chilling truth of the socio-political and cultual ramifications of Pacific nuclearisation. By corollary, the paper is also a protest against mainstream Euro/North-American ecocriticism which despite claiming itself as normative, severely failed to voice for the environmental perceptions beyond the European/north-American national borders.
Yearly Shakespeare, XVII, 2019
While Bengali theatre was quick to adapt Shakespeare on stage ever since its inception, Bengali f... more While Bengali theatre was quick to adapt Shakespeare on stage ever since its inception, Bengali films had shown little or no interest in this regard apart from two adaptations in the nineteen sixties and one at the turn of the twenty-first century. This paper tries to argue how contemporary Bengali cinema, especially, Ranjan Ghosh's "Hrid Majharey" in particular has tried to construct a new kind of popular by adapting Shakespeare which addresses both the exigencies of the mass as well as the class. By using the iconicity of Shakespeare on the one hand and the fandom of contemporary popular star actors on the other "Hrid Majharey" tries to straddle the conflicted priorities between the text and the star and thereby defining a new principle of commercial movie making and niche marketing.
Rivista Interdisciplinar de Literatura e Ecocritica , 2019
The Southern challenge to mainstream or Euro/north-American ecocriticism arises out of a desire t... more The Southern challenge to mainstream or Euro/north-American ecocriticism arises out of a desire to defeat and dismantle the hegemony of ecocritical theory and praxis which for quite some time has projected itself as the vanguard of ecocritical consciousness. Drawing references from both history of the environment as well as fictional and non-fictional texts, writers and critics of the global South argued that mainstream ecocriticism while proposing itself as normative and egalitarian, not only failed to reflect the environmental perceptions of the global South, but its very representation of the environment is highly parochial, skewed, irrelevant and elitist. The Southern challenge thus consists in writing back against the West's self proclaimed epistemological centrality of ecocritical enquiry by giving voice to the disenfranchised of the global South, by allowing he margins to speak and thereby to articulate their environmental realities which till now has been un/under-represented in mainstream ecocritical discourse.
Book Reviews by Animesh Roy
Dispatches from the Poetry Wars, 2020
Ever since the greening of literature, particularly in the last quarter of the twentieth century,... more Ever since the greening of literature, particularly in the last quarter of the twentieth century, literary and cultural scholarship focused both on how literature deals with the challenges involved in imagining a future on a planet in ecological peril, and how it serves to dramatize the history of the environment. In such ecological drifts in literary hermeneutics, avant-garde at that time, the literary genre primarily explored was fiction, poetry being mysteriously ignored in most substantial ecocritical investigations. Investigation of ecological or environmental perspectives into the study of poetics was mostly sporadic; the issues raised in such ecopoetic studies were even more partial, local, and individual. This is where Isabel Sobral Capos's anthology Ecopoetics and the Global Landscape: Critical Essays becomes so significant, as it tries to fill in the lacunae existing within such academic ecocritical scholarship. Campos's edited volume is an attempt toward a comprehensive global ecopoetic study, both spatial and temporal, on how poetry is not only "capable of thinking the unthinkable through verbal twists and turns" (ix) profoundly altering "how we see, what we see, and how we relate our being to both visible and invisible processes" (ix), but also "the importance of ecopoetics within the context of distinct national literatures and cultures to reveal the ubiquitous intersection of poetry and ecocriticism" (x). All eleven essays carefully selected in this volume attempt to open a planetary conversation on how poets and critics understand the concept of various ecological visions and poetics and about poetry's distinctive relationship to the environment. While some of the essays deal with literary concepts and texts generally ignored in mainstream ecocritical studies, others throw new light
Books by Animesh Roy
Atlantic Books, 2022
eua l ossayoid jue)sissy 'eyes ueujya íq uonensnil N OY usaujuy InITNo ANV TNOLVAALIT 'AÐOTODH em... more eua l ossayoid jue)sissy 'eyes ueujya íq uonensnil N OY usaujuy InITNo ANV TNOLVAALIT 'AÐOTODH embeddedness is perhaps to entertain a selective and often a l erroneous understanding of the earth's processes. Culture how culture evolves accordingly as humans situate themselves Within the natural environments, in places that have evolved a specihic locally-based ecological ethos in which nature and culture no longer remain different and segregated cate8O but rather become a co-constitutive, whole existing togeti in sometimes hybrid and sometimes in combative ways. S would quickly discern that race, class, and gender were the hot topics of the late twentieth century, but you would never know that the earth's life support systems were under stress" (xvi). But, even though Glotfelty along with Buell was primarily responsible for giving a formal shape to ecocriticism as a literary and cultural theory by bringing together essays on literaryecological writings, there have been sporadic attempts towards Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism" from two Greek Words-"oikos" meaning household and "logos" meaning logical discourse or study. Therefore, ecocriticism is the stuayo the "oikos". In general, it deals with the web of the relationsnp between cultural products and nature, a literary and culru Critique trom an ecological-political perspective. Ecocriticisi as Glotfelty defined is, "the study of the relationship berw literature and physical world" (xvii) or as Davia ** n Malgudi is representative of a place in the transition from old traditions towards the modern western civilisation as a result of the impact of British colonialism and how identities evolve therein accordingly. Literature, Environment, and Gendeer Apart from the idea of the imagination of place, literature and ecology studies have maintained a strong focus on the that these two forms of domination are bound up with class Cploitation, racism, colonialism, and neo-colonialism" (2-3). reminists such as Janet Biehl (1991), Meera Nanda (1991), Bina Agarwal (1992), and Cecile Jackson argues that the mainstream CeOreminist narrative is ethnocentric, essentialist, blind to class,
