Latest Articles - Page 79

Understanding the Gender Biases in Modern and Pre-modern Times through Mricchakatika and Utsav

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Prabha Shankar Dwivedi1 and Priyanka Tripathi2

1Assistant Professor of English, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Tirupati. prabhas.dwivedi@iittp.ac.in

2Associate Professor of English, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Patna. priyankatripathi@iitp.ac.in

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.17c

Abstract

Gender Bias is a phenomenon that strengthens in India as a result of personal values and perception, traditionally assigned roles on the basis of sex and regressive ideologies deeply entrenched in patriarchy. Vasantasen? is the protagonist of the M?cchaka?ika of ??draka, a classical Indian masterpiece written in c. 350 BCE which was later adapted into a Hindi film–Utsav (1985) written and directed by Girish Karnad. Despite being an adaptation, in its filmy avatar, Karnad denies Vasantasen? love and respect due to her profession and resorts to endorsing the conventional whereas in the original text she is a respectable woman. The article offers a comparative study of the treatment given to courtesans in general and reflects upon their complex realities by comparing the treatment of an Indian courtesan of two historically apart periods.

Keywords: Gender Bias; Courtesan; Film Adaptation; Patriarchy; Culture

One Danger and Eleven Types of Academic Disquiet Whilst Hunting for Cinematic Christ-figures

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Anton Karl Kozlovic

Researcher in Department of Media and Communication, Deakin University, Victoria, Australia. Email Id: akozlovi@deakin.edu.au

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.17b

Abstract

Christ-figures increasingly permeate the popular cinema, but hunting for them is not necessarily a benign or unproblematic activity. Following a selective review of the film and religion literature, and a preliminary scan of the popular cinema utilizing textually-based humanist film criticism as the guiding analytical lens, one danger and eleven types of academic disquiet were explicated herein. Namely: (1) When Factual Minimalism Equals Certainty: Holy Hope, (2) Misidentification: When Something Supposedly “Christian” Was Something Else, (3) When Nothing Equals Something: Creatio Ex Nihilo, (4) Spiritually Negating Christian Iconography: Form Versus Substance, (5) Some Problems with the Secular-is-Sacred Argument, (6) Film is Not a Substitute for Faith, Religion, or God, (7) Rewriting the Film: Aesthetic Violence?, (8) Tenuous Links, Strained Associations, and Uncertain Correspondences, (9) Rejecting Overt Religion for Covert Religion: Distorting Theology and Misdirecting Faith?, (10) From Symbolism Fatigue to Symbolism Cynicism, and (11) Pattern Appeasement: From Being Uncritical to Narrative Insights. It was concluded that being cognizant of the inherent dangers and sources of academic disquiet is a valuable means of expanding one’s visual and intellectual imagination, and also useful for the postmodern church. Further research into the subtextual sub-genre of the religion-and-film field was encouraged, warmly recommended, and is already long overdue.

Keywords: Christ-figure, religion-and-film, sacred subtexts, Jesus Christ

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Manifestations of Place in Al-Raneen Short Story Collection by Amin Oudah: an Analytical Study

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Mohammad Issa Alhourani1, Suad Al-Waely2 & Tar Abdallahi3

1, 2, 3 College of Education, Humanities, and Social Sciences, Al Ain University

Emails: mohammad.al-hourani@aau.ac.ae, suad.alwaely@aau.ac.ae, tar.abdallahi@aau.ac.ae

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.17

 Abstract

This research paper aims at examining the experience of Amin Oudah in his second short story collection, Al-Raneen. In addition to introducing the writer and highlighting his literary contributions, the paper introduces the reader to the short story collection entitled Al-Raneen. It briefly introduces each story and provides a quick comment on it, with the aim of coming up with a overall perception of all the stories in the collection. In addition, we dedicate a section of the paper to the study of Hamdan’s Shoes, one of the short stories in the collection. This case study provides insights into this particular story and highlights the most significant features that all the stories have in common.

Key words: Al-Raneen, Ringing, Amin Oudah, short story, place

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Cross-Cultural Encounters, Self-Estrangement and Mutual Understanding in Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North

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Mohammad Jamshed

Assistant Professor, English, College of Business Administration, Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Email: jamshed.psau.edu.sa@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.16

Abstract

Cross-cultural encounters and confrontations constitute major areas of postcolonial studies. These depictions are built upon a few stereotypes, colonial constructs and ‘exotic’ images of people. Even in this globalized world of today, these problematic and false assumptions continue directing our ways of thinking and understanding.  We are deeply either ill-informed or misinformed about people who are like us with an insignificant difference in culture and language. As a result, the increasing cultural divide, tensions, conflicts, and misconceptions plague collective human existence. The postcolonial writings, travel literature and feminist studies, characterized by the ideas of ‘self’ and ‘other’, serve as the theoretical framework for this study. These theories have strong parallels as they seek to empower the oppressed and reinstate the marginalized to the position of equality and dignity. The paper attempts to examine in brief how African and Arab writers of the twentieth century, spurred to write back to their demonization in western literary texts, instead chose to promote cultural understanding and present their story from their cultural perspectives. With the help of textual analysis and Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, the paper shows how this colonial trauma distorts perspectives and engenders a sense of self-estrangement and rootlessness which adversely affects the personal lives of people. The paper seeks to use this study to dismantle the stereotypes, reveal similar urges and passions to move away from a troubling past towards a future of mutual respect and cultural understanding. Thus, free from all these mistaken notions misdirecting our ways of dialogues and communications, we, as a global community, will get rid of the ills plaguing our existence across cultures and regions.

