Vol 6 No 1

Editorial, Volume VI, Number 1, 2014

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Viewed?from the perspective of evolution, different sexes originated from a single sex, biologically equipped to reproduce without any compulsion of getting engaged in sexual act. But it was in the story of evolution that different sexes would emerge and “meeting/mating” would be necessary for reproduction of similar creatures with occasional accidental outcome of some sexes bearing cross-sex physical or mental features. The story also included another principle of Nature—the principle of attraction and generated eco-biologically. The time it came to be included in human vocabulary under the umbrella term ‘love’, religion or organized social supervision started categorizing things under binary basis, of course, for the sake of exercising authority and control on the member of a group. The rest is a long history of such exercises from different institutions which into being as part of power mechanism. So it happened that every religion or sect condemned any form of sexual or mental relationship outside the binary male-female combination and ‘laws’ were passed favour of such authentication. But throughout the historical times the relationship outside the category always existed, not just among the human beings but also among the animal beings. So to call such relationship ‘unnatural’ is to go against Nature itself, which is full of contradictions and anomalies and accidents; for, because of those things evolution could take place as a dynamic process moving through selection and deselection.

It is apparent that the LGBTQ issues arose out of complex human condition on this planet, and approaching the issues requires high level of multidisciplinary holistic researches and perspectives. Recently a verdict of the Supreme Court of India recriminalizing same-sex relationship brought into forefront the LGBTQ issues in India. Criticism of the verdict burst out across the media followed by symbolic protests and violations of the law, and the honourable judges came under sharp criticism from many corners. People, however, must bear in mind that the judges just interpreted what is coded in the constitution in the form of law. The Section 377 IPC was, in fact, imposed under Judeo-Christian codes in 1861 during the British rule. What has been ruled out as “against the order of nature” is actually supposed Jud?eo-Christian injunction on any form of sexual relationship outside the institution of marriage following heterosexual norms.

Earlier many ‘progressive’ people rejoiced in the 2009 judgement of the Delhi High Court allowing consensual homosexual act between adults. It is everybody’s fundamental right to approach the court, and to expect the court to go beyond the structure of the constitution may not be prudent. One question can be raised here: whether law can properly understand and address the complex issues of LGBTQ questions. The court can deliver only if it is equipped with the necessary provisions supplied by the Parliament through comprehensive multidisciplinary researches, discussions and conclusions fit for our age. The state must take up such initiatives to minimize the rising frustrations of certain sections of the society.

Tirtha Prasad mukhopadhyay

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Naturalizing ‘Queerness’: A Study of Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy

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Prateek, Ramjas College, New Delhi, India

If the representation of same-sex sexuality in punitive terms leaves gays in shock, then the legitimizing of Article XVI Section 377 (which bars gay sex) in India made gays all over the world, especially in South Asia speechless and traumatized. In response to this universally misconstrued image of an ‘unnatural’ man, Shyam Selvadurai, a Canadian-Sri Lankan writer creates a narrative which not only offers an ‘innocent peek’ into the biased perspectives of heterosexuals towards queers but the use of a child narrator is a deliberate ploy with which he deconstructs the craving for a so called ‘healthy’ text.’ Thus, this article, by musing on Selvadurai’s most acclaimed text Funny Boy (1994), attempts to examine how and why ‘unhealthy’ texts are constructed. Secondly, it elaborates on the subtle literary strategies used by Selvadurai to debunk pre-conceived notions of a heterosexual literary text. Finally, the article while locating a gay narrative in the social and cultural context of Sri Lanka, presents a gendered analysis of homosexuality in Sri Lanka.

Unhealthy Text

A healthy text is a heteronormative construct, which refers to a text where first, heterosexuality is naturalized and homosexuality is either sidelined or demonized; secondly, where the writer manages to exorcise the demons of unheard voices, and finally, the writer can prevent the eruption of contested spaces. Since Selvadurai challenges all the above mentioned conventions connected to a heterosexual text, his text can be considered as a snapshot of what one can call as ‘unhealthy text.’

