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“The cripple walked! The cripple talked!”: Contextualising Sign Language and Audism in Memoirs of Deafness

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350 views

Bonjyotshna Saikia

Research Scholar, Department of English, Tezpur University, Assam, India.

ORCID id: 0000-0001-6253-9333. Email:bonjyotshnasaikia263@gmail.com

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.28

Abstract

The hegemony of speech has created notions of superiority among the hearing community propagating an audist attitude, which Tom Humphries defines as a form of discrimination towards the deaf in a hearing-dominant society. Deafness as a social phenomenon necessitates a reconsideration of the status of speech and sound. The huge chasm between the hearing and the deaf can be resolved only through the normalisation of every mode of communication. In a close reading of two memoirs of deafness: Henry Kisor’s What’s That Pig Outdoors? (1990) and Madan Vashishta’s Deaf in Delhi (2006), this article examines the similar experiences of the deaf from different linguistic, national and cultural backgrounds. Drawing theoretical insights from Leonard Davis, Neil Stephen Glickman, and Dirksen Bauman, among others, the article argues that these memoirs enable a non-essentialised perception of deafness and question the preconceived stance in relation to language. In so doing, the article also addresses the status of Sign Language as a means of communication in contemporary times.

Keywords: Audism, Deaf memoirs, Derrida, Deaf Identity, Sign Language, Phonocentrism

American Dream Revisited: A Media Discourse Representation in Cognitive-linguistic Perspective

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419 views

Svitlana Lyubymova

National Linguistic University, Kyiv, Ukraine. Email: elurus2006@gmail.com

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.27

Abstract

Considered in cognitive-linguistic perspective, “American Dream” is a represented in media discourse stereotype that embodies ideal of happiness in a prosperous democratic society. The research   methodology rests   on   the   premise of cognitive-linguistic approach to study of sociocultural stereotypes, which are seen as complex phenomena of social and cultural experience, manifested in behavioural, material, and verbal codes.  Methodological tools of discursive and corpus analysis proved the variability of meaning of the stereotype. In the course of time, it shows semantic changes, conditioned by socio-economic and cultural factors. Empirical study eventuates in distinguishing three periods that correlate with transformation of the stereotype. The period of formation outlines the ideal of freedom and equality. The next period, which started in the 1950s, manifested changes toward obtaining happiness only in virtue of wealth. In recent years, “American Dream” is being associated more with freedom of choice than mere financial success.

 Keywords: stereotyping; American Dream; media discourse; cognitive-linguistic approach; corpus analysis; semantic change

The Impact of COVID Pandemic Consequences on Public Demand for Competence Formation in Humanitarian Education

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337 views

Yuri Vsevolodovich Maslov1, Iryna Sergiivna Pypenko2, Yuriy Borysovych Melnyk3

1 PhD, Associate Professor, Belarusian State Economic University, Belarus; maslove@tut.by; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5715-6546.

2 PhD, Associate Professor, Simon Kuznets Kharkiv National University of Economics; Scientific Research Institute KRPOCH, Ukraine; iryna.pypenko@hneu.net; https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5083-540X

3 PhD, Associate Professor, Scientific Research Institute KRPOCH; Kharkiv Regional Public Organization “Culture of Health”, Ukraine; y.b.melnyk@gmail.com; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8527-4638

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.26

Abstract

The COVID pandemic has affected all human activity, most of all education. Lockdowns obliterated traditional teaching. Student attitudes towards educational format and content have also changed. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the impact of the pandemic consequences on public demand for competence formation in humanitarian education. Gathered through systemic written surveys (Project Tuning methodology) and interviewing the respondents (173 faculty and 322 students), participants to CIES-2020 and PPPMSF-2021 international conferences, the data were systematized, rated and analyzed using the methods of statistical analysis. Consequently, actual public demand for student competences was formulated. Top five choices by the faculty include: 1) ability to adapt to and act in new situation; 2) commitment to safety; 3) ability to search for, process and analyze information; 4) skills in the use of information and communications technologies; 5) ability to evaluate and maintain the quality of work. The student choices differ from faculty prioritizing the abilities: 1) to work autonomously; 2) to design and manage projects; 3) to adapt to and act in new situation; 4) to apply knowledge in practical situations; 5) to work in an international context. The results have shown a statistically significant difference between the public demand prior to the pandemic and after the introduction of social distancing measures. Views of faculty and students on the importance of particular competences have remained divergent, and the specific priorities are changing. One noticeable trend is prioritizing the ability to adapt to new situations by both faculty and students.