Rowman and Littlefield (Lexingon Books), 2019
At a time when the world leaders are looking forward to religious discourses taking a key role in... more At a time when the world leaders are looking forward to religious discourses taking a key role in dealing with the pressing problems of global warming and climate change, this paper is an attempt to explore how religious worldviews as explored in environmental fictions might serve as a mediating tool in disseminating ecological wisdom and relevance. Amitav Ghosh’s "The Hungry Tide", which Greg Garrard otherwise hails as a “canonical text for environmental critics” is crucial in demanding an ecocritical scrutiny in the sense that it not only is a staunch critique of the long history of environmental exploitation and “ecological imperialism” extant in the Sundarbans but also that it shows possible rays of hope for a possible solution out of the ecological nightmare. Though apparently a story dealing with the predicaments of an Indian-American scientist in the Sundarbans, Ghosh’s "The Hungry Tide" is essentially a comparative study of the different understandings of environment/nature and how such notions about environment/nature is invariably tinted with respective religious worldviews.
Drafts by Animesh Roy
This proposed volume would seek to critically engage with these intersections to examine how Sout... more This proposed volume would seek to critically engage with these intersections to examine how South Asian narratives and experiences contribute to global conversations on the relationship between health, illness, and the humanities by highlighting culturally specific issues, practices, and representations.
One of the central concerns of modern environmentalism in the West, especially in environmental h... more One of the central concerns of modern environmentalism in the West, especially in environmental humanities has been a greater preoccupation and a consequent move toward postmaterialist values. Literary environmentalism in the West arose out of a desire toward a posthumanist understanding of the earth, an exploration of how literature and literary criticism could be a potent tool for or against environmental change. Despite Glotfelty and Buell's noble intentions, the lacuna inherent within such an ecomethodology was that it primarily remained confined to the immediate issues of the West, influenced mostly by ecodiscourses of Thoreau and Jefferson, and thereby often suffering from a sense of ecoparochialism, a lack of the plurality of many different voices it should have had. Even when it sought to diversify itself by accommodating multi-ethnic voices, it remained confined to voices within Euro/North American geo-political boundaries. Non-Euro/North American voices simply got occluded in its apparent subjective normativity. This volume would seek to revise and subvert such an epistemological understanding of nature and ecocriticism by rather redrawing and extending the boundaries of the ecocritical voice. In trying to do so, this volume would try to look at multicultural texts that engage with issues of nature differently, and thereby suggesting a move within the academic discourses of ecological critical theorising and enquiry from green politics through ecosophy to environmental justice and resistance movements and their consequent implication. This, as we understand it, is a turn toward post-green. Over and above our understanding nature as virgin wilderness, as vast swathes of pristine ecoscapes free from human interventions, this volume would seek to look at our immediate environment and how our everyday engagements with non-human nature is inevitably implicated with issues of globalisation, capitalism, race, class, ethnicity, human rights and gender. By close-examining the intersection between literature and environment from the perspective of the oppressed other and by offering the subalterns a space to voice their concerns, this volume would try to register how issues of ecology cannot be understood in isolation; rather it should be understood by studying in unison with socio-political, cultural, and economic issues at the local, national, as well as global levels. Through an ecoglobalist approach, recognising difference and resistance, this volume, thereby, would be as much concerned with ethnic and national particularities and their linkages with nature as it would be concerned in transcending ethnic and national boundaries. Authors may focus on the following (but not limited to) sub-themes: 1. Literature, environment, ethnicity, and race. 2. Literature, environment, and class. 3. Literature, environment, and gender. 4. Literature, environment, and globalisation. 5. Literature, environment, and capitalism. 6. Literature, culture, environment, industrialised food production, and human health. 7. Literature, culture, environment, and indigenous rights. 8. Literature, culture, local, and national particularities. 9. Literature, culture and ideology If you feel that you have a different perspective that cuts across one or more of the above subthemes or which could be inclusive of some kindly go ahead and point out your preference in a note to the editors.
