Health Humanities - Page 4

“Colonize and Cholerize”: an attempt to decipher the ambiguity of the literary representation of the cholera epidemics in Nineteenth Century India

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228 views

Arijit Goswami
Assistant Professor, Department of English, Gorubathan Government College, Kalimpong, E-mail: arijit.goswami80@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s16n1

Abstract

The modus operandi of categorising European and especially British authors as representative of the hegemonic colonial enterprise that subjugated the Indian sub-continent for nearly two hundred years is a common analogy while dealing with the colonial era. The seemingly simplistic logic is problematised, when a British author, closely related to the ruling administrative set-up voices dissent, whereas the colonised intelligentsia fails to register minimal protest in their literary works. The article would try to decipher the anti- orientalist discourse with special reference to the literary representation of cholera epidemics in Fanny Parkes’s Wanderings of a pilgrim in search of the picturesque (1850), during the patriarchal-colonising enterprise in vogue and envisage to compare Lal Behari Day’s Folktales of Bengal (1883), which fails to express the reality of an epidemic-devastated land and displeasure of the commoners towards the ruling class for their inept handling of the epidemics.

Keywords: Colonization, Cholerize, Dissent, Anti-orientalism

Hope amidst Despair: Revisiting John Steinbeck’s Novel The Grapes of Wrath in the times of COVID-19 pandemic

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343 views

M. Shanthi1 & Ms. Lizella Faria Gonsalves2

1Associate Professor, Department of English, Dnyanprassarak Mandal’s College and Research Centre, Assagao, Mapusa, Goa. ORCID id- 0000-0002-6114-2366. Email: shanthimuninathan@gmail.com

2Assistant Professor, Department of English,Dnyanprassarak Mandal’s College and Research Centre, Assagao, Mapusa, Goa. ORCID id-0000-0001-5699-5412. Email: lizella.gonsalves@gmail.com

Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s33n6

 Abstract

Death has always been co-existing amidst all life-forms. But when it turns its vehemence on humanity with all its force by means of pandemics, epidemics, wars or natural calamities then it gets its due, acting as a great equalizer. The Catastrophic Corona, today has revolutionized the face of humanity and the Existential Angst is acutely felt. The boundaries and demarcations of caste, creed, religion, region and gender have been ignored by the virus levelling all to the mercy of greater powers. The subversion of capitalism and deconstruction of the binaries like positive and negative, the physical and the virtual have induced discourse subjected to critical study. Since Literature and Life has always gone hand-in-hand, it is natural to witness the saga of human turmoil and suffering being portrayed in literary works. Albert Camus’s novel, The Plague is a classic example of the precariousness of human life and existential isolation. But as devastating as a pandemic or an epidemic is, equally ravaging are the forces of nature and crippling circumstances which lead to unsurmountable suffering and pain. John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath is an evocative saga of resilience and survival amidst the onslaught of the Dust Bowl and the Great Economic Depression. The Joad family in the novel represents a microcosm of the universal suffering and their story finds echoes in the hearts of many in such times as the present COVID-19 crisis. This paper aims at a study of the socio-economic and psychological factors affecting humanity during crisis through the study of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. It would be an endeavor to evaluate the changes and adapt to the ‘New Normal.’

Keywords: Pandemic, Existentialism, Economic Crisis, Deconstruction, Despair and Hope.

The Global Precariat: Refugees and COVID-19

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243 views

Srinita Bhattacharjee

University of Hyderabad. ORCID: 0000-0003-4773-7045. Email: srinitabhattacharjee@gmail.com

Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s30n7

 Abstract

Are refugees welcomed by nation-states? Receiving a hospitable environment to resow the seeds of survival is a fundamental right of any human individual especially for refugees who have been rendered stateless and rightless. They require magnanimous hospitality in the form of social solidarity but what they acquire are disdainful attacks from neoliberal nation-states.  Often their traumatic voyages towards a secured mode of living meet with dejection and despair when nation-states violate their obligations by refusing to grant them asylum.  The few, who are accepted, are also compelled to hover around nation-state peripheries with ruthless indifference awaiting them. I shall critically consider Derridean ‘hostipitality’ as the premise to problematize refugee identity as the locus of precarity ensued by radical alterities.

 Keywords: refugee, COVID, precarity, hostipitality, neoliberalism

Narratives of Epidemics: Topsy-turvy Conditions of Humans and Quest for Existence

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245 views

Abdel-Fattah M. Adel1, Mashhoor Abdu Al-Moghales2 & Suhail Ahmad3

1Department of English, College of Arts, University of Bisha, Saudi Arabia. Email: aadeal@ub.edu.sa, ORCID: 0000-0001-7968-8167

2Department of English, College of Arts, University of Bisha, Saudi Arabia and Taiz University, Yemen. Email: mamohammad@ub.edu.sa, ORCID: 0000-0001-7984-5388

3Department of English, College of Arts, University of Bisha, Saudi Arabia. Email: suhailahmed@ub.edu.sa, ORCID: 0000-0001-6611-2484

  Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s28n1

Abstract

Corpus of literature is replete with works that feature pandemics as central themes. As a response to diseases outbreaks, fiction writers portray the human condition and the shifts in human behaviour at these crucial junctures of human history. Plot structure and characterization accounts for the void –both within and without—: prevailing chaos, crumbling social structures, undermining of religious values, and Government’s apathy. Based on such themes, this paper examines, from Deterministic and Existentialistic perspectives, three representative fictions written in the 21st century: Reina James’s This Time of Dying (2006) on the deadly influenza of 1918, Amir Taj Elsir’s Ebola ’76 (2012) on the outbreak of Ebola in 1976, and Karen Maitland’s The Plague Charmer (2016) on the plague of 1361. The findings include: (a) the novels predict the contemporary society with their resonance of apocalyptic images and preventive measures, (b) they manifest ontological shifts as the orthodox worldviews are jolted, and (c) fictional and personal narratives are not less important than historical records on health in quest for existence.

 Keywords: Epidemic Novels, Human Conditions, Determinism, Freewill.

 

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

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194 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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296 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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251 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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356 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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403 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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227 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.

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