Jonathan Ned Katz while chronicling the history of heterosexuality discussed the idea of “invention of heterosexuality.” Following the argument of Freud, Katz points out that “heterosexual” is not merely a noun but frequently an adjective, describing a “drive,” a “love,” an “instinct,” and a “desire,” as well as a sexual activity and a type of person (66). What Katz called “the invention of heterosexuality” referred to his idea that “heterosexuals were made, not born.” According to Katz, the idea of heterosexuality emerged at a specific point in history, and its history intertwines with the story of industrialization and urbanization, the rise of the middle classes, the complications of empire, and the scientific and philosophical legacies of the Enlightenment. The term heterosexuality was created to give medical and intellectual legitimacy to the desires of the emerging middle class…Access Full Text of the Article


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Pre-Romantic Concepts of Imagination

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Arezou Zalipour, University of Waikato, New Zealand

 Abstract

The starting point of the history of imagination in poetry can be traced in the early attempts to define poetry, as in Aristotle’s Poetics. My investigation in the studies of imagination shows that while there are numerous comprehensive studies that provide a chronological survey of the idea of imagination as it appears in various fields, little has been done to investigate and examine the conceptual history of imagination in poetry. This article aims to explore the main developmental trends of the concept of imagination in poetry before its glorification during the Romantic period. I have structured these concepts according to the features that have appeared significant in the evolution of the concept of imagination from an imitating faculty to creative imagination in artistic creation and poetry. While this article presents a critical review of the available literature in the studies of imagination in poetry, it also conveys in an indirect manner the gaps and inadequacies in some of the most significant developments in the concept of imagination.

 Keywords: imagination, conceptual history, poetry, creative imagination, image

 Introduction

Referring to the quotation above, the present article is based on an overall project that traces the story of poetic imagination following Kearney’s maxim: to recall what poetic imagination was in order to understand poetic imagination now. The story of poetic imagination is tied to the story of imagination in philosophy and psychology especially in the early periods. The story commences with concepts of imagination in philosophy and in the early attempts to define poetry, as in Aristotle’s Poetics. My investigation in the studies of imagination shows that while there are numerous comprehensive studies that provide a chronological survey of the idea of imagination as it appears in various fields, little has been done to investigate and examine the conceptual history of imagination in poetry. This article aims to explore the main developmental trends of the concept of imagination in poetry before its glorification during the Romantic period. The conceptual survey reveals that imagination was initially examined by philosophers, including some minor and sometimes argumentative references to poetry. Later the concept of imagination was investigated in studies related to arts and artistic creation. This occurred at a time when creative dimensions of imagination began to receive greater recognition. In a comprehensive chronological survey of imagination across various fields, Engell (1981) tells us the idea of imagination in its general sense was actually the creation of the 18th century. Studies of imagination in poetry were simultaneously developed with examining this concept in the arts. Therefore, in order to collect and examine major features of poetic imagination within the realm of poetry, I was required to draw upon and organize the main characteristics of imagination in arts, philosophy and early psychology. I have organized these concepts according to the features that appeared significant in the evolution of imagination particularly with reference to poetry. While this article presents a critical review of the available literature in the studies of poetic imagination, it also conveys in an indirect manner the gaps and inadequacies in some of the most significant developments of the concept of poetic imagination. I will first provide an account of imagination in its early conceptualization to create a contextualization for the concepts that I have drawn as pre-Romantic concepts.

