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Food as a Major Cite for Culture and Identity: A Select Reading of Frances Mensah Williams’ Novel From Pasta To Pigfoot

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Sathiya Priya1 T & Shilaja.C.L2

1Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology. Email: sathiyapriya.english@sathyabama.ac.in

2Stella Maris college for Women

Volume 11, Number 2, July-September, 2019 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v11n2.04

First published July 19, 2019

Abstract

It is an unending attempt for the immigrant community to come out of the entanglement of identity issues, especially in postcolonial settings. Apparently, it appears to be more complicated for the second or third generation subjects of the settler’s family for they have zero firsthand experience of their home culture. Such issues of complicated identity are widely addressed in many of the postcolonial narratives and this paper attempts to trace similar kinds of concerns through the specific lens of food. The reason for which food is chosen as a focal point is that food stands as a striking symbol through which multiple aspects of the society like culture, ethnic identity, gender roles, politics, social order, etc., can be vastly interpreted. The novel From Pasta to Pigfoot written by Frances Mensah Williams has a greater scope on analyzing such concepts of culture and postcolonial identity through the representation of food. A deeper examination on the role of food played at various layers throughout the novel allows us to understand that the concepts revolved around the food like cooking, dining, choice of food,  eating, food manners and many other culinary aspects subject to challenge an individual’s identity at a greater level. This article also seeks to examine the ways in which this complexity of individual identity could be at least balanced if not completely resolved.

Keywords: Food, culture, identity, ethnicity, postcolonial, multiculturalism.

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Reading ‘Pterodactyl, Puran Sahay, and Pirtha’ amongst the Barabaig Tribe of Eastern Tanzania

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Mary Louisa Cappelli

MFA, JD, PhD, Nevada State College. Orchid: 0000-0002-0419-9411. Email: Mary.Cappelli@nsc.edu

Volume 11, Number 2, July-September, 2019 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v11n2.03

First published July 12, 2019

Abstract:

The Barabaig peoples are vulnerable economic and ecological refugees pushed to the furthest corner of the Bosutu Plains of Eastern Tanzania to eke out a subsistence existence amidst encroaching capital and globalizing forces. In many ways, the Barabaig face struggles similar to those encountered by the tribals in Mahasweta Devi’s “Pterodactyl, Puran Sahay, and Pirtha.” In this essay, I offer my own ethnographic research to survey the anguish of the Barabaig peoples who try to hold onto their cultural traditions and ways of life in a world geared towards globalized progress. In so doing, I demonstrate how the construction of tribal songs and mythohistories challenge global dynamics and renegotiate gendered positions within dominantly indigenous patriarchal contested spaces. These powerful stories and songs reflect how indigenous mothers imagine and control their own gendered history and preserve their cultural identity and traditional livelihood.

Keywords: Mahasweta Devi, ‘Pterodactyl, Puran Sahay, Pirtha,’ Mythohistories; indigenous peoples; tribals, Mahasweta Devi; Tanzania; Barabaig; indigenous resistance; environmental sustainability; indigenous story telling, indigenous songs, animism, Gayatri Spivak

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Theorizing Mamanuan Diaspora: from Vanishing Mediator to Performative Indigeneity

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Jan Gresil S. Kahambing

Leyte Normal University, Tacloban City, Philippines, vince_jb7@hotmail.com, ORCID: 0000-0002-4258-0563

Volume 11, Number 2, July-September, 2019 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v11n2.02  

First published July 12, 2019

 Abstract

The Mamanuas of Basey, Samar have been in an itinerant state since the 1950s. Their indigenous experience can be capped in the term ‘diaspora,’ which pictures their plight as dispersive habituation, moving from town to town away from their homeland. In a recent study which this paper hinges upon, the concept of diaspora can no longer work and is argued to imperatively function as a vanishing mediator so that indigeneity must come to mean as a constant identity of becoming. Following from such a theoretical lens, this paper delves again into the concept of ‘diaspora’ in the Mamanuan indigenous experience to argue further that its act of mediating functions as performative indigeneity.  To do this, the paper runs in three parts: first, it plots the Mamanuan diaspora experience; second, it briefly reiterates the core argument of diaspora as vanishing mediator; and finally, it theorizes on a concept of what Judith Butler calls ‘performative indigeneity’ that takes its form from the mediation of an indigenous diaspora experience.

