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Ecotopia: Ecological Concerns and Alternate Womanspace in Select Novels of Ursula K. Le Guin

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Asish Kr. Charan & Tanu Gupta
1,2Chandigarh University, Punjab, India. 

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.28
[Article History: Received 10 June 2023. Revised: 17 Sept 2023. Accepted: 18 Sept 2023. Published: 20 Sept 2023.]
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Abstract:

The term ecotopia draws attention to the etymological link between utopia and ecologism, which emphasizes the importance of maintaining a sustainable relationship with the natural world in the context of an ideal egalitarian society. Literary utopias aim to evoke a longing for a society that differs from the present, playing a crucial role in breaking free from conventional thinking and envisioning alternatives to oppressive social institutions. The concept of green utopias is unthinkable without radical social reforms and changes in culture and lifestyle. Feminist ecotopia proposes a gendered deconstruction and reconstruction of a green utopian society. In her ecotopian novels Always Coming Home and Tehanu, Ursula K. Le Guin explores the relationship between ecologism and utopia. The structure of these novels frequently exhibits an ecotopian sensibility, while their content emphasizes the process of creating a better society. Le Guin’s transgressive concept of utopia and ecology seeks to challenge and subvert the ideological frameworks that support materialist and dominant patriarchal conceptions. It provides feminist writers with a distinct space to imagine transgressive and oppositional ecotopian alternatives, where mothering-related myths and femininized characteristics are valued. This paper delves into how Le Guin’s utopian novels interrogate and deconstruct powerful patriarchal structures, creating a cultural space for women to imagine transgressive and oppositional ecotopian alternatives.

Keywords: Ecotopia, Utopia, Ecology, Feminist Utopia, Terraforming, Yin-Yang, Daoism   

Sustainable Development Goals: Gender Equality, Life on Land
Citation: Charan. Asish Kr. & Tanu Gupta. 2023. Ecotopia: Ecological Concerns and Alternate Womanspace in Select Novels of Ursula K. Le Guin. Rupkatha Journal 15:3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.28 

Keeping Myth Memory Alive: The Usual and the Unusual in Sudha Murty’s Unusual Tales Series

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631 views

Susan Lobo
Associate Professor, Department of English, St. Andrew’s College of Arts, Science, and Commerce

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.27
[Article History: Received: 12 June 2023. Revised: 10 Sept 2023. Accepted: 11 Sept 2023. Published: 12 Sept 2023]
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Abstract  
If myth is vital to a community, its memory must be kept alive. But how, is the question? Is it always prudent to remain faithful to the ‘original’ version of the received myth, or is it desirable to tamper with, or destabilize, the source myth? In India, mainstream versions of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata have long been disrupted by folk, feminist, and queer adaptations. Reversions of these oral, transhistorical master narratives of Hinduism have made a resurgence in a post-independence India that is precariously perched between tradition and modernity, and hence more acutely desirous that its children veer closer to their roots, or so the flourishing market for myth retellings for children suggests. Amongst this incandescent body of literature is Sudha Murty’s series of five books that revisits popular stories about the gods and goddesses of the Hindu pantheon — The Serpent’s Revenge: Unusual Tales from the Mahabharata (2016), The Man from the Egg: Unusual Tales about the Trinity (2017), The Upside Down King: Unusual Tales about Rama and Krishna (2018), The Daughter from a Wishing Tree: Unusual Tales about Women in Mythology (2019), and The Sage with Two Horns: Unusual Tales from Mythology (2021). This paper explores how these tales of antiquity, refracted and reconstructed through the author’s own personal memory, intersect with the more public and collective myth memory of the community. In reviewing Murty’s retrieval of myths by reimagining and re-situating the ‘evidentiary traces’ of myth in the here and now for the children of today, it interrogates how, if at all, the retold myths counter the metanarratives of gender, religion, culture and perhaps, history too. Finally, it argues that the genre of myth retelling must go beyond simply reviving myth memory to destabilizing myth by ‘fiddling ‘with the sacred, especially when adapted for children.