Imitation was an essential component of imagination particularly before the creative dimensions of imagination were discovered during the Renaissance. In the classical world, imagination was given an intermediary role between perception (senses) and thinking (thought), in relation to the soul, perception and memory. In De Anima, Aristotle considered imagination as part of common sense (sensus communis) – the belief in the sensory nature of imagination implying that imagination judges the perceptual traces and interprets these traces in various ways. By ascribing the functions of interpreting or judging to imagination, Aristotle, in fact, decreased the imitative attributes of imagination and prepared the groundwork for exploration of the role of imagination in appreciation and criticism of the arts and literature and also its creative potentiality…Access Full Text of the Article


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Revisiting Homophobia in Times of Solidarity, Identity and Visibility in Uganda

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Prince Karakire, GUMA, Researcher and Director, Social Economic Research and Development, Uganda

Abstract

There is an apparent deepening in anxieties of the increasing rapid social change in Uganda, with the escalation of homophobia, if not more so. Homosexuals in their quest for solidarity and visibility have increasingly become victims of homophobic violence. In this study, I draw upon critical studies in geography, urban sociology, feminism, anthropology, Queer theories, and identity politics, to poignantly axamine manifestations of homophobia in the context of changing social structures. For this purpose, I adopt a multi-sited ethnography and hybrid genre of discourse analysis.

Introduction

There is an apparent deepening of anxiety in relation to the subject of homosexuality in Uganda. Despite anthropological narratives of African culture’s zero tolerance to homophobia, (see, Mutua, 2011; Epprecht, 2004; Murray, 1998, etc), itsintensificationandsolidification has not only had dire consequences for the homosexual community, it is a matter of curiosity. This curious trend, it ought to be mentioned, has emerged at the same time that as gay visibility are increasingly beginning to emerge and obscure the traditional same-sex behaviours, where homosexuals are continuously stepping away from the typically African gender-stratified systems that have long characterized same-sex relations between men. Consequently, gay men in their quest to sexually construct themselves have increasingly become affected by society’s aggressive compulsion to denigrate gay visibility.

And yet, a bulk of the body of work on homosexuality and homophobia persistently revolves around traditional explanations for contemporary homophobia. A few other studies either tend to disclose homophobia toward the gay communities (see, for instance, Kaoma, 2009), or merely explicate the difficulties gay men face while attempting to live the lives they feel they ought to be living. For instance, some studies on homophobia in Uganda mostly adopt a reductionist perspective often reducing homophobia to nothing more than a product oftraditional attitudes and values (Chi-Chi and Kabwe, 2008; Epprecht, 2001), the American Christian Right (Kaoma 2009), and the colonial entrenchment of homophobic laws (Sanders, 2009; Epprecht, 2004). And yet such narratives are not only inappropriate as they serve to conflate the agency of the African leaders and ordinary people who engage in homophobia and homophobic practices, they also reinforce streotypical ideas, and fail to offer consistent answers for the apparent growth of political and public expedience and intensification of homophobic practices.

Besides, contemporary homophobia is simply too complex to be reduced to a few ‘historical’ underlying factors such as culture, religion, or a simple binary opposition between the religious right and advocates of feminism and/or secularism. Consequently, homophobic effects of homosexual visibility and solidarity ought to be explored. It is the aim of this study therefore to constitute the conflicts and dynamics between homophobia andwesternnotionsof (homo)sexuality within global contexts. In the sections that follow, I draw upon critical studies in geography, urban sociology, feminism, anthropology, queer theories, and identity politics, to poignantly axamine manifestations of homophobia in the context of changing social structures. The subsequent section explores literature to revisiting homophobia in modern times…Access Full Text of the Article


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Writing Queer Desire in the Language of the “other”: Abdellah Taïa and Rachid O.

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Gibson Ncube, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Abstract

Since the attainment of independence by Maghrebian nations (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia), there has been animated discussion of the use of either Arabic or French as the language of expression. A liminal linguistic spectacle has emerged between the two languages in such a way that there is a dialogic intertwining and resonance occurring between them. This paper focuses on how in spite of the “cultural recognition of a wide array of sexual practices and roles spelled out meticulously in the linguistic variants attributed to them” (Al-Samman272), the terms “homosexual” and “homosexuality” (in the Western sense of the words) do not exist in dialectal Arabic. This paper thus explores the stakes surrounding the use of French in explicitly broaching “marginal” sexuality in the novels of two openly gay Moroccan writers, Rachid O. and Abdellah Taïa. It is herein posited that the “transliteration” of experiences encountered in Arab-Muslim milieu through the use of the French language allows for an opening up of a discursive domain that had hitherto remained shrouded in silence and regarded as taboo and unutterable.

