Tag: Humanities – Literature/Literary Studies*
Centering Literature: Literature and the History of Environmentalism in Malaysia
Environmentalism in Malaysia, which has its roots in the British colonial administration, has evolved as a social and political force. Ranging from grassroots activists to ENGOs, the environmental movement is founded on the same aspirations: to increase environmental awareness, to preserve the environment and to ensure sustainable development. State-imposed constraints may be the Achilles’ heel …
Arthur Hugh Clough’s Amours De Voyage: A Poetic Account of the 1849 Siege of Rome
It is a cliché to say that we live in a time of political and historical uncertainty. Many commentators have quoted Yeats’ Second Coming (1919) as indicative of the atmosphere of the present: The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity… In this paper I would like to talk about Arthur …
Treasure and Travesty: Refractions of Victorian Imperialism Through Selected Contemporary Literature
Racism is pervasive. Modernity shows that race broaches constant invocation, nearly becoming the standard for relations, internal and international. Moored in dominance and arrogance, the impact of race swelled uncontrollably during the imperial surge of the nineteenth century. Invasion, partition, and exploitation of Africa sowed its latent seeds and nurtured it into the irascible weed …
Theorizing Narrative Space, Memory, and Everyday Present in Tarashankar Bandopadhyay’s the Tale of Hansuli Turn
Village life and community,their rituals and superstitions, the sense of belonging to the ‘place’ they live in, the events of history they observed as an individual and as a community, the thread of nostalgic moments interlace the several generations altogether. The past belongs not to Individuals but to the group who constantly redefined it as …
Tapoi Katha: A Reconstruction of History Through an Odia Folk Travel Narrative
Considering the question of non-European travels and to rediscover a history on the least explored problematic of Intra-Asian travel by South Asian communities, it is important to both investigate this variety within their particular traditions and histories, and also work towards constructing larger theoretical paradigms that emerge out of the specificities of intra-Asian travel which …
Postmodern Simultaneity Versus European History in Contemporary Travel-Writing
The XXIst-century metropolis is dominated by signs, an oppressive quantity of merchandised goods, quick changes and a distortion of traditional space and time. This paper aims to study how distance is suppressed and how simultaneity replaces history in the postmodern era through the work of Pico Iyer, Baudrillard and Umberto Eco. Space and time are …
Representation of History in the Indian Graphic Novel: An Analytical Study of History Through the Frame of Graphic Narratives
This research paper attempt to explore how, through the amalgamation of images and words, India’s historical events have been represented within the frame of the graphic narrative and how these narratives serve to uphold the “history from below”, thereby providing counter narratives to the more dominant, so called “historical facts”. History in the graphic narrative …
Contesting History: Revisiting Native American Identity Through the Narratives of Momaday and Erdrich
This paper will study the works of prominent Native American writers like N.Scott Momaday and Louise Erdrich to illustrate how their works have surpassed the boundaries of the mainstream American Literature in expressing “truths” about the past that conventional history cannot articulate. Analyzing how history in the Native American context is connected to ideas of …
Race and the Quest for Identity in Chimamanda Adichie’s Americanah
Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people but stories can also repair that broken dignity.(Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie) In most of her works, Chimamanda Adichie, the Nigerian author sheds light on the …
Untouched Voices: Dalit Women’s Autobiographies in Dalit History
This paper will engage with the idea of the self as a narrated, social identity, as this is explored and articulated in Dalit women’s autobiographical writing.The category ‘Dalit’ came into use sometime in the nineteenth century to denote the oppressed and exploited ‘untouchable’ communities of India, traditionally considered so ‘impure’ that they were ‘out-castes’; and …