Keywords: destabilization, evidentiary traces, myth memory, myth retelling
Sustainable Development Goals: Gender Equality
Citation: Lobo, Susan, 2023. Keeping Myth Memory Alive: The Usual and the Unusual in Sudha Murty’s Unusual Tales Series. Rupkatha Journal 15:3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.27

The Historical Revolution of Vatican II and the Vision of a Post-Western Christianity in India

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Enrico Beltramini
Notre Dame de Namur University, Belmont, California, USA. 0000-0001-9704-3960

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.26
[Article History: Received: 28 August 2023. Revised: 10 Sept 2023. Accepted: 11 Sept 2023. Published: 12 Sept 2023]
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Abstract

The vision of a post-western Christianity in India is traditionally linked to a distinct theological interpretation of Vatican II. According to such an interpretation, Vatican II was a theological revolution that favoured the openness of the Church to the world. In this article, I explore that vision through a historical, rather than a theological, interpretation of Vatican II. In Europe, Vatican II was a historical revolution that promoted the exit of Catholicism from Christendom and the establishment of a new Christian order with no links with Christendom. In India, this post-Christendom order has taken the form of a post-western order.

Keywords: Vatican II; revolution; reception; India; theology; Church; Roman Catholicism
Sustainable Development Goals: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Citation: Beltramini, Enrico. 2023. The Historical Revolution of Vatican II and the Vision of a Post-Western Christianity in India. Rupkatha Journal, 15:3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.26 

 

Mondrian’s rendition of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of will and disinterested aesthetic experience

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Ali Fallahzadeh 1 & Zahra Rahbarnia 2
1,2Department of Research of Art, Faculty of Art, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran.

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.25
[Article History: Received: 10 August 2023. Revised: 5 September 2023. Accepted: 7 Sept 2023. Published: 12 Sept 2023]
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Abstract

Despite the pivotal role of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) in the sophistication of Modern aesthetics and art theories in the 20th century and his special attention to aesthetic experience, considerably little is known about the impacts of his aesthetic theory, particularly pertaining his account on conception disinterested aesthetic experience formed based on his metaphysics of will, on some of the most enriched Modern art theories like Piet Mondrian’s Neo-Plasticism. On the other side of the spectrum, Mondrian’s Neo-Plastic paintings, his universal pure abstract style, have been well examined through historical approaches and Modernist theories, especially about the Greenbergian account and Modern styles like De Stijl art movement in the last few decades. Moreover, his quasi-philosophical writings have been vastly scrutinized in the light of their impacts on Theosophic, Platonic, and Hegelian doctrines. Interestingly, Mondrian, in his theoretical writings, explicitly refers to the Schopenhauerian conception of disinterested contemplation and the requirements for having a universal aesthetic experience. Yet, Mondrian’s account of Schopenhauer’s notion of disinterested contemplation, namely for notions like individual will, Will, intellect, cessation of subserviency of intellect to the will, and so on, has not been scrutinized through an aesthetic lens.

Hence, this article first aims to investigate Mondrian’s rendition of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of will and his account of disinterested aesthetic experience. Indeed, this article proposes this hypothesis that Mondrian, who always sought to unveil the Platonic Idea of an objective manifestation of a universal equilibrium (harmony) or pure beauty as truth through his universal Neo-Plastic art, was heavily influenced by Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of will and his attitude toward aesthetic contemplation which is disinterested and objective. At the end of this article, it becomes clear that Mondrian’s conception of pure intuition and his contemplative approach to aesthetic experience intimately conform to Schopenhauer’s view on the notion of disinterested aesthetic attention or contemplation narrated within his metaphysics of will.

Keywords: Arthur Schopenhauer, aesthetic experience, disinterestedness, metaphysics of will, Piet Mondrian, Neo-Plasticism, intuition.

Citation: Fallahzadeh, Ali, Zahra Rahbarnia. 2023. Mondrian’s rendition of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of will and disinterested aesthetic experience. Rupkatha Journal 15:3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.25 

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A Critical Analysis of Honorification in Human Relations

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Tanima Bagchi 1 & Rajesh Kumar 2
1IIM Indore, Indore. 
2IIT Madras, Chennai.

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.24
[Article History: Received: 3 July 2023. Revised: 2 September 2023. Accepted: 2 September 2023. Published: 4 September 2023]
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Abstract

This paper discusses the concept of honorification with a focus on the essential correlation between human relations and society. While the structural aspect of honorification, in the form of honorifics, has been discussed extensively the functional aspect of honorification as a research question requires equal consideration. It has often been claimed that obligation is one of the primary motivations behind honorification owing to its ubiquitous influence on social interactions due to differences in status, social distance, and power. However, a closer look will reveal how such social factors are a reflection of not the obligation but the underlying acknowledgement of this obligation leading to the social recognition of honorification and, thus, shifting the perspective from necessity to choice. In other words, this paper explores honorification as a synthesis of society, culture, and human nature.

 Keywords: Honorification, Deference, Prohibition, Volition, Respect.

