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Gender Subversion in Iris Murdoch’s The Unicorn

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264 views

Soheila Farhani Nejad

English Department, Islamic Azad University, Branch of Abadan, Iran.

Email: soheila.farhani@gmail.com. ORCID:  0000-0001-8168-0703

 Volume 13, Number 1, 2021 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n1.42

Gender Subversion in Iris Murdoch’s The Unicorn

Abstract

This study examines the various representations of female identity in Murdoch’s The Unicorn. The analysis of the novel revolves around the character of Hannah who is the center of everyone’s obsessive gaze. She is described both as an angel and a monster, a victim and a victimizer. Her victimization is aggravated by her passive submission to the will of her victimizers. This simultaneous presence of contradictory features in one character problematizes the notion of perceiving female identity in terms of binaries. As a typical Gothic heroine, Hannah is trapped within cultural assumptions about women. She passively and yet subversively plays the roles projected on her by the contradictory desires of other characters. It will be argued that the obsessive pursuit of perfection in a female figure as well as the disruption of the boundaries of victim and victimizer in this novel serve to problematize the cultural tendency to understand individuals in terms of stereotypes. Therefore, this study aims to illustrate how Murdoch has used an enigmatic female character to challenge the readers’ disposition to perceive characters in terms of gender stereotypes.

Keywords: Gothic, Gender stereotypes, Binaries, Victimization.

Carmen and Salome: the theme of “femme fatale” in the ballets of Mukaram Avakhri

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282 views

Dilara Shomayeva

Kazakh National Academy of Choreography, 9 Uly dala avenue, Nur-Sultan, 010000, Kazakhstan. Email: dilara.shomayeva@gmail.com

 Volume 13, Number 1, 2021 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n1.41

Carmen and Salome: the theme of “femme fatale” in the ballets of Mukaram Avakhri

Abstract

The article deals with the image of the so-called femme fatale in Kazakh choreographic art in the case study of two ballets by Mukaram Avakhri: “Carmen” and “Salome”. The author analyzes the artist’s interpretation of the images of the two title characters as canonical cultural texts in the discourse on the history of female representation. At present, the choreographic theory is at the junction of feminist thought and choreographic interdisciplinary practice that strives to view the dancing female body through alternative means of cognition. The stereotype of femininity in dominant conceptions of the Western culture can be deconstructed through the new experience of female authors that influences the performer and the viewer in a new way. The directing and plastique-based approaches that help the young female Kazakh choreographer to achieve this are of interest to the authors.

Keywords: art history, ballet, female image, female choreographer, canon.

The Cultural Expressions and Representation of National Identity- A Study of the Indian Singing Reality Television Show “Sa Re Ga Ma Pa”

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288 views

Taranjeet Kaur Chawla1 Shiv Shankar Sharma2 Rayaz Hassan3

1Ph.D. Research Scholar, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Manipal University Jaipur, Rajasthan-India. ORCID id: 0000-0002-5336-1964. Email id: ms.kaur011@gmail.com

2Ph.D. Research Scholar, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Manipal University Jaipur, Rajasthan-India. Email id: shiv.sharma6969@gmail.com   

3Associate Professor, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Manipal University Jaipur, Rajasthan-India. Email id: rayaz.hassan@jaipur.manipal.edu              

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Volume 13, Number 1, 2021 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n1.40

The Cultural Expressions and Representation of National Identity- A Study of the Indian Singing Reality Television Show “Sa Re Ga Ma Pa”

Abstract

This paper aims to understand the narrative structure of Indian singing reality television show to identify the representation of national identity. By focusing on the “Sa Re Ga Ma Pa” show format, this paper has followed the work of Vladimir Propp to examine the cultural expressions with the sequential development of the narrative plot. The convergent parallel mixed method has been using to collect quantitative and qualitative data. While using the Likert scale, the reliability of the questionnaire has been calculated and reported Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for internal consistency reliability. The quantitative data has gathered from 205 respondents and 99 episodes aired from 2017 to 2019 have analysed in qualitative data, which is followed by data analysis through IBM SPSS Statistics.  By analysing the quantitative and qualitative data this paper finds that the cultural expressions reveal the notion of national identity through the representation of ‘ordinary’ people and emphasis on performances by focusing on the structured format of Indian reality television. The paper indicates the ways where the viewers of the society can connect with cultural expressions through the genre of reality television.