Keywords: Mamanwa, Diaspora, Vanishing Mediator, Performativity, Indigeneity, Butler

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What is Performance Studies?

Richard Schechner Tisch School of the Arts, New York University  Download PDF Version Because performance studies is so broad-ranging and

Reclaiming Indigenous Identity and Cultural Diversity in Canada

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Santosh Bharti

Delhi University, Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, Netaji Nagar, New Delhi-110023, bharti.jnu@gmail.com

Volume 11, Number 2, July-September, 2019 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v11n2.01  

First published July 12, 2019

Abstract

Linguistic diversity is the key to Canada’s multicultural identity which it has been struggling to maintain for decades. Its language policies are rooted in two kinds of languages, the languages of European settlers and the indigenous languages spoken by aborigines who are the native residents of Canada. Despite the country’s conservation policy, social tensions and political debates abound on how it treats its languages by according them official or non-official status. Canada first developed its language policy in 1960s on account of Quebec nationalism and growing tensions between colonizing rivals. This led to establishment of policies which rendered English and French as official languages while indigenous languages got little support. Consequently, language-based discrimination is central to the nation’s social and political debates, which inform its self-image since the conquest of indigenous tribes. A combination of factors like hostile colonial policies, reserve systems and residential schools have undermined these languages and separated communities sharing common languages and traditions. This paper will assess how Canada’s indigenous tribes have fared since the implementation of national language policy which mandates protection of indigenous culture and identity. It will examine the treatment of indigenous languages in the current political milieu of Canada, and the progress made by the government towards adoption of important laws and path-breaking policies to create a future that nurtures its multicultural roots while  affirming the national identity.

Keywords: Indigenous, Language, Rights, Identity, Cultural Diversity, Language Policies, Canada.

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Second Language Acquisition via Virtual Learning Platforms: A Case Study on Romanian Experiences

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Lucia-Mihaela Grosu-R?dulescu1 & Veronica-Maria Stan2

1The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania.ORCID: 0000-0001-8183-3263. Email: grosulucia@gmail.com,  

2The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania. Email: stan.veronica01@gmail.com

 Volume 10, Number 3, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n3.15

Received April 21, 2018; Revised August 01, 2018: Accepted August 29, 2018; Published November 03, 2018.

Abstract

Dwelling on the relationship between second language acquisition and independent study, the present article will analyze the relevance of foreign language learning online platforms. Our main assumption is that young adults are inclined to improve their foreign language skills by accessing virtual learning platforms as this experience is emphasizing their need to belong to online learning communities. This study begins with a critical approach of recent trends in learning/ teaching methods in the field of foreign languages. We will mention some successful blended learning strategies for the acquisition and assessment of foreign languages, but we will also pinpoint the limits of such methods. We will then provide a short overview of previous research in this domain conducted in Romania with a focus on the Bucharest University of Economic Studies’ efforts to include an online component in its teaching activities.

Our subsequent analytic section will be constructed on data gathered through a survey conducted in 2016 with tertiary learners from different Romanian academic centers. We will show that by drawing the profile of the 21st century foreign language online learner, we can make informed suggestions for updating foreign language teaching methods. Our main purpose is to predict fresh interactive techniques that could appeal more to students in our domain of interest. We will show that such up-to-date methods can improve not only students’ results in foreign language learning but they can also provide an additional environment where students can make independent learning choices. We will also address the limits of our study and possible subsequent directions of research in order to gather more data that could supplement our initial findings.