Citation: Bagchi, Tanima, Rajesh Kumar. 2023. A Critical Analysis of Honorification in Human Relations. Rupkatha Journal 15:3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.24 

A Saga of Cosmopolitan Friendship in Time of the Breaking of Nations: A Study of Ali Smith’s Autumn

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Mousumi Chowdhury
Department of English, Raja Rammohun Roy Mahavidyalaya, Nangulpara, Hooghly, West Bengal, India

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.23
[Article History: Received: 13 June 2023. Revised: 27 August 2023. Accepted: 1 September 2023. Published: 4 September 2023]
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Abstract

Brexit, Britain’s exit from the supranational polity of the European Union has unsettled the vision of European unity. Rather than nourishing an “and/ both” cosmopolitan view even in the limited context of continental relationship, Britain inculcates an “either/ or” jingoistic nationalism fed on Euroscepticism. English literature has a long tradition of invoking political issues and Brexit has inaugurated a new sub-genre, ‘BrexLit’. The paper seeks to attempt a detailed study of Scottish writer Ali Smith’s novel Autumn (2016), designated by The New York Times as “the first great Brexit novel”. The first of the seasonal quartet, this novel was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017 and bagged the 2016 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction. Embedded in the Brexit Britain, the novel raises questions of citizenship, particularly in relation to immigration, and mirrors the loss of cultural conviviality. The paper discusses anti-immigrant toxicity, the upsurge of nostalgic appetite for national heritage, and the territorial social ontology of the contemporary English national outlook. The paper studies, in the context of the narrative, how the media resorts to post-truth politics and right-wing nationalistic propaganda in media resulting in the death of democracy and the end of dialogue. The paper explores how the novel advocates an inclusive, realistic cosmopolitanism through Elisabeth-Daniel friendship.

Keywords: BrexLit, nationalism, Anti-immigrant toxicity, post-truth politics, Euroscepticism
Sustainable Development Goals: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Citation: Chowdhury, Mousumi. 2023. A Saga of Cosmopolitan Friendship in Time of the Breaking of Nations: A Study of Ali Smith’s Brexit Novel Autumn. Rupkatha Journal 15:3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.23

Socio-cultural practices and stress among working mothers of underage children in the Public Universities of Nigeria

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Ngozi Christina Nwadike 1, John Thompson Okpa 2, Nnana Okoi Ofem 3, Benjamin Okorie Ajah 4, Uzochukwu Chukwuka Chinweze 5, Isife, Chima Theresa6
1,3 Department of Social Work, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
 2 Department of Sociology, University of Calabar, Nigeria
3 Department of Social Work, University of Calabar, Nigeria
4 Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Nigeria, Nsukka:
5 Social Sciences Unit, School of General Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka
6Institute for Development Studies, University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus, Nigeria

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.22
[Article History: Received: 18 June 2023. Revised: 30 August 2023. Accepted: 1 September 2023. Published: 4 September 2023]
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Abstract

The study examined the sociocultural factors that bring about stress to working mothers of underage children at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka by recruiting 504 academic and non-academic staff.  To assess the study variables in a cross-sectional survey, a questionnaire, and an in-depth interview schedule were employed in collecting data from working mothers of underage children in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The Chi-square (?2) statistical analysis indicated that there is a significant relationship between the husband’s attitude towards domestic duties and the stressful experience of working mothers with underage children. The data also demonstrated that there is no statistically significant relationship between the husband’s educational status and the stressful experience of working mothers with underage children. The study concluded that the husband’s attitude is a significant predictor of working mothers of underage children’s stress experience. It was, therefore, recommended that policies should be enacted by the Nigerian government and enforced in public sectors to enhance ‘favorable’ working conditions for working mothers of underage children. This should include an extension of maternity leave to at least six months, less demanding/accommodative job times, and assigned duties in tunes that do not compromise the ethos of a given profession.

Keywords: Stress, working mothers, underage children, husband’s attitude towards domestic duties
Sustainable Development Goals: Reduced Inequalities, Gender Equality, Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Citation: Nwadike, Ngozi Christina, John Thompson Okpa, Nnana Okoi Ofem, Benjamin Okorie Ajah, Uzochukwu Chukwuka Chinweze, Isife, Chima Theresa. 2023. Socio-cultural practices and stress among working mothers of underage children in Nigeria Public Universities. Rupkatha Journal 15:3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.22 

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Toleration and Tolerance as Human Challenges: The Voice of an Eighteenth-Century Dramatist, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, for the Twenty-First Century

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351 views

Albrecht Classen
University of Arizona, Editor-in-Chief, Humanities, MDPI, and Editor-in-Chief, Mediaevistik

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.21
[Article History: Received: 19 August 2023. Revised: 30 August 2023. Accepted: 1 September 2023. Published: 4 September 2023]
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Abstract

In light of countless problems, the modern world faces, especially religious fanaticism, violence, and hatred, it is high time to reflect on some of the older literary statements once again that had already voiced critical concerns about the principles of human interaction determined by good communication, love, and tolerance. Maybe surprisingly, when we turn to Lessing’s Nathan der Weise (1779), we come across a major literary document in which those ideals are formulated convincingly and dramatically. While German scholarship has already discussed this play for a long time, it deserves much wider attention because of its strong advocation of those ideals, which we are in the highest need as of today.