Introduction

An intricate and complex relationship exists between sexuality and language. In the introduction of their book Language and Sexuality, Deborah Cameron and Don Kulick pertinently observe that “our ideas about sex are bound up with the language we use to define and talk about it” (ix). Language is a central concern in the novels of two Moroccan writers, Abdellah Taïa and Rachid O.,whose texts grapple with the question of queer sexuality in Arab-Muslim North Africa.

In this paper, I draw on the theoretical postulations formulated by LiseGauvin who reflects on the situation of certain francophone writers who are compelled to perpetually think about language. She posits that such writers have a linguistic over-consciousness which affects the manner in which they use and relate to language (7). According to Gauvin, these writers are displaced into the world of the relative where each act of writing represents a conquest, a renegotiation of a foreign language. The foreign language or the language of the “other” ceases to be simply a distinct language in itself but rather coalesces with the other languages known and used by the writer. Ultimately, the language of expression and writing that is chosen by the writer becomes a reinvented personal language, a point of encounter where the binary relationship of the symptomatic dominant/dominated matrix dissolves into a new bond which triggers off a multiplicity of interpretative paradigms. Such a theoretical underpinning is valid given that Abdellah Taïa and Rachid O. instead of using Arabic opt to use the French language to describe the queer1 identity and experiences of their protagonists. Such a use of French is particularly relevant given that dialectal Arabic does not possess any terms to describe in a positive manner queer sexuality. Terms that do exist in Arabic denigrate non-normative sexuality and paint it in pejorative terms2. In using French to broach queer sexuality and identity, Taïa and O. subvert the logic of silence that surrounds this phenomenon in Arab-Muslim societies of Morocco. By referring to these brief theoretical remarks, this paper will show that the novels of Taïa and O. are exceptional illustrations of the role of language in the construction of a queer sexual identity. I contend herein that the novels of the two writers frame themselves within a linguistic fault-line created between French and dialectal Arabic. Although French is the language of writing and expression, Arabic logic and thought processes continue to inform their intimate writing. Within this linguistic “third space”, to borrow Homi Bhabha’s terminology, these Moroccan writers are involved in a perpetual dialogic exchange between Arabic and French. Their literary works reveal a fascinating linguistic and cultural intermingling which is important in the construction of the queer identity of the protagonist-narrators. The question of the choice of language is decisive because the most profound elements of individual and collective character are expressed and constructed through language. In the literary space of the novels of the two Moroccan writers, a subtle tension between Arabic and French is highlighted by the manner in which these languages intertwine, refer to each other and give way to the emergence of an innovative literary expression…Access Full Text of the Article


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“Against the Order of Nature”?: Postcolonial State, Section 377 and the Homosexual Subject

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Shramana Das Purkayastha, Vijaygarh Jyotish Ray College, Kolkata, India

Abstract

In the light of the theorisation on identity-formation, the present paper proposes to discuss how the post-colonial Indian nation-state, through its multiple apparatus, becomes complicit in the discursive genesis of heteronorm. Issues of national culture and authentic tradition create in India a special kind of problem that queer-activism needs to grapple with. The focus of my discussion would specifically be on the debates surrounding Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. I would like to interrogate how legal discourses appropriate the language of power, stereotyping both non-normative identities as well as the normative definition of Indian alterity, and serve to push the sexual minority into a cultural absence within the state.