Keywords: virtual learning platforms, foreign language learning, independent students

 

The Grotesque and Physical Degeneration in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis

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Abdullah M. Dagamseh1 & Faisal Rawashdeh2

1Yarmouk University, Department of English, Irbid, Jordan, 211-63. Email:  dagamseh@yu.edu.jo. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7479-1253

2Yarmouk University, Department of English, Irbid, Jordan, 211-63. Email: faisal.rawashdeh@yu.edu.jo 

 Volume 10, Number 3, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n3.14

Received August 03, 2018; Revised October 13, 2018: Accepted October 27, 2018; Published November 03, 2018.

Abstract

The question of the grotesque and theories of degeneration emerged in late 19th century Europe and the early decades of the 20th century. We argue that in The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka uses the grotesque and physical degeneration to express a corresponding anxiety about the continuing physical retrogression of Man in the twentieth-century. Moreover, we claim that Kafka’s main character, Gregor, is an entropic body reversing the biological bases of evolution and progression as theorized by many Darwinian evolutionists and Victorian social scientists. In allowing space for the articulation of organic degeneration, Metamorphosis not only attests to the sentiments of 19th-century degenerationists and their predictions of the continuation of this neurotic cycle of retrogression in the following century but also complicates the gothic representation of physical decline by bringing the grotesque into a high degree of prominence. Our reading of Kafka’s novella is informed by Wolfgang Kayser’s and Kelly Hurley’s insights on the subjects of the grotesque and degeneration.

Keywords: Kafka, Metamorphosis, Grotesque, Degeneration, Entropic.

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The Non-Acting Character Type in Natural School Literature

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Tatyana Shvetsova
M.V. Lomonosov Northern (Arctic) Federal University, Russia, Severodvinsk. Email: shvetsovat@yahoo.com

 Volume 10, Number 3, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n3.13

Received August 03, 2018; Revised October 02, 2018: Accepted October 27, 2018; Published November 02, 2018.

Abstract

In literary criticism, the category Act is used to characterize the character’s position in the space of different genres, both artistic and border ones that arose at the intersection of a document and a literary text. The purpose of this research is to use the writings of F.M. Dostoevsky, A.N. Maykov, N.A. Nekrasov, included in the Petersburg Collection, to describe the historical and literary facts that allow us to bring into the light the phenomenon of a non-acting character type (in particular, the bureaucrat) as a system-forming event of the literary process of the XIX century. Philosophical hermeneutics and related literary hermeneutics are the major research methods, as well as the comparative-typological method and the comprehensive system analysis, based on the unity of the structural artistic phenomenon and the aesthetic self-organization. There were analyzed the characters and their actions in the context of works included in the uninvestigated collection of the XIX century. The character, who was brought to the forefront of Russian  literature of that period, is a bureaucrat, who commits no Act. The Crisis (loss) of an Act is a consequence of a changing world view. This research allows offering insights into the understanding of the environment, in which the nineteenth-century Russian  historical and literary process has been forming.

Keywords: nineteenth-century Russian  literature, Act Crisis, the Petersburg Collection, F.M. Dostoevsky, A.N. Maykov, N.A. Nekrasov

Exotifying Bodies: Self-Flagellation, Abjection, and Social Memory

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Noel Christian A. Moratilla

University of the Philippines, University of the Philippines Campus, Diliman, Quezon City. Orcid: 0000-0002-2798-2337. Email: nomorat@yahoo.com

 Volume 10, Number 3, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n3.12

Received September 03, 2018; Revised October 09, 2018: Accepted October 27, 2018; Published November 02, 2018.