Keywords: Humanitarian Education, Faculty and Students, Competences’ Rating, Social Distancing

Spatial Imaginings in the Age of Colonial Cartographic Reason: Maps, Landscapes, Travelogues in Britain and India by Nilanjana Mukherjee

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355 views

London and New York: Routledge, 2021, xiii+300 pp., $160.00 (hardbound), ISBN 9780367749583

Sutapa Dutta

Gargi College, University of Delhi. Email:  sdutta.eng@gmail.com

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.25

Nilanjana Mukherjee’s book looks at construction of space, leading from imaginative to concrete contours, within the context of the British imperial enterprise in India. Fundamental to her argument is that colonial definitions of sovereignty were defined in terms of control over space and not just over people, and hence it was first necessary to map the space and inscribe symbols into it. In the latter half of the eighteenth century, imperialism and colonization were complex phenomena that involved new and imminent strategies of nation building. No other period of British history, as Linda Colley has noted, has seen such a conscious attempt to construct a national state and national identity (Colley 1992). Although the physical occupation of India by the British East India Company could be said to have begun with the battle of Plassey (1757), nevertheless the process of conquest through mediation of symbolic forms indicate the time and manner in which the ‘conquest’ was conscripted. Full-Text PDF>>

The Nineteenth Century Revis(it)ed: The New Historical Fiction by Ina Bergmann

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293 views

New York: Routledge.  2021. ISBN: 978-0-367-63466-7 (hbk), 978-1-003-12807-6 (ebk)

Prashant Maurya

Senior Research Fellow, Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India – 247667. Email: prashantlinguistics@gmail.com

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.24

The nineteenth century is a crucial phase in America’s history. Key features such as geographical expansions, the industrial revolution, development in science and technology, and America’s emergence as a super power, after the American Revolution and the War of 1812, mark the century. The Civil War becomes the most important historical event of this phase that will impact the lives of Americans in the years to come. The century has literary importance also because, during this phase, forerunners of American literature, like, Edgar Allen Poe, James Cooper, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, etc., come to the scene. Thus, the century as the setting has always been a literary choice for historical novelists.  Full-Text PDF>>

Writing and Space: Writing the City by Stuti Khanna

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437 views

Orient Blackswan. 2020. pp.114, Rs. 750 (Paperback). ISBN: 9789352879229

Urvashi Kaushal

Assistant Professor, SVNIT, Surat, Gujarat. ORCID ID: 0000-0002-6774-6849. Email: k.urvashi@amhd.svnit.ac.in

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.23

Writing the City, a collection of essays edited by Stuti Khanna is a noteworthy publication as it includes 13 engaging essays by critically acclaimed contemporary mostly Indian writer. The book has an attractive cover with an infographic map of cities — the theme around which Khanna assembles this collection. This book with only 114 pages can be a treasure trove for researchers of the contemporary Indian writing as “it explores the symbiotic relationship between form and content” (Khanna, 2020, p. xi) as each of these 13 writers present in their introspective mood, “the relationship of their writing to place and space” (Khanna, 2020, p.xi) of their upbringing. Hence, the apt title, Writing the City. The book validates Tim Creswell and other Humanist Geographer’s reverberations that: “Place is the raw material for the creative production for identity” (Cresswell, 2004, p.39). Full-Text PDF>>

New Perspectives on Translation: Translating Odisha by Paul St-Pierre

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381 views

Dhauli Books. 2019. Rs. 995.00 (Paperback), ISBN: 978-9389382129

Tyagraj Thakur

Senior Assistant Professor, Silicon Institute of Technology, Sambalpur. Email: tyagraj@silicon.ac.in

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.22

Translating Odisha (2019) by Prof. Paul St-Pierre fetches a wide range of new perspectives on translation and the act of translating with specific reference to translations from and to Odia. Being a Professor of Linguistics and Translation Studies, and at the same time a prolific translator, St-Pierre produces a rare combination of theory and application. He invokes and applies translation theories even as he theorises the experience of translating. Through three decades of association with Odia literature and its historiography and through translations with collaborators, St-Pierre has become an authority on translation studies in Odisha. His recent book is mostly a compilation of the articles that he has published in different journals of international repute, papers that he has presented in conferences and seminars, and a few short occasional pieces. Full-Text PDF>>

An Introduction to Indian Aesthetics: History, Theory, and Theoreticians by Mini Chandran and Sreenath V. S.