Keywords: colonialism; stereotypes; estrangement; cross cultural encounters; understanding; distortions

Construction of Modern Ethno-cultural Identity by Symbolic Art Forms as a Condition for Self-development of Culture: on the Example of Yakutia (Siberia, Russia)

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Aleksei G. Pudov1, Maria I. Koryakina2, Evdokia P. Yakovleva3, Liudmila S. Efimova4 & Natalia S. Shkurko5

1,2?ssociate Professor of the Social and Humanitarian Disciplines, Federal State Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education Yakutsk State Agricultural Academy.

Emails: agro_on_line@mail.ru & kormar61@mail.ru

3?ssociate Professor of the Department of Philosophy, Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education North-Eastern Federal University named after M.K. Ammosov. Email: yakov_eva@mail.ru

4Professor, ?ead of the Department of Cultural Studies, Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education North-Eastern Federal University named after M.K. Ammosov. Email: ludmilaxoco@mail.ru

5?ssociate Professor of the Department of Cultural Studies,Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education North-Eastern Federal University named after M.K. Ammosov. Email: nat-shkurko@yandex.ru

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.15

Abstract

The article reveals the heuristic possibilities of introducing a constructivist interpretation of the phenomena of ethnos and ethno-cultural identity, made on the basis of symbolic constructs of consciousness of a mythological and metaphysical sense. Considering these phenomena from this perspective makes it possible to give a qualitative new interpretation of the understanding of modernizing transformations on the basis of a certain ethno-cultural complex, which is able to effectively conquer the achievements of European modernity. The peculiarity of ethno-cultural identity, which becomes a condition for successful modernization, is modeled on the examples of the development of professional art in Yakutia in the ethno-modern paradigm in the national theater, cinema and choreography. The paper presents the first generalized analysis of the possibilities of ethno-cultural modernization in the “multiple modernities” paradigm, which is based on the ontology of symbolic consciousness of representatives of non-modernized ethnic groups.

 Keywords: ethno-cultural identity, ethnos, constructivism, symbol, ethnic symbolism, mythological and metaphysical symbol of consciousness, Yakutia, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Russia, modernization, ethnomodern, ethno-cultural modernization. the national theatre, the national cinema.

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Poem by Sara Hany Abed

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Sara Hany Abed is a museum and heritage content researcher based in Alexandria, Egypt. She studied her MA in museums and heritage development at Nottingham Trent University UK, with a focus on memorials and documentation in times of conflict. Sara worked on several major international museum projects including the Oman National Museum, and the development of the new Naguib Mahfouz Museum in Cairo. In addition, Sara joined the Egyptian Coffins project at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, as a translator and project manager for the ‘Pop-Up’ museum in Cairo.

Special Collection: Creativity in the Time of the Pandemic 2020>>

Will it change you?

Hugs and kisses you took for granted are no longer signs of love
Even spontaneously shaking hands is something you need to stop and think of
Will it change you?

People claim if they knew it was the last time, things wouldn’t have been the same
Yet, they often forget and act with ultimate indifference as if its all a game
Will it change you?

Elegant suits, shinny offices and posh cars matter no more
You would give them all up for a happy walk under the warm sun on the seashore
Will it change you?

Flights are cancelled and things long planned for are gone
There is no-one to blame and less to be done
Will it change you?

Suddenly the whole world seems to be on hold
Shadows of the past invade the present with what was told, and perhaps never been told
Will it change you?

Here and now, you are the person you decided to be
You can no longer hide from the truth, you see?
Will it change you?

Did you finally get what matters now?
When this is all over, will you go back to the same fake show?
Will it change you?

Today money won’t buy kindness, love, warmth and above all humanity
Plans are falling apart and your ultimate dream is simply peace and serenity
Will it change you?

Today chasing time, money and positions and calling this a life is in vain
These are times of isolation, confrontation and prayers for salvation to save you from this pain
Will it change you?

There is much more to remember, wonder about, and say
About the surreality of where we stand today
Yet, if more words flow endlessly out of my pen
And you take the time to read them time and again
Will it change you?

Published on August 1, 2020. © Author

 

Indian Art and European Science: Patnakalam and Colonial Botanical Drawings

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530 views

Saumya Garima Jaipuriar

Assistant Professor, Department of English, Kirorimal College, University of Delhi.