Abstract

During the Lenten ritual known in the Philippines as penitensya, hooded peninents whip themselves publicly as they walk.  While some Church and government officials have repeatedly expressed disapproval of the practice, self-flagellation has persisted with characteristic obduracy to this day.  Through mass media and social media, it has caught the attention of other parts of the world.  A cursory search on the internet, for example, would yield not a few visual and textual materials on penitensya.   Some of these materials are analyzed in this paper, using critical frameworks based on Kristeva’s concept of abjection and Jameson’s delineation of third-world literature as national allegories.  One would encounter such abjection in the decontextualized foregrounding of the grisliness, violence, and horror associated with this form of corporal mortification.  As a practice rooted in colonial history, penitensya evokes colonial traumas, but contemporized, it also serves as an allegorical embodiment of collective hopes and possibilities.

Keywords: penitensya; self-flagellation; abjection; Lent in the Philippines; national allegories; Roman Catholicism in the Philippines

The social and historical situation in the nineteenth-century Kazakhstan and the anti-colonial trend in Kazakh literature

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Alya Akimkizi Oskembay, Bakytzhan Bekenovna Kelgembaeva, Baurzhan Amangeldyevich Yerdembekov

Sarsen Amanzholov East Kazakhstan state university, Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan. Email: aoskembay@bk.ru

  Volume 10, Number 3, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n3.11

Received May 03, 2018; Revised September 09, 2018: Accepted October 27, 2018; Published November 02, 2018.

Abstract:

The paper features a brief review of the history of Russia’s colonization of Kazakhstan in the nineteenth century. During this period, Russia was engaged in colonial activities in Asia. After conquering the Kazakh lands, Russia launched a policy of russification and started to force a new sociopolitical model upon the Kazakhs. The research investigates the status of the Kazakh population in Russia and that of the people who were forced to move to China. The research also reviews the attempts of Kazakhs to regain their independence through rebellions, which were suppressed violently by imperial armed forces. The authors analyzed the works of East Kazakhstani poets in the context of the sociocultural processes of that age. The poetic works best reflect the mood of the nation and its attitude to the new policy. The poems of Arimzhan Zhanuzakuli, Argynbek Apashbayuli, and Nogaybay Suleymenuli discover and contemplate the themes that reflect the political and social controversies of the age of economic, political, and cultural expansion into the country (the theme of disappointment with the past and fear of the future) and unite the poets into the “times of tribulation” literary trend. The works of the “times of tribulation” poets gave impetus to the national rebirth of Kazakhs and the return of independence and the possibility to choose their own policy. Due to the subjects addressed in their works, many poets were subject to purges. Nowadays, the Kazakhs have their own independent state of Kazakhstan, which became possible thanks to the national idea that was formed in the works of nineteenth-century poets.

Keywords: colonialization of Kazakhstan, “times of tribulation” literary trend, social lyric poetry, direct nomination.

                                      

Politics of the Man Booker Prize(s): The Case of The White Tiger and Sea of Poppies

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Satyanarayan Tiwari1 & Ajay K Chaubey2

1Doctoral candidate at the Department of English, Dr. H S Gour Central University, Sagar.

2Assistant Professor of English at the Department of Sciences & Humanities, National Institute of Technology, Uttarakhand. E-mail: kcajay79@gmail.com

  Volume 10, Number 3, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n3.10

Received May 06, 2018; Revised September 29, 2018: Accepted October 27, 2018; Published October 29, 2018.

 

 

Abstract:

The present paper is a modest attempt to map the nuances of the politics of literary prizes and their reception in pan-global [literary] market. The discrimination in awarding the prizes is explicitly perceptible when any cultural text produced by the writers of the ‘third world’ is shortlisted for the prize in general, and the Man Booker in particular. It has been studied and observed that the texts which satiate the exotic lens of ‘Orientalism’, or carry colonial legacies, are brought to the fore to mollify the western academia. As a result, affirmative responses for a distorted picture of India portrayed by Indian/diasporic writers, has not only attracted young writers but also paved a shortcut way for them who intend to be famous overnight in the international literary firmament. Therefore, the politics of the Man Booker prize in this regard are discernible, as it not only masquerades, but also marques a writer, a celebrity.

Keywords:  Third World, Orientalism, Diaspora, the Man Booker Prize, Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger, Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies

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