Queer studies, as the discipline has evolved over time, have repeatedly raised and debated the question as to what kind of sexual behaviour constitutes the very narrow definition of the heteronorm. The possibility/viability of developing a habit of creative scepticism, necessary for deconstructing existing paradigms and imagining alternative forms of identity based on counter-normative sexual practices, has occupied the centre stage in the recent development of queer critical literature. Anthropologist Gayle Rubin is one of the pioneers of such iconoclasm. Critiquing the forcible marginalisation of non-normative people during the 1980s, she, in her seminal 1984 essay “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality”, emphasises the urgent need to see through the very political construction of sexuality. Rubin asserts: “It is up to all of us to try to prevent more barbarism and to encourage erotic creativity… It is time to recognise the political dimensions of erotic life”. (35, emphasis mine) Related to this is Judith Butler’s concept of gender performance, as elaborated in her influential work Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. At its simplest, Butler’s notion emphasises the centrality of “performance” in maintaining one’s assigned gender role. The stability of the mutually exclusive categories of male and female is insured through repeated iteration of normative performative codes. As Butler comments, “…heterosexuality is compelled to repeat itself in order to establish the illusion of its own uniformity and identity…” (Qtd. Hall, 108)

In the light of this theorisation on the very political and contingent nature of identity-formation, the present paper proposes to discuss how heteronorm is discursively and performatively generated in the Indian post-colonial nation-state. I would like to interrogate the politics of systematic ostracism that is carried out against the Indian queer subject through the post-colonial nation-sate’s various machineries of power. The focus of my discussion would specifically be on Section 377 of Indian Penal Code. The issue gains in topical significance, given the current atmosphere of hostility that reeks of homophobia and belies India’s claim to modernity.

It is pertinent to note at this juncture that the politics of gender stereotyping and of the marginalisation of the sexual deviant in India is marked by particular cultural-national specificities. A blind application of western paradigms to understand the identity politics in India would be misleading. The dominant ideology in India does not always function around a simplistic binary between the heterosexual and homosexual. (Kapur, 237) Therefore the resistance faced by non-normative sexual entities too cannot be explained in terms of homophobia alone. Indian society betrays a discomfort regarding all issues of explicit sexual expression, be it same-sex love or the public display of affection. “Heteronorm” in India does not necessarily refer to male-female mutual attraction. Rather, marital, procreative and domestic sexual activity alone is legitimised. Counter-normative sexual behaviour in India therefore includes homoeroticism as well as all those different kinds of heterosexual love that transgresses the aforementioned categories (Bose, xviii). Any discussion of queer politics in the Indian nation-state, hence, must always take into account this complex network of power that permeates virtually all layers of Indian sexuality…Access Full Text of the Article


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Indian Feminist Publishing and the Sexual Subaltern

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Elen Turner, Independent Researcher, Australia

Abstract

The discussion of queer politics, identities and “sexual subalterns” in India has, after 2009, entered a new phase. Discourse on sexuality was once largely focused on law and health policies; now, such discourse is better able to address positive identities and their multitude of articulations. The relationship between queer and feminist discourse has become more productive. This article examines independent feminist publishers as a representative of Indian feminist discourse on sexuality and sexual subalternity. Such publishers are significant mediators of feminist scholarship and discourse, so analysing their work can reveal much about ‘mainstream’ forms of feminism. The December 2013 Supreme Court judgment to uphold Section 377 is concerning to many, but in the four and a half years that homosexuality was effectively legal in India, the visibility of the sexual subaltern broadened to the extent that it may be difficult to return to a pre-2009 state.

Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that criminalised “carnal intercourse against the order of nature”, usually interpreted as sodomy, was read down by the Delhi High Court in 2009. The Indian Supreme Court, in December 2013, overturned this judgment, effectually re-criminalising homosexuality. Section 377’s reading down was widely celebrated within the queer community as an important milestone, and the Supreme Court judgment lamented. But the four years in which homosexuality was in effect de-criminalised saw large shifts in public awareness and acceptance of homosexuality, shifts that the judgment of the Supreme Court will likely have little effect upon.

