Papers by Aditya Misra
In this essay, I have tried to read the concept of the superhero through Ranjan Ghosh’s idea of “... more In this essay, I have tried to read the concept of the superhero through Ranjan Ghosh’s idea of “intra-active transculturality” inside a “more than global world” which accentuates on the transnational, translingual and transcultural circulation and engagement with a literary work. Philosophically, the concept of the “superhero’’ is linked to the active potentiality of Nietzsche’s “Ubermensch”; and etymologically, it is linked to the grandeur of the mythical “hero.” However, this comic-book concept has been imprisoned into an insular identity within a self-inclusive genre since the birth of Superman in 1938. Over the years the concept of the superhero has travelled across times, places and genres. It has also been culturally translated and reformulated in many unpredictable contexts. The dialogue between the superhero and its “apocryphal” usages, the essay argues, adds an excess or “more” to it, and eventually creates the possibility of a new sense or a defamiliarised understanding of the concept. However, this essay is not an attempt to dismantle this popular cultural concept, but to revive its creative energy from the clutches of a globalised culture industry. The superhero, this essay argues, does not only belong to the comic-books and movies, but is embedded in a network of intra-relations within a larger literary and philosophical culture.
The Bengali poet Shakti Chattopadhaya (1933 – 95) was fond of putting irreconcilable opposites to... more The Bengali poet Shakti Chattopadhaya (1933 – 95) was fond of putting irreconcilable opposites together – individual and the social, freedom and bondage, creation and destruction, life and death and home and the world. And this paper investigates his poetic oeuvre to show how an obsession for an incessant play of oppositions (negation and affirmation) becomes a theory for the poet. The paper argues that this is a conscious act on his part to introduce a space for otherness, which introduces, to use Ranjan Ghosh’s terminology, a “hunger” in his poetry. Here, the act of “choice” becomes a complicated metaphor because it stretches desire to the breaking point of vulnerability. He leaves us in a state of continuous oscillation where choice itself becomes a “play”. His final solution – the middle passage (dharmeo acho giraffeo acho) – is not a selfish stance but it always keeps open the possibility for another alternative in an otherwise dogmatic world.
Book Reviews by Aditya Misra
The Cosmopolitans by Anjum Hasan, Gurgaon: Hamis Hamilton, 2015, Rs 499/-, ISBN 978-0-670-08826-3... more The Cosmopolitans by Anjum Hasan, Gurgaon: Hamis Hamilton, 2015, Rs 499/-, ISBN 978-0-670-08826-3, Website: penguinbooksindia.com In spite of all shouts and screams about the extraordinary nature of the Indian novels written in English, the works belonging to this genre rarely show extraordinary thematic and stylistic experiments to provoke the experience of the readers. In this respect, Anjum Hasan's new novel The Cosmopolitans should be an enjoyable addition to the reading list of the gallant readers. It is an ambitious work that re-examines an old question -the place of art in the mundane background of everyday life. The outcome is a fascinating novel that takes the reader in its clench from the very beginning and does not allow him even to take a momentary catnap like a 1
Books by Aditya Misra
Palgrave Macmillan, 2024
This book uses contemporary continental philosophy to develop an alternative theory of the superh... more This book uses contemporary continental philosophy to develop an alternative theory of the superhero to the one currently offered by the comic book industry and comic book studies. Studying superheroes from South Asian pop culture, this book questions the definition of the superhero and the allegedly sacrosanct nature of its origin and identity in comic books. This book looks at the superhero as a performative figure and explores how the superheroic imagination opens up diverse modes of creative thinking. Superheroes studied in this book include Narayan Debnath’s Bantul the Great (comics), Premendra Mitra’s Ghanashyam Das or Ghanada (Tall Tale), Satyajit Ray’s Professor Trilokeswar Shonku (science fiction/fantasy fiction), and one of the nine gems of Emperor Akbar’s court, Raja Birbar or Birbal (mediaeval Indian history). By virtue of perpetual reconfiguration of its elements, the book argues, the concept of the superhero makes itself ‘always new’ and it is always already ‘open onto elsewhere’.
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Papers by Aditya Misra
Book Reviews by Aditya Misra
Books by Aditya Misra