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Papers by Animesh Roy
body/physicality, mind/emotion, and the abstract theories of disease, treatment, and healing through an ecocritical lens as they are represented in literature, this essay would like to explore how in contrast to modern Western medicine which is primarily concerned with the various biochemical interplays at the organic and somatic level, indigenous medicine, or ethnomedicine is much more ecocultural, being related to both the biotic and abiotic elements, and intimately interconnected with the complex ecological processes of the earth. Such a reading, instead of being a repudiation of the post-Enlightenment tradition of European medicinal science is an attempt to retrieve and uphold those indigenous knowledge forms of human health, disease, and medicine, and their correlation with the ecological coordinates, which stand in sharp contradiction to the dualism inherent in modern Western medicine. By doing so this essay strives for a more humanistic re-consideration of those alternative epistemologies of body/ physicality, mind/emotion, and disease that embraces ecological principles; since arriving at a holistic understanding of disease and health would be difficult without an ecological and cultural rethinking, taking into consideration the ecology, the host, and the culture.
for an investigation into the areas of potential collaboration and synergy between postcolonial literature and ecotheology. Though postcolonial literature and ecotheology are two distinct areas of critical inquiry, their mutual imbrication might offer a unique frame to explore profound ways about how literary, cultural, spiritual and ecological narratives converge.
While postcolonial literature is primarily concerned with exposing how the history of colonial violence and erasures are embedded in the earth, ecotheology attempts to integrate ecological and theological perspective toward a better stewardship of the planet. This raises the questions: Can postcolonial literature be a source of ecotheological wisdom? Can ecotheology provide a unique lens to read postcolonial literature?
Book Reviews by Animesh Roy
Books by Animesh Roy
Drafts by Animesh Roy
body/physicality, mind/emotion, and the abstract theories of disease, treatment, and healing through an ecocritical lens as they are represented in literature, this essay would like to explore how in contrast to modern Western medicine which is primarily concerned with the various biochemical interplays at the organic and somatic level, indigenous medicine, or ethnomedicine is much more ecocultural, being related to both the biotic and abiotic elements, and intimately interconnected with the complex ecological processes of the earth. Such a reading, instead of being a repudiation of the post-Enlightenment tradition of European medicinal science is an attempt to retrieve and uphold those indigenous knowledge forms of human health, disease, and medicine, and their correlation with the ecological coordinates, which stand in sharp contradiction to the dualism inherent in modern Western medicine. By doing so this essay strives for a more humanistic re-consideration of those alternative epistemologies of body/ physicality, mind/emotion, and disease that embraces ecological principles; since arriving at a holistic understanding of disease and health would be difficult without an ecological and cultural rethinking, taking into consideration the ecology, the host, and the culture.
for an investigation into the areas of potential collaboration and synergy between postcolonial literature and ecotheology. Though postcolonial literature and ecotheology are two distinct areas of critical inquiry, their mutual imbrication might offer a unique frame to explore profound ways about how literary, cultural, spiritual and ecological narratives converge.
While postcolonial literature is primarily concerned with exposing how the history of colonial violence and erasures are embedded in the earth, ecotheology attempts to integrate ecological and theological perspective toward a better stewardship of the planet. This raises the questions: Can postcolonial literature be a source of ecotheological wisdom? Can ecotheology provide a unique lens to read postcolonial literature?