Keywords: Cultural expressions, Indian reality television, Narrative analysis, National identity, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, Vladimir Propp.

The Weird ‘Others’: An ‘Alternative’ Understanding of the Witches of Macbeth from Feminist Perspective

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578 views

Reema Chakrabarti1, PhD & Shah Al Mamun Sarkar2, PhD

1Assistant Professor of English, Techno Main Salt Lake, Kolkata-700091, India, chakrabarti.reema2012@gmail.com, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2136-7349

2Assistant Professor of English, ICFAI University Tripura, Kamalghat, West Tripura-799210, India, shahalmamunsarkar@gmail.com, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9019-6577

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Volume 13, Number 1, 2021 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n1.39

The Weird ‘Others’: An ‘Alternative’ Understanding of the Witches of Macbeth from Feminist Perspective

Abstract

This paper attempts to re-interpret the witches of Macbeth from a Feminist perspective. Both critics as well as the ordinary readers mostly receive them in a negative light. Doing so, they overlook the fact that women like these witches are relegated to the margins and share a history of being discriminated and vulnerable to attacks. Within the text, they are humiliated as the ‘weird others’ and compared to ‘bubbles’ on earth. To this date, people have the tendency to marginalize and discriminate women who posit their individuality in their socially reclusive lifestyle. While analyzing their character from a Feminist perspective, the paper will explore their trauma and identify their mischief as a source of rebellion. By making such an alternative reading of the text, the work aims to create a ‘shock-effect’ among people who continue to discriminate such marginalized women.

Keywords: Women, Witches, Macbeth, Feminism, Identity.

Consumption and the Indian Diaspora: A Study of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake

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421 views

Rashmi Das

Ph.D. Research Scholar, Dept. of English, Tezpur University, Assam, India.

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-2322-9049. Email: rashmidas094@gmail.com

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Volume 13, Number 1, 2021 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n1.38

Consumption and the Indian Diaspora: A Study of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake

Abstract

For the diaspora, consumption remains a significant exercise, as it acts as a means of appropriation of the host land, while also being an agency of assimilation and categorisation. Moreover, the fact remains that consumption or eating simultaneously entails regeneration and violence. As such, this paper justifies how the locus of consumption is multifaceted, being not only physical, but also metaphorical, and at times hyperreal, whereby the diaspora exists not only as consumers, but also as an item of consumption by the hosts. For this purpose, Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake (2003) has been analysed through the methodology of close reading, to present how food and its narrative is used as a repetitive metaphor and an ideological implement, which further illuminates the technicalities of consumption among the Indian diaspora. To set the stage, this paper briefly summarises the development of food studies as a genre, which has successfully enlarged the scope of literary criticism and research. Theoretically, this paper draws on Mikhail Bakhtin’s discourse of food and eating as presented in his work Rabelais and His World (1965). By examining the unifying trope of food, this paper attempts to study the numerous dichotomies between the diasporic body and the concept of the grotesque body, as put forward by Bakhtin. This paper also attends to the concept of “culinary citizenship” (Mannur, 2010, p. 20) and traces the way it is overturned in favour of culinary “interorientation” (Bakhtin, 1965/1984, p. 317).

Keywords: Consumption, Food, Diaspora, Culinary citizenship, Culinary interorientation, Banquet, Inverted exoticism.