ORCID: 0000-0002-4336-6278Email: sgjaipuriar@gmail.com,

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.14

 Abstract

This paper seeks to explore how scientific documentation fuelled by Enlightenment and indigenous art intermingled to create Patnakalam in nineteenth century India. Patnakalam, a school of painting that flourished in Patna, Bihar in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, came into existence with the complex interactions between an indigenous artistic tradition and a western visual sensibility mediated by the requirements of science. Botanists of the East India Company employed native artists to make illustrations of local plant species in an attempt to scientifically catalogue all of the natural resources of the region. This inevitably contributed to the formation of a style of painting which went on to have an enduring legacy far beyond their taxonomical albums.

Keywords: Company Painting, Patnakalam, Modern Indian Art, Indian Art History, British Colonial History, Age of Enlightenment

Of fear and fantasy, fact and fiction: Interrogating canonical Indian literary historiography towards comprehending partition of Bengal in post-Independence Indian (English) fictional space

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438 views

Ashes Gupta

Professor, Dept. of English, Tripura University (A Central University), Suryamaninagar, Agartala, West Tripura. ORCID: 0000-0002-5881-8468. Email: ashesgupta@tripurauniv.in

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.13

 Abstract

A victim of the partition of Eastern India/undivided Bengal, a refugee is one who has ironically left behind the real but has carried on forever indelibly imprinted in memory that which is lost and remembered in superlatives, thus moving and simultaneously resisting to move. Remaining mentally anchored forever on ‘Bengal’s shore’ and having been denied the moment of adequate articulation of the loss in factual terms partly due to immediate trauma and partly due to the inherent politics of the language of standard literary expression vis-à-vis spoken language (Bangla vs Bangal respectively) with its hierarchic positionings, as well as the politics of state policy that attributed partition of Western India primordial signification, the Bengali Hindu refugee migrating from erstwhile East Pakistan (and now Bangladesh) to India, has never ‘really’ spoken and this is the hypothesis of this argument. Thus, what is heard, being far removed from the historical moment of rupture that was partition and with the loss of that fateful generation is bound to be ‘fiction’ and not ‘fact’. This paper proposes that since the refugee voice was denied adequate articulation of the ‘facts’ and the ‘fears’ resultant from partition in this part of Eastern India, that historical moment of perception and documentation has been irretrievably lost. Hence any attempt at documenting the same now shall obviously result in fictionalization of and fantasizing the loss as is evident in original and translational post-Independence Indian English Fiction -the moment of loss being the moment of fictional genesis. This paper also puts forward the necessity of identifying two specific periods beyond ‘independence’ whose axiomatic point would be the partition of Eastern India/ undivided Bengal viz. pre-partition and post-partition Indian Literature. The same shall apply to Indian English Literature both in original and translation.

Keywords: fear, fantasy, fact, fiction, partition, canonical historiography, refugee, independence, Indian English fictional space, inter-semiotic, translation.

‘Providential’ Campaigns: Intertwining Thuggee and the Sepoy Mutiny in Colonial Fictions

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Ayusman Chakraborty

Assistant Professor of English (W.B.E.S), Taki Government College, New Town. Rajarhat, Kolkata. ORCID: 0000-0003-0641-0652. Email: hinduayusman@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.12

Abstract:

This article examines how some colonial fictions intertwine historically unconnected Thuggee and the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 to make sense of Indian resistance to British rule. This was done by only a few writers. The article tries to find out what led these colonial writers to link the two unconnected events. To do this, representations of Thuggee and the Mutiny in the works of Captain Meadows Taylor, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Emilio Salgari are scrutinized. The article also considers other relevant works, like those by Sir George MacMunn, Hermann Goedsche, Jules Verne and Francisco Luis Gomes. It tries to ascertain whether a writer’s nationality affected his conceptualization of the relationship between Thuggee and the Mutiny in any significant way. In doing so, it seeks to highlight how representations of Indian insurgency in colonial writings varied in accordance with the writer’s nationality and outlook vis-à-vis British colonialism in India.

Keywords: Thuggee, Sepoy Mutiny, Insurgency, Colonial Fiction, Meadows Taylor, Doyle, Salgari.


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Sanctification of Water among the Population of the Khorezm Oasis

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Abidova Zaynab Kadirberganovna

Head of the Department “Social sciences”, Urgench Branch of the Tashkent Medical Academy Urgench, Khorezm, Uzbekistan. ORCID:  0000-0001-5440-4041. Email: zaynab_74_2011@mail.ru

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.11

 Abstract

Water holds a specific place in life of the people of the Khorezm oasis located in the lower reaches of the deep Amu Darya River which are between the Kara-Kum and Kyzyl-Kum Deserts. This article is devoted to a study of natural places of a pilgrimage connected with the water cult elements of Khwarezm. The remnants of ancient religions are studied and analyzed and found that the rites that are connected with water are traced in the Khorezm oasis. Special attention is paid to the history of studying of genesis and evolution of a cult of water of the Khorezm hagiology and their roles in life of inhabitants of the Khorezm oasis. This can be an important step towards the of revival of spiritual and cultural life of the Uzbek people.

Keywords: water, cult, places of a pilgrimage, legend, ceremony, Hubbi, Amu Darya.

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