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Contagion and Human Behavior: Examining “12 Monkeys and Contagion through the Pandemic”

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162 views

Manoj Kumar Behera

Ph.D. Scholar, Utkal University, ORCID ID/P ID: 344912331. Email: behera.manoj8@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s26n7

Abstract

A pandemic always teaches the value of life on earth. It also brings the real or primordial nature of humanity to the forefront. In this paper, I will examine the attitude of humans towards the virus, infected humans, and towards other humans in general. While examining these attitudes of humans I will move from specific to general. In order to support my ideas, I will discuss two films i.e. 12 Monkeys and Contagion in particular. Disability studies will be used as a theory to support my arguments.  Everyone in this world has experienced disability directly or indirectly. At present, the ongoing Corona virus pandemic has changed our perception regarding the meaning of our life. We are all vulnerable in this world and we can become the reason for making somebody vulnerable. The problem is that to whom we consider disable. Is it based on appearance or moral outlook?  How shall we respond or how shall we deal with such a situation?  Humanities closely observe world affairs. It predicts futuristic scenarios based on facts. It raises essential questions for the sake of humanity. Now an infected person is considered untouchable. It’s extremely sad to experience such an awful feeling. But in our society untouchability based on caste and disease is a common thing. A virus helps everyone to experience what Dalit humans had once experienced. Now strangers and our relatives are equally suspicious. Separation and inclusion both are associated with the infection. Social hierarchy has changed. Everyone is now untouchable.

Keywords- Pandemic, Disability, Untouchability, Isolation, Vulnerable

‘Working for/from Home’: An Interdisciplinary Understanding of Mothers in India

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231 views

Sucharita Sarkar

Associate Professor, D.T.S.S. College of Commerce, Mumbai, India.

Email: sarkarsucharita@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s26n6

Abstract

Situated in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, this paper begins by looking at the recent advertisement by Amul praising mothers who are ‘working from home’ and ‘working for home’ during the lockdown, with an accompanying cartoon visualizing the iconic Amul girl sitting beside her mother who is working on her laptop while keeping an eye on her daughter; in a juxtaposed cartoon, the mother is cooking in the kitchen while simultaneously scrolling through her smartphone. Amongst my groups of women friends, the advertisement elicited strong and contradictory responses: ranging from approval of the appreciation for maternal work to disapproval at the missing father. In order to critique this advertisement, I would use the lens of Motherhood Studies, an emerging area of scholarship that is inherently interdisciplinary.  Reading the advertisement as a cultural text, I will attempt to locate the maternal stereotypes embedded in it: the merging of the stay-at-home mother and the working-mother into the ideal neoliberal mother-worker, the supermom who effortlessly balances work and home, even in extraordinary times like the pandemic and lockdown. These entangled maternal stereotypes have been reified in popular consciousness through mythic, religious, literary and filmic artefacts. A cross-disciplinary tracing of the stereotypes will reveal the motherhood constructs and the cultural expectations that mothers encounter, and also attempt to explain why and how these constructs and expectations operate. The paper will look at the possibilities of resistance to these stereotypes, germinating in feminist, or posthuman, or matricentric approaches to motherhood. I will use the critical distinction between motherhood-as-ideology and mothering-as-agency to understand maternal resistances, some of which may be located in the responses to the Amul advertisement. The paper will conclude by assessing the emergence of Motherhood Studies as a legitimate field of interdisciplinary humanities and/or social sciences.

 Keywords: cultural studies; Indian mothers; interdisciplinary; matricentric feminism; motherhood studies

 

“When spotted deaths ran arm’d through every street”: Women-Healers and the Great Plague in Geraldine Brooks’ Year of Wonders

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189 views

Isha Biswas

PhD Scholar (English), Vidyasagar University, Faculty, Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis Mahavidyalaya. Email: yoshinokurosaki@gmail.com. Orcid ID: 0000-0001-8328-4579

 Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s26n4

Abstract

In the late 1600s, England was reeling under the recurrence of the pandemic that had swept continent-wide in the 14th century. However, it was not the only disease lurking around. At the heels of the scarlet-ringed Black Death, came the scarlet letter of witchcraft accusations, mostly geared towards Wise Women in the margins of society- women who exhibited knowledge and skill in medicine, herbal remedies and midwifery. Set in the time when religious fanaticism and Puritanical fear-mongering was at its height, Year of Wonders presents before us an opportunity to delve into the web of lies and life-threatening allegations that formed the bedrock of the English witch trials continuing in full swing since the incursion of Continental lore ever since James I came to power. Furthermore, with midwives and female herbalists in the area falling prey to targeted sexual and physical violence in the wake of the pandemic in the story, what needs to be inspected is the inescapable link between Church-backed patriarchy’s delusional fear, jealousy and consequent scapegoating of the economically and socio-sexually marginalized woman-healers in the countryside and the failure of the male-dominated medical field in effectively containing the spread of the virus. The paper investigates further the generational flow of biomedical wisdom in a female-oriented domain which becomes significant in the presentation of the two female leads inheriting the function of the Wise Women from the original holders of the position, thus solidifying the sense of found family and sisterhood standing against the mounting social pressure to bend to the will of the Church and the men in their lives.

Keywords: Witch, Wise Women, Black Death, Misogyny, Medicine, Women-healers

Economic and Psychosocial Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Badhai Hijras: A Qualitative Study

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287 views

Preeti1 & Shyamkiran Kaur2

1Dr. B.R. Ambedkar National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar, Punjab, India, email- preeti.hm.19@nitj.ac.in, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2279-6532

2Dr. B.R. Ambedkar National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar, Punjab, India, email- kaursk@nitj.ac.in, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8182-361X

 Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s26n3

 Abstract

Human history has witnessed various natural upheavals, pandemics being one of them. These pandemics whether The Black Death, The Great Plague of London, Russian Flu, Spanish Flu, Asian Flu, HIV/AIDS, SARS, etc. struck down every sphere of human civilization. The devastating economic and psychosocial impact of COVID-19 has been experienced by every group of population whether privileged or marginalised. Hijras (a term used by Serena Nanda for the transgenders in Indian Subcontinent) especially badhai hijras (transgender performers) who are already living on the edges of society have been targeted worst by this pandemic as their livelihood is solely dependent upon their performances on various social gatherings that decreased significantly during the period. These people amidst poor finances are confronting more discrimination by the heteronormative set-up which results in their low physical, mental, and social well-being. The objective of the present paper is to study the economic and psychosocial impact of COVID-19 pandemic on hijras in general and badhai hijras in particular. The arguments are supported by various vis-a-vis interactions with hijras and an NGO working for their well-being in the district Jalandhar, Punjab (India). While using the interview technique, a structural questionnaire for a sample population of badhai hijras was used to collect data for the study. The findings of the research work highlighted the urgent need of providing financial assistance to the badhai hijras. The research work would assist the decision making agencies of government to frame policies for these marginalized individuals which will directly support them in the pandemic.

 [Keywords– LGBTQ, hijras, badhai hijras, pandemic, COVID-19, Transphobia, Heteronormative]

Live (Life) Streaming: Virtual Interaction, Virtual Proximity, and Streaming Everyday Life during the COVID- 19 Pandemic

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316 views

Ujjwal Khobra1 & Rashmi Gaur2

1Doctoral Student, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand- 247667. singh.ujjwal1994@gmail.com, ukhobra@hs.iitr.ac.in, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5271-3518.

2Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand- 247667, rashmigaur@hs.iitr.ac.in

 Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s26n2

 Abstract

This paper proposes to examine the digital event of live streaming as an entanglement of digital engagement, virtual proximity, and virtual embodiment as a possible posthuman concern, foregrounded by the ongoing COVID- 19 pandemic. The transition witnessed in the medium of communication between humans has significantly deconstructed our understanding of the ‘normal’, consequently introducing a new phase of lost corporeality, digitally. Unforeseen excessive employment of the virtual engagement system of live (life) streaming is a testament to the current human extremity. In the light of this transition, the paper attempts to explore the possibility of witnessing some semblance of reality by altering the praxis of normalcy in the practice of the COVID appropriate ‘new normal’ through the virtual medium of a live stream. Since the ontology of human exceptionalism has come under direct attack due to the current pandemic, a reassessment of the human/ technology interphase and its consequent posthuman predicament is urgent. Drawing on Rosi Braidotti’s concept of life beyond the self and N. Katherine Hayles’s concept of embodied virtuality, this paper analyses the technical feature of live streaming as the ‘digital’ becoming of human beings in the contemporary COVID- 19 world, further complicating the modes of construction of embodiment through live (life) streaming.

