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Jane
Austen: Postcolonial Readings
--
Meenakshi Mukherjee
This
paper looks at some of the new ways in which Jane Austen
is being read today—bringing her out of the seclusion
of a pastoral pre-industrial England and placing her
in the grid of a globe, where slave routes and trade
routes were intersecting in the oceans, and large parts
of the world were being commercially explored by Britain
before they were actually colonized. It tries to examine
`postcolonial' as a term and cites examples to show
how the postcolonial perspective has changed the ways
we look at the texts of 18th and 19th
century British fiction. The paper also takes note of
the sudden spurt in films either directly based on Jane
Austen's novels or obliquely drawing from them.
©
2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved.
Solzhenitsyn
and Exile
-- D Venkataramanan
This
paper discusses the Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's
(1918-) views on exile. Solzhenitsyn was exiled to the
United States of America in 1974 and returned to the
erstwhile Soviet Union after its break-up. Unlike most
émigrés who normally reflect a blind fascination
for their homeland, Solzhenitsyn maintained a balance
between his attitude towards Russia and the West. This
paper explores Solzhenitsyn's dialogic manner of thinking
about the problems faced by the two nations and cultures.
The subject position, he takes, poses a difficulty in
fixing Solzhenitsyn's standpoint—the extent to
which he is for or against both Russia and the West.
It is this view of Solzhenitsyn that makes him a `Man
of Letters', one who can contribute towards the rebuilding
of contemporary Russia in the present context of globalization.
©
2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved.
English
in India: Countering the Prejudices
--
Rajeshwar Mittapalli
This
paper seeks to answer some of the charges often leveled
against English in India. It endeavors to give the English
teachers some well-reasoned arguments to counter the
attacks from the detractors of English. This kind of
defense is perhaps necessary in the context of globalization
and the role English is poised to play in India's economic
and social life, and the persistence of old prejudices
against it. It is time for the Indians to take a pragmatic
view and accept English as indispensable for progress.
©
2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved.
Task-based
Learning and Lateral Thinking: A Viable Approach to
ELT in India
-- Sunitha
Mishra and C Muralikrishna
English
Language Teaching (ELT) has always been a challenge
in India. English has been taught in various ways depending
on the availability of infrastructure and expertise.
Teaching the language through group activities, however,
is an effective alternative, especially when it is being
taught with the purpose of developing communicative
abilities. However, the kind of English to be taught
has remained a point of contention. While some stress
on the importance of teaching `Standard' English, others
talk about the necessity of teaching Indian English,
the way it has evolved. Given the inherent Indian culture
trait to learn, adapt and operate in various kinds of
languages, it will be profitable for our students to
look at English as one of the Indian languages. A case
is made for tapping the efficacy of task-based learning
with emphasis on role-plays and problem solving. While
insights from DeBono's "Lateral Thinking"
inform the paper on the subject, task-based activities,
creatively drawn from a popular O' Henry short story,
illustrate the ideas presented in the paper. Therefore,
the purpose of the paper is not to discuss teaching
Standard English, but to facilitate students to communicate
in reasonably good and intelligible English by equipping
them with the competence to take advantage of the growing
market opportunities.
©
2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved.
`The
Almond Aura of a Byzantine Limbo': The Poetry of Palestine
and Iraq
-- Hoshang
Merchant
Hoshang
Merchant lived in Nablus and Jerusalem between 1982-1986
where he taught at An-Najah and Hebrew Universities
besides Abu Dis College of Science (now the University
of Palestine). In this article, he reads some famous
Palestinian poets like Darwish, Qabbani, Kanafani, Fadwa
Tuqan, and Iraqi poets like Al-Malaika and Al-Sayyab.
He links the poets to the struggle against Israel in
the case of Palestine, and against Arab dictators in
the case of Iraq. In order to be evenhanded as a witness
to the conflict, he quotes poignant examples of both
the Arab and Jewish life he observed in Israel. In conclusion,
he refers to the Israeli modern poetry of Yehuda Amichai,
which could be read for reconciliation between enemies.
The postscript is on Genet, apostle of Love.
©
2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved.