Keywords: Toleration; tolerance; Gotthold Ephraim Lessing; Nathan der Weise; Enlightenment; religions; truth; love
Sustainable Development Goals: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Citation: Classen, Albrecht. 2023. Toleration and Tolerance as Human Challenges: The Voice of an Eighteenth-Century Dramatist, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, for the Twenty-First Century. Rupkatha Journal 15:3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.21

Towards a Problematic Canon: Indian Poetry Anthologies and the Construction of Modernism

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376 views

Benjamin Karam
Department of English, Tezpur University, India.
Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.20
[Article History: Received: 11 July 2023. Revised: 19 August 2023. Accepted: 20 August 2023. Published: 28 August 2023]
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Abstract

The history of modern Indian poetry in English as evidenced in anthologies is riddled with many modernist tendencies, both linguistic and political. Within anthologies, poetry becomes not merely literary and artistic pieces, but agents in a larger narrative. To establish an argument for Indian poetic modernism (post-1950) in anthologies requires an inquiry into the processes in which editors, through the paratextual matters, (titles, prefaces, introductory notes, headnotes, endnotes etc.) help create a persuasiveness about newness or modernity. With more than 200 Indian poetry anthologies published since 1950, there is also the problem of selecting an authoritative volume that reflects the national canon. By juxtaposing Gérard Genette’s (1991) paratextual theory and Ramond Williams’ (1977) epochal theory of classifying the dominant, residual, and emergent cultural tendencies, this paper attempts to understand poetry anthologies as commodities and cultural vehicles constantly striving for dominance. An argument is made that any canon – modernist or otherwise – is a sub-product of this cultural and material struggle. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to provide an alternate understanding of the arrival of modern Indian English poetry canon as a form of construction that occurs within the pages of anthologies.

Keywords: Anthology, Indian English poetry, Modernism, Archives, Canon
Citation: Karam, Benjamin. 2023. Towards a Problematic Canon: Indian Poetry Anthologies and the Construction of Modernism. Rupkatha Journal 15:3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.20

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Born twice: A redemptive revisioning uncovering the metaphors of representation

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482 views

 Anu Mathai 1 & Rolla Das 2
1,2Department of English, Christ Junior College IBDP, Christ (Deemed to be University) Bangalore, India
Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.19
[Article History: Received: 10 July 2023. Revised: 25 August 2023. Accepted: 27 August 2023. Published: 28 August 2023]
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Abstract

The graphic narrative space is a complex labyrinth of nested stories subtly holding a tension between the visual and the verbal metaphors of representation. Every narrative canvas opens up possibilities of new ways of metaphorical seeing, unravelling the encoded signs of the dominant and the popular. Challenging and dissenting the normative ideas of gender representations, the graphic medium becomes a space to interrogate how the revisioned perspectives from the margins, embody a subversive voice to reclaim and reaffirm identity. This research paper aims to unfold the poetics of metaphorical representation in retellings and how the unconventional visual and verbal underscores an agency and voice to the female characters in the studied graphic narratives. The analysis will uncover how a revisioning of the aesthetics of the visual, the landscape of the mythological and the politics of the contemporary can subvert the traditional discourses that promote a conventional or hegemonic worldview. The paper situates Saraswati Nagpal’s Sita; Daughter of the Earth, Sibaji Bandyopadhyay and Sankha Banerjee’s Panchali: The Game of Dice and Priya’s Mirror by Paromita Vohra and Ram Devineni in the cultural milieu of graphic content that encourages new ways of metaphorical seeing amid the precariousness of identity, ideology and agency of the mythical women characters.

Keywords: Graphic narratives, mythology, postmodern feminist narratives.
Sustainable Development Goals: Reduced Inequalities, Gender Equality, Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Citation: Mathai, Anu, Rolla Das. 2023. Born twice: A redemptive revisioning uncovering the metaphors of representation. Rupkatha Journal 15:3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.19

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