 

The Indulekha Moment and the Malayalam Literary Canon: On the Literary History of the Early Twentieth-century Novels in Kerala, South India

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501 views

Sruthi Vinayan1 and Merin Simi Raj2

1Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, Indian Institute of Management Indore, sruthiv@iimidr.ac.in, ORCID id: 0000-0002-0041-919X

2Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, merin@iitm.ac.in, ORCID id: 0000-0003-3997-8711

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Volume 13, Number 1, 2021 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n1.37
The Indulekha Moment and the Malayalam Literary Canon: On the Literary History of the Early Twentieth-century Novels in Kerala, South India

Abstract

This article analyses the politics of the literary canon of the early twentieth century Malayalam novels with particular focus on the impact of the novel Indulekha (1889) in literary history. The inception of novel as a literary genre is widely regarded as a point of departure for Malayalam literature leading to the development of modern Malayalam, thereby shaping a distinct Malayali identity. Interestingly, the literary histories which established the legacy of Malayalam prose tend to trace a linear history of Malayalam novels which favoured the ‘Kerala Renaissance’ narrative, especially while discussing its initial phase. This calls for a perusal of the literary critical tradition in which the overarching presence of Indulekha has led to the eclipsing of several other works written during the turn of the twentieth-century, resulting in a skewed understanding of the evolution of the genre. This article would explicate in detail, on what gets compromised in canon formation when aesthetic criteria overshadow the extraliterary features. It also examines how the literary history of early Malayalam novels shaped the cultural memory of colonial modernity in Kerala.

Keywords: literary history, Malayalam novel, Indulekha, politics of canon, colonial modernity in Kerala

The audience and the star: Genre as the interface and expectation-fulfillment as the catalyst of their relationship

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221 views

Bikash Ch. Bhowmick

Assistant Professor, Department of Media Studies and Journalism, University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB). ORCID: 0000-0003-0830-1986. Email: bikash.bhowmick@ulab.edu.bd,

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Volume 13, Number 1, 2021 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n1.36
The audience and the star: Genre as the interface and expectation-fulfillment as the catalyst of their relationship

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between a film audience and a film star. It assumes that the genre is a common ground or interface where an actor – who then becomes the star, and an audience meet together and afterward the expectations of that audience become the key player to push forward the relationship between them. In forging the relationship between two parties, the genre takes the responsibility of constructing an actor’s star-personality and of shaping the spectator’s size of a distinct kind. To substantiate the argument, the essay discusses audiences’ inscribed entity and construction of a star under the title ‘the star – a construction of the negotiations’; the dynamics of their relationship under the title ‘audience expectation and their relationship with the Star’ and finally, in conclusion, it highlights the genre’s intermediary contribution to the relationship. The author has taken the critical/theoretical approach; therefore heavily relied on existing literature and theories (e.g. psychoanalysis, star theory).  Primary data has also been used in support of the arguments. Survey questionnaires and in-depth interviews have been used as methods of primary data collection.

Keywords: audience, expectation-fulfillment, catalyst, genre, relationship, star

Non-Verbal Signs and Secret Communication as Universal Signs of Intercultural Communication

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409 views

Altyn N. Muratova1, Shara Mazhitayeva1, Bayan Zh. Sarybayeva2, Aiman Kelmaganbetova1, Zhanar Kulibekova3  

1Buketov Karaganda University, Ulitsa Universitatskaja, 28, Karaganda, Kazakhstan

2Pavlodar Pedagogical University, Kazakhstan

3M. Kozybaev North Kazakhstan State University, Kazakhstan

Contact: s_mazhit@mail.ru

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Volume 13, Number 1, 2021 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n1.35

Non-Verbal Signs and Secret Communication as Universal Signs of Intercultural Communication

