|
Anthologies and the Mapping of Africa’s Poetic Imagination
--Sunny Awhefeada
This paper examines the role played by anthologies in the evolution of African poetry and in the development of the critical enterprise they have generated. In doing this, the study carries out a discursive evaluation of three anthologies of African poetry covering different regions of the continent. The study gives credence to the anthologies as authoritative representation of the African experience from the precolonial era to the contemporary period, and thus they constitute the most instructive media on the evaluation of African poetry. Nevertheless, there is a need for more anthologies to be produced periodically in order to fully represent the African condition as it evolves and engenders new poetic sensibilities.
© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Realistic Approaches and Bare Realities in the Novels of Andrea Levy
--Swarnita Sharma, Jaya Dwivedi and Sheela Tiwari
The present paper is a racial and gender study based on the history of Windrush era. It focuses on the novels of Andrea Levy, who has experienced the transitional period when white Britain came to know of its multiracial identity, coinciding with a period of unrest. Levy’s father was one of the first immigrants who came to England. So a firsthand account of the socio-psychological and political condition of the people affected by that historical event can be found in the writings of Levy. Levy has authored five novels, and each of her novels is a diary of her thought and experience realistically drawn. Her early novels, written in the genre of the female Bildungsroman, show the influence of black women’s writings with its emphasis on what Barbara Smith refers to as a “woman-identified art”; yet, like Toni Morrison, Levy is also interested in representing black masculinities.
© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Power Relationships in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest,
Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
--Gassim H Dohal
In any colony, relationships depend on power. Power refers to the ability to control a country, an area, or an individual as well as the ability to impose particular rules and restrictions on the natives of the area in question. Of course, power may take different degrees and forms. The colonizer does not need, in all cases, to use force. As Said (1979) put it, the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized is “a power relationship.” For the colonized, the only safe way is to conform and be quiet. S/he is to deny the self and all will be well. This paper explores the colonial relationship between the colonizer and the colonized in the light of what is said above in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Such literary works render the relationship of both the colonizer and the colonized into fixed, oppositional terms, which remain influential at all times.
© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
The Politics of Gender in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon
--Rima Bhattacharya
Toni Morrison’s novels are deeply embedded in the African cultural heritage and primarily concerned with the experiences of African American women, whose quest for individual identity is integrally intertwined with a sense of community and cultural history. Therefore, it is not surprising that women of color play prominent, strong, and powerful roles in her novels. Morrison’s Song of Solomon is one such novel where the main protagonist, Milkman’s development is framed by the sacrificial stories of three women important in his life. On the surface, these female characters are shown to be living pathetic lives where rebellion is almost impossible. Their lives are constructed around men’s desire or fancy. However, if one goes deeper down the surface to examine these female characters critically, then one would find that in reality, these women play a huge role in reconstructing cultural memory and demonstrating the importance of the past to the male protagonist. This paper critically looks at Morrison’s Song of Solomon in order to establish that the ultimate experiences of these black women are not the loss and sufferings endured by them in the name of slavery, racism, and gender. Instead, their creative voices that connect one generation to another are the true markers of the potential of their womanhood.
© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Gender Stereotypes and Feminist Strokes: Negotiating the Spaces in Mills and Boon
--Reema Chakrabarti and Rajni Singh
Commercial fiction includes those works which aim to make profit out of readership. Among all genres of commercial fiction, romance boasts of maximum popularity. Of those, the Mills and Boon series produced by Harlequin Enterprises dominates the market at the global level. This paper focuses on three novels from the December 2012 Mills and Boon series, namely, The Ruthless Caleb Wilde by Sandra Marton, A Date with a Bollywood Star by Riya Lakhani, and Staking His Claim by Tessa Radley. The dates of their publication carry no special significance since the pattern of the plot continues to be the same over the decades. The aim of the paper is not only to study the aspects of commercialization of these books, but also to examine how these reflect the sociocultural dynamics at a deeper level. A surface level reading might reflect the social stereotyping of gender roles in these books. However, an in-depth analysis reveals the feminist strokes and how women’s reading habit of these books exhibits their proclamation of freedom, understanding of their psychological needs, and most importantly their awareness of the “self.”
© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Modern Panchatantra or a Neo-Didactic Novel:
A Perspective on Salman Rushdie’s Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights
--P Suneetha
Story collections like Panchatantra in Kathasaritsagara, with their didactic tinge, have enriched the corpus of Indian stories in the past. Salman Rushdie, with an innate Indian psyche and aesthetic susceptibility, has revived, in his twelfth novel Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, the good old oriental tradition of moral legends. The scene of action is twelfth century Andalucia where Ibn Rushd (Averroes), a rationalist Muslim philosopher and also a progenitor of Islamic secularism, lives. Soon, the complex story takes a new turn when Dunia, from Peristan (Fairyland), visits the abode of the great philosopher and takes partially a human form and falls in love with him. Their union leads to multitudes of children over a thousand years, who are called Duniazat (world’s tribe). After the demise of the philosopher together with the departure of the Lightning Princess for Peristan (Fairyland), their progeny, Duniazat, succeed in annihilating the evil forces. The novel acquires epic dimensions as the novelist succeeds in presenting, as in Panchatantra, a “brilliant reflection of and a serious meditation on the choices and agonies of our life in this world,” containing all our stories as well as the stories of others within the larger and grander narratives.
© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Discursive Formation of Reality:
A Foucauldian Perspective of Mitra Phukan’s The Collector’s Wife
--Anindya Sundar Paul and Shri Krishan Rai
The availability of the “real” is more important to us than the actual “real,” as propounded by Foucault in his The Archaeology of Knowledge. Although he did not reject the “real” outright, Foucault argued how reality is a result of, more than anything else, discursive formation. In Mitra Phukan’s The Collector’s Wife (2005) also we see how a particular notion that the northeastern part of India is clashtrodden and insurgency-ridden gets circulated and popularized through various layers and at the exclusion of some other notions, altering the perception of the region. This paper tries to excavate those exclusionary concepts, critiquing that popular perception.
© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Challenging the Stereotype of Political Neutrality:
The Representation of Parsi Community in Selected Fictional Works
--Maya Vinai and M G Prasuna
This paper seeks to probe into the role of the marginalized “other” in trauma narratives. An attempt has been made to understand as to how the so-called political neutrality associated with the minority Parsi community has been represented in the fiction of two prominent Indian English writers, namely, Rohinton Mistry and Meher Pestonji. Several instances have been put forth in the paper which provide an alternative paradigm to the politics of representation enforced by the mainstream to reveal as to how this neutrality has been employed by the “other” gainfully to negotiate between the two warring hegemonic groups and bring peace and harmony in a terror-striven atmosphere.
© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Vālmīkī’s Portrayal of Lakshmana and the Notion of ‘Lakṣ mivardhana’ of Rāma
--G R K Murty
The Ramayana narrates the graceful march of its protagonist, Rama— a march that reflects a judicious combination of static tranquility and dynamic adaptability—in search of good conduct, good heart, goodwill, good words, and a good world worth living in. A careful analysis of this march of Rama, however, reveals that Lakshmana, his brother, played a pivotal role in the elevation and elegance of this ideal persona of Rama. Sacrificing his personal comforts, indeed displaying indifference toward earthly pleasures, Lakshmana remains steadfast— even in the face of unkindness and unreasonableness—in his devotion to Rama and his wife, Sita. He simply loved Rama “with the possessive loyalty of a mother.” And, having invited this course of life on his own, Lakshmana, surrendering his life to Rama, distinguishes himself adorned by “Pratishtha,” the ultimate human dignity, by conducting himself as “lak? mivardhana”—causing prosperity to grow—of Rama, and that is what this paper attempts to examine.
© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Enhancing Critical Thinking in English Classes:
A Study of Pre-University Colleges Across Bangalore City
--Sindhu Joseph
This study assesses the extent of critical thinking among students in English language classes across five pre-university colleges in Bangalore and compares the results to the pedagogical tools used by their English teachers and the obstacles faced by these teachers in teaching critical thinking. The comparison helps to understand the gap in critical thinking in these students and also to suggest pedagogical tools that could bridge the gap. The study used survey method to collect responses based on selected chapters from the pre-university English texts. The revised Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives was used as a conceptual framework for the survey questionnaire. The analysis showed that while most students displayed lower order thinking levels like remembering and understanding, several of them showed limited ability to think along the higher order thinking levels like applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. The study is a prelude to understanding the extent of the gap in critical thinking among Indian students. Since it is specific to the cosmopolitan context of Bangalore city, it might not be extrapolated to the diverse population of students across the country. However, the study serves as a model for further action research along similar lines.
© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Challenges to English Language Teaching in the Twenty-First Century:
An Indian Perspective
--Snigdha Singh
Over the past few decades, India has woken up to the importance of English Language. In a country as culturally and linguistically diverse as India, English is often seen as a connecting thread. For Indians, English symbolizes better education and better culture. It opens the door to greater job mobility and economic success. To cater to the ever increasing demand for English, a number of “English Medium” schools have sprung up all over the country. However, on a closer look, we see that most of these schools fail to deliver what they promise. What are the reasons that prevent them from doing so? What are the challenges the teachers of English Language face today? What efforts should be made to help them overcome these challenges? These are some of the issues that will be discussed in this paper.
© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Interview: “The Campus Novel in India Is Involved in Elucidating a Critique
of Post-Liberalization Middle-Class Culture” – A Tête-à-Tête with Amitabha Bagchi
--Averi Mukhopadhyay
In this interview, Indian author Amitabha Bagchi discusses his debut novel, Above Average, touching upon such topics as Foucauldian power relation, Bordieu’s theories of social stratification, Marxist text, India’s post-liberalization middle-class culture, and campus novels.
© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
|