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503 views

Bloomsbury India. 2021. pp. 2308, £76.50 / ISBN: 9789389165135

Prabha Shankar Dwivedi

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Tirupati. Email: prabhas.dwivedi@iittp.ac.in

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.21

This book can be seen as a response to a severe demand in the field of Indian poetics for an introductory book that provides an overview of all the seminal schools of Indian poetical thoughts, keeping in view both the theories and the theoreticians. This book, in the words of authors, is meant to be “An introduction to the world of Sanskrit poetics, explaining its major concepts lucidly for even those who do not know Sanskrit. It offers a comprehensive historical and conceptual overview of all the major schools in Sanskrit poetics…. It is meant to be a beginners’ guide to the awe-inspiring immensity of Sanskrit literature and literary thought, the first step in a journey that should ideally lead to the profundities of ancient thought.” (Chandran et al 2021, p. xii). The discussion in the book progresses with varied theoretical perspectives on Indian aesthetics in a well laid historico-conceptual order. Though the book briefly talks about Tamil poetics putting it parallel to Sanskrit poetics by comparing Tolk?ppiyam with N??ya??stra in the preface, it primarily serves to be an introductory handbook of Sanskrit poetics for the non-Sanskrit University students at various levels. This book succeeds in providing clearer idea of Indian poetical thoughts to its readers. Full-Text PDF>>

The (Un)governable City: Productive Failure in the Making of Colonial Delhi, 1858-1911 by Raghav Kishore

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300 views

Orient Blackswan. pp. 276, Rs. 895.00 (Hardbound), 2020. ISBN: 9789390122981.

Dr. Nilanjana Mukherjee

Assistant Professor, Department of English, Shaheed Bhagat Singh College, University of Delhi. Email: nilanjana.mukherjee@gmail.com

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.20

Delhi has always been a crucible of political disquiet, and the seat of manifold state and aesthetic desires to order, control and design the city. Even at this moment, we find ourselves before a ubiquitous impulse to change the appearance of the city through the Central Vista Project which proposes to cater to needs of increase in government office space. There are layers to the city and obvious enough, it is not monolithic. The vestiges and architectural remnants of subsequent ages narrate the relentless saga of power, domination and settlement. A historical analysis of the spatial structures reflects the reasons behind its physical organization. To talk about colonial designs within this very broad spectrum is but, only a brief moment in a longue duree of human settlement in this region. Yet, it is necessary to understand the spatial synchrony, for much of it is what we have inherited today and this is what shapes our experiences of this city even at present. Raghav Kishore’s The (Un)governable City (2020), makes an intervention in this corpus of historical analysis with his impeccable research and endless forays into the archives. This is a welcome addition to studies in the field of urban development of Delhi, with Pilar Maria Guerrieri’s Maps of Delhi (2017) being one precursor, which painstakingly curates maps of Delhi from the precolonial times, to the modern municipal Master Plans to contemporary digital mappings. Kishore unearths curious details from local sources and twines those with debates among colonial policy makers and personnel to highlight issues of political ideology, statecraft and governmentality. This volume juxtaposes notions of policing, control and accessibility with debates and discussions on sanitation, traffic, communication, railways and the building of military cantonments, which are significant if we think of the British rule in India as a garrison state, heavily dependent on the easy mobility of its military forces. The success of the control was conditional on the ability to gather up huge military forces to curb parallel sporadic outbursts at their very onset. The broadening of roads, regulation of quarters and delimiting encroachments and concerns over connectivity, were carefully thought out strategisations towards the goal of containment and territorialisation. Full-Text PDF>>

The River as Passant: A Review of Jaydeep Sarangi’s From Dulung to Beas: Flow of the Soul

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Authorspress, 2020. ISBN (Paperback) 978-81-7273-646-0. Pp 83 | Price  295

Basudhara Roy

Assistant Professor of English, Karim City College, affiliated to Kolhan University, Chaibasa. Email: basudhara.roy@gmail.com

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.19

“Poetry,” writes bell hooks (2012, p. 7), “is a useful place for lamentation…poems are a place where we can cry out.” Few observations, indeed, could be closer to the truth. What, however, repeatedly claims my attention in hook’s statement, is the phrase constituting her first four words here, ‘Poetry is a useful place’. As the world comes rather alarmingly together, thanks to networking and the pandemic, leading to a radical reconceptualization of both spatiality and temporality, and as the ethics and norms of distancing annihilate distinctions between the local and the global, much to the chagrin of the local, I find my realization and awareness of poetry as place increasingly heightened. The more one ponders over it, one realizes that poetry is not simply search, journey or exploration but also, equally and significantly, anchorage. It is a place from which one looks at the world, negotiates and relates, but simply and most overwhelmingly, poetry is a place to be. As I read again and again through Jaydeep Sarangi’s ninth collection of poems From Dulung to Beas: Flow of the Soul, the conviction of poetry as place becomes unassailable. Full-Text PDF>>

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