In
Quest for Reality: An Approach to Indian Novel in English
-- A
Rama Krishna Rao and S Durga Malleeswari
This
paper attempts to analyze how the Indian novels are
in a continuous quest for the Indian reality. The themes
of the novels range from being a medium for social commentary
to a pragmatic representation of the sociopolitical
Indian reality, with the protagonists often struggling
hard to come out of the constraints of society. The
writers used the novel to project the `Indianness' through
its men, manners, moments and milieu. With the alien
tongue, the substance for the Indian fiction was already
there in the subconsciousness of the writer, in the
landscape, society, and culture. With Mulk Raj Anand,
Raja Rao, and R K Narayan, the Indian English novel
began its long voyage towards a separate identity of
its own. While Narayan portrayed the Indian life scenario
with all its whims in a light-hearted vein, Anand, with
a realistic reflection of contemporary social reality,
articulated the agony of the exploited class with profound
sympathy. Raja Rao dealt with the metaphysical themes
and man's spiritual pursuit of liberty. The emergence
of the women writers has been a major achievement in
the Indian literary setting. They tried to make sense
of the changing new world and their novels have to be
read against the backdrop of the Indian society which
assigned only a secondary role to women. They aptly
reflected the changing feminine sensibility and a redefining
of the conventional roles of the Indian woman. A concern
for the changing Indian social scenario is seen in Kamala
Markandaya. With an insider's eye Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
projected an India oscillating between the Western thought
and traditional values. Thus, the chronicle of Indian
English novel is really the story of a changing India,
and these novelists are all in quest of multiple and
tantalizing reality.
©
2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved.
(Agri)Culture
in The Grapes of Wrath and Baromas: Beyond
Postcolonialism
-- Dharamdas
M Shende
The
paper attempts to examine the space beyond post-colonialism,
in the context of all-enveloping globalization, which,
according to thinkers like Frantz Fanon, is a return
of the colonizer in the form of MNCs. The author takes
up two novels—The Grapes of Wrath and Baromas—by
John Steinbeck and Sadanand Deshmukh, writers who are
geographically apart, but are deeply concerned about
the inhuman exploitation of the marginalized. The author
argues that (Agri)Culture is the viable and potent ethic
of resistance to contain the onslaught of globalization.
It is in the past that the solutions for the present
problems lie, avers the author. The plight of the Joad
family evoked by Steinbeck in his epic novel and of
the family of Eknath by Deshmukh in his touching novel
brings sharply to the painful awareness of the reader
the baleful impact of over-industrialization in one
case and the heartless urbanization in the other. A
timely caution against excessive enthusiasm for globalization
in the backdrop of literary constructs, the paper calls
for reevaluation of the fashionable economic policies.
©
2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved.
Cultural
Dialogue through Travel Writing: Vikram Seth's From
Heaven Lake: Travels through Sinkiang and Tibet
and Amitav Ghosh's Dancing in Cambodia, At Large
in Burma
-- Padma
Murale
In
recent times, travel writing has crossed the borderline
between fiction and non-fiction, and has de-centered
the prevailing canons. The accounts of travel today
constitute significant documents of culture, and writers
present travel experience imaginatively and construct
or interpret reality from their own angle of vision.
Travel writing, thus, becomes an attempt to introduce
`self' to `the other', providing an opportunity to the
author to explore the other culture and record his aown
experiences in the context of the cultural dialogue
in the `contact zine'. The paper attemots to examine
the cultural exploration and dialogue in From Heaven
Lake: Travels through Sinkiang and Tibet by Vikram
Seth and Dancing in the Cambidia, At Large in Burma
by Amitav Ghose, and to map the individual abilities
of the authors to move through varied experiences in
terms of time and space.
©
2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved.
Travelogue
as (Post)Colonial Satire: Mokkapati
Narasimha Sastry's Barrister Parvatheesam
-- K
Suneetha Rani
Mokkapati
Narasimha Sastry's novel Barrister Parvatheesam
is a timeless satire on the problems of cultural interaction
arising from travel. From a postcolonial perspective,
the travelogue narrates a variety of incidents and issues,
which confronted the early 20th century Indian
travelers in the West. Though the controversy whether
the work is autobiographical continues, it skillfully
reverses the trajectory of travel writing concerning
India. The author is a pioneer in Telugu writing in
depicting the relations and responses of a citizen of
a colonized country to the so-called "civilized"
country with abundant good humor, but without a trace
of rancor. The paper attempts to place the novel in
the tradition of postcolonial travel writing.
©
2003 K Suneetha Rani. This paper was earlier published
in Jouvert, Vol. 7, No. 2. Reprinted with permission. | 