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the national cognitive nature, the hidden essence of non-verbal techniques. The main purpose of the study is to prove that, based on materials on nonverbal uses in language, they are used to convey a confidential, hidden message, to show that in international communication there is a change in the semantics of nonverbal actions depending on the culture and individual knowledge of each nation. Methods In human life, in parallel with verbal communication, an experiment was conducted on nonverbal techniques, sometimes used in pure form and used to convey a secret and hidden message. The article presents an analysis based on a statistical method compared with some kinemes used in a common language. In the studies on non-verbal techniques, it is noted that they perform a main function in the relations between people. In this article, in the course of analyzing the nature of nonverbal techniques, we characterized some kinemes used depending on the worldview of the Kazakh people, and concluded that their background is directly related to the mystery. Application of the study: the results, materials, and conclusions of the work can be used in the history of language, sociolinguistics, and paralinguistic studies, and allow researchers of gesture semantics to explore nonverbal techniques from a new perspective. Scientists-linguists, psychologists have created many works related to the definition of human nature, character, and the place of nonverbal techniques in the speech act. However, it was not said that auxiliary means located outside the language will be used to transmit confidential, non-public information. In this work, we stopped at the place of nonverbal methods of transmitting confidential, hidden information and analyzed the functions in confidential communication.

Keywords: nonverbal communication, communication, cognition, secret communication, kineme.

Visualizing Memory Scapes: A Spatio- Affective Study of Select War Memorials of Jammu and Kashmir

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266 views

Ritika Pathania1 and Raj Thakur2

1PhD. Department of English, Central University of Jammu, J&K, India. Address: H.no. 218- E, Sainik Colony, Jammu-180011, J&K, India. Email: ritika9feb@gmail.com. Orcid id- https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5608-7588

2PhD. Assistant Professor, Department of English, Central University of Jammu. Bagla (Rahya Suchani) Distt. Samba, J&K, India. Email: thakurraj.13@gmail.com. Orcid id- https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6962-3658

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Volume 13, Number 1, 2021 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n1.34

Visualizing Memory Scapes: A Spatio- Affective Study of Select War Memorials of Jammu and Kashmir

Abstract

The paper through iconographic and spatial dynamics, critically engages with the performative aspect of the select war memorial sites in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. While the interdisciplinary study of war memorials in relation to memory and commemorative politics have been studied, its materialistic aesthetics informed through spatial and affective contours  remains a burgeoning field of enquiry if not an unexampled one. The study is premised on the photographic field work of the sites envisioned through the cultural geography of war memorials. In approaching war memorial sites as a landscape of memory, we take the position that memory is simultaneously a material and immaterial phenomenon and these cannot be detached from affective and visceral human bonds and their roles in (re-)formulations in space and place. The materialistic aesthetics of memory- memorial continuum are ideated through spatial and affective contours, which, in turn, inform the predominant and everyday experience of grief and bereavement, both imagined and lived. The study dominantly attests its claims through Foucault’s concept of ‘heterotopia’ in relation to commemorative sites. The heterotopic tensions of multiple experiences and belongings are unpacked through both tangible and affective domains ranging from dominant public commemorative sites to parks and shopping complexes.

Keywords: war memorials, memory, spatiality, affect, Jammu and Kashmir

India nel quattrocento: Fifteenth-Century Italian Travel Writings on India

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277 views

Jitamanyu Das

Doctoral Candidate (JRF), Department of English, Jadavpur University, ORCID: 0000-0001-5845-8098,  jitamanyudas@gmail.com,

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Volume 13, Number 1, 2021 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n1.33

India nel quattrocento: Fifteenth-Century Italian Travel Writings on India

Abstract

Fifteenth-century Italian travel narratives on India by Nicolò dei Conti and Gerolamo di Santo Stefano present a detailed account of the India they visited, following the narrative tradition of the Italian Marco Polo. These narratives of the Renaissance were published as descriptive authorial texts of travellers to the East. Their importance was due to the authors’ detailed first-hand experiences of the societies and cultures that they encountered, as well as the various trade centres of the period. These narratives were utilised by merchants, explorers, and Jesuits for a variety of purposes. The narratives of Nicolò dei Conti and Gerolamo di Santo Stefano thus became indispensable tools that were later distorted through numerous translations to suit the politics of Orientalism for the emerging colonial enterprises. In my paper, I have attempted a re-reading of the particular texts to identify how Italy saw India, while illustrating through their history of publication the transformation that these narratives underwent later in order to objectify India in the West through the lens of Orientalism in their manner of representation.

Keywords: India, Italian Travel Writing, Orientalism, Renaissance, Translation

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