 KEYWORDS: COVID- 19, pandemic, live streaming, virtual proximity, virtual interaction, new normal, virtual embodiment, posthuman.

Imagining Extinction inside Viral Body without Organs

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167 views

Asijit Datta

Assistant Professor and Head, Department of English, The Heritage College (Kolkata)

ORCID: 0000-0002-9340-3727. Email: asijitdatta@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s25n5

Abstract:

Virus, in the form of a preassigned body without organs, predates the arrival of human species, and evolved on earth approximately three billion years ago, currently having an estimated variation of hundred million types. Humans form an insignificant subsection of the ‘virosphere’ (Crawford). Equipped with the knowledge of all organisms, the SARS-CoV-2 (my focus in this paper) virus combines with angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) which in turn identifies the tissues vulnerable to the infection. Once in the cell, it expropriates the cell’s mechanism, makes numerous copies of itself and invades other cells. Immune cells in the battle against the virus disrupt the flow of oxygen to all other parts of the body. In most cases, there is inflammation of the alveolus, its broken walls lessen oxygen intake, and the patient ends up in the ventilator. Eventually, the virus strikes all the organs with differing intensities– the lungs, the heart, the brain, the kidneys, the gut, the eyes. The animal virus merging with its human counterpart mirrors “interkingdoms, unnatural participations” where “Nature operates– against itself” (Deleuze and Guattari). Virus is anti-genealogy. Viruses bring the human and the non-human others together in a rhizomatic relation where genetic information and DNA are exchanged. Viruses, as BwO, de-structure the essential frame and subjectivity of humans. Both the human individual and viruses share a common plane where none possesses any essential reality and unfolds as an interactive space for multiple organic and inorganic exchanges. The only “enemy” of the virus is the organism, and as indeterminate, pure lawlessness it attacks the fundamental organization– the cellular and the molecular. Like the body without organs, viruses are anonymous/acephalous with its undying insistence to repeat/multiply and maximize connections. Virus is pure desire oriented towards reducing the infected body to its elemental form (compost/ash and others). Each organ transmutes into a body reacting against other bodies and against the whole body containing all organs. Claire Colebrook observes that a virus is so alive, “so lacking in boundaries and limits” that it does not qualify as a living being. My paper seeks to investigate the role of the virus in reducing/expanding the human to such an extent that it becomes one with the ground, and returns to its originary existence. I further propose that pandemics throughout history have initiated a re-imagination of human continuance; pandemics activate the human-toward-extinction by inducing the immortal virus through (consumed/to be consumed/ living) animals within the human.

 Keywords: virus, extinction, body without organs, organism, animal.

Death in the Line of Duty: Caregivers in the Plague narratives

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184 views

Seema Sinha

Research Scholar, BITS Pilani, Rajasthan

 Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s25n4

Abstract

The dystopian tropes in the plague narratives shift our gaze from the presence of professional ethics to the Gothic horror that unfolds subsequently. Yet whether it is the Great Plague of London in the year 1665, or the Novel Coronavirus in Mumbai in the year 2020, the rampant spread of the contagion and the associated dread bring into focus the selflessness of the caregivers, namely, the medical and the para-medic staff. Comparing the occurrences, one historical, the other still unfolding, this study examines the eery similarities that delineate contagion as metaphor, and the role of doctors in the pandemics. The aim is to find out what happens when the doctors stumble – to succumb to fear, to fall prey to diseases that flesh is subject to, or to violate the oath of Hippocrates. We intend to scrutinize if like soldiers on the battle-front, these frontline warriors also keep their tryst with death in the line of duty, or does History record otherwise. Whether the pestilence be classical or modern, the response of the caregivers is the cornerstone on which any society is grounded. The purpose of this study is to evaluate if courage in the face of disaster is still relevant in this age of anxiety, or does self-preservation win against ethics and morality. A close reading of Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year gives us an insight into the timelessness of such issues, especially in a world that is plagued with maladies of its own making.

 Keywords: Dystopian, tropes, plague narratives, gaze, Gothic, contagion as metaphor

Rendezvous with the Pandemic Survivors: An Analysis of the Spanish Flu in Katherine Anne Porter’s “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” and COVID-19

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226 views

Salini Sethi1, Sonali Das2 and Mousumi Dash3

1Assistant Professor, Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (Deemed to be University), Email: salini.spa.1@gmail.com, ORCID: 0000-0002-7318-8070

2PhD Scholar, Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (Deemed to be University), Email: sonalidas151994@gmail.com, ORCID: 0000-0002-2005-5792

3Associate Professor, Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (Deemed to be University), Email: drmousumidash16@gmail.com, ORCID: 0000-0002-7016-4719

 Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s25n1

Abstract

Laura Spinney, British science journalist and author of Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World observes that, “The Spanish Flu is remembered personally, not collectively. Not as a historical disaster, but as millions of discreet, private tragedies.” The pandemic of 1918 was not memorialized like World War I which supervened at the same time as the Spanish Flu. It was soon relegated in public memory as the world emerged from the throes of the nightmarish war. Almost a century later, the world finds itself in the grip of yet another pandemic, the COVID-19. Similar situations of patients with multiple complex symptoms, heaving hospitals, shortage of doctors and nurses, scenes of patients left unattended, dealing with the guilt of infecting their family and friends and struggling to survive paints an apocalyptic scenario. This paper tries to explore a parallel among the two pandemics as it witnesses the tragic tale of a survivor of the Spanish Influenza in Katherine Anne Porter’s autobiographical short novel “Pale Horse, Pale Rider.” The private tragedies of physical deterioration, psychological delusions and social stigmatization also suffered by the COVID-19 survivors have been documented and blazoned all over news and social media. The design behind broadcasting these factual accounts are recognition of the reality of the virus (suspected and labelled fake on many occasions), awareness of the symptoms and understanding of the disease. These hopeful and optimistic narratives of the COVID survivors are a faint ray of hope in these bleak times.

 Keywords: COVID-19, Katherine Anne Porter, Psychology, Spanish Flu, Survivor

Deconstructing Maternal Semiotic and Paternal Symbolic: A Psycholinguistic Perspective for Social Refinement

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170 views

Dhara Rathod

Department of Business and management, Institute of Advanced Research, Gandhinagar. Email: dhara.rathod87@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s24n5

Abstract:

To examine the possibilities of reciprocal relationship of Semiotic and Symbolic in language processing, the present study attempts to analyze the psycholinguistic perspective as an essential tool for social refinement. When the select semiotic used for female which is maternal gets its signification in symbolic which is paternal was found affective. Genially, there should no such ideas as masculine or feminine in semiotic and symbolic. Consciously or unconsciously, female locates her priming words as an auxiliary and thereafter the psycholinguistic perspective for social change demands influence of semiotic and symbolic congruency for women empowerment in the globalized era. To transmit, receive and deform meanings of the words that have been used, misused and abused for females, the present study attempts to analyse select words through psycholinguistic filament of language learning. The finding suggests that this deconstructing psychic and linguistic change demands representation of right semiotic and symbolic interpretation of words at Mirror Stage of language processing.

Keywords: Psycholinguistic, feminism, semiotic, symbolic, maternal, paternal, signification, social refinement.

Exploring a Fourth Space for Composition Studies Research

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188 views

John R. Baker1 & Patrick Bizzaro2

1National Quemoy University, Taiwan. Email: drjohnbaker@yahoo.com

2Professor Emeritus, East Carolina University, U.S.A. Email: pbpp@auxmail.iup.edu

 Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s24n4

Abstract

The research methods landscape has the potential to be quite diverse. However, the paradigmatic battles between the two empirical research camps (quantitative and qualitative) and the more recent embracement of mixed-methods research has narrowly focused many fields’ attention, including that of composition studies, away from other sorts of useful methods, such as theoretical research. To address this, this sequential two-part study compares and contrasts the (a) purpose, (b) instruments, (c) data, and (d) structure of quantitative and qualitative research. Drawing on this four-part structure, this study advances composition studies research methods literature by posing and testing a definition of theoretical research through an examination of full-length core composition studies texts (N = 12). The article concludes by explaining the study’s relevance to the field and offering directions for future research.

Keywords: Theoretical Research, Composition Studies, Rhetoric

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