This article suggests that the discussion of queer politics, identities and “sexual subalterns” has, after 2009, entered a new phase, one that is not primarily focused on law and health policies, but is able to look towards positive identities and their articulation in a variety of forms. Furthermore, the relationship between queer and feminist discourse has become more productive. I specifically examine independent feminist publishing outlets as a representative of Indian feminist discourse on sexuality and sexual subalternity. By ‘independent’, I mean groups that may or may not operate with not-for-profit status, but that are not owned by large publishing corporations, or are subject to the editorial intervention of individuals detached from the main operations of the group. Such publishers are by no means the sole producers of feminist scholarship and discourse, but they are significant mediators of them, so analysing their work can reveal a lot about ‘mainstream’, urban forms of Indian feminism. While in the last decade or so, an increasing amount of online activism and publication has been occurring in India as elsewhere, such work falls outside the scope of this paper as that emerging media warrants a case study in its own right. Book publishing was a form of Indian feminist activism and knowledge production that began in the 1980s, and although it has always claimed to at the forefront of progressive feminist knowledge production, the contradiction between this self-belief and its interactions with the “sexual subaltern” makes it a genre worthy of especial attention…Access Full Text of the Article


 

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The Upside-Down Swan: Suniti Namjoshi

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Akshaya K. Rath, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, India

Abstract

Diasporic, lesbian and transnational, Suniti Namjoshi—within the framework of postcolonial discourse—attempts to construct an ‘alternative universe’ in textuality. In constructing of an alternative political identity, Namjoshi undertakes a comparative approach in selecting subjects for producing a neo-textual universe, and a comparative study of cross-cultural identities remain central to the analysis of Namjoshi’s work. In this paper I argue that it is because of colonial anti-sodomy law, and because of religious and social stigma that the mission of constructing an alternative universe remains operative in Namjoshi’s work. I also suggest that in Namjoshi’s work, feminism, postcolonialism and queer theory merge but her work has been deliberately sidelined by the academia.

In 2006 Suniti Namjoshi (b. 1941) published Sycorax: New Fables and Poems. It included a section on the ‘unsung / untold’ story of Shakespeare’s Sycorax and a section on the ‘new’ life of Protea. By then, taking textual genesis from Shakespeare’s The Tempest and imitating the fashion of many postcolonial texts, in 1984 Namjoshi had published in From the Bedside Book of Nightmare a section entitled “Snapshots of Caliban”. “Sycorax”, a continuation of “Snapshots of Caliban”, of rewriting Shakespeare, attempted to reorganise the structure of the “humanist universe”—a project, rather a challenge, she attempted to undertake in The Jackass and the Lady in 1980. Rewriting Shakespeare to challenge the existing structure of the male-centred ‘humanist universe’ is part of the volumes of writing she has produced. They include rewriting of ancient and canonical fables and stories, and making new ones in the process of defining / identifying the lesbian / feminist ‘self’ amongst birds, beasts and animals. Rewriting canonical texts as a third-world lesbian feminist also includes exploring possibilities of multiple dimensions of traditional stories, fables and poems. For instance, the untold story of Sycorax portrayed in Sycorax, inclusion of an ageing sparrow as the witness of colonialism, and humanising Protea, a character from Greek mythology as a lady, are some of the instances of reorganising the world. Presently celebrated as a fabulist and a poet, Namjoshi has been constantly producing poetry and fables since the publication of her first collection of poems, Poems, in 1967.

Namjoshi’s Because of India: Selected Poems and Fables (1989) and Goja: An Autobiographical Myth (2000) are considered autobiographical and they show her development as a third world lesbian poet. Conversations of Cow (1985) and The Mothers of Maya Diip (1991) thematically remain critical of lesbian identity in a heterosexist world. The collections of work celebrating lesbianism are mostly written outside India and Namjoshi justifies the reasons behind such an exercise in the introductory sections of Because of India.

This article explores that Namjoshi maps the different facets of lesbian desire and identity within the framework of postcolonial discourse. It analyzes the representation of animal imagery with which she identifies the homosexual self. Further, it highlights in principle the way law, religion and social discourses are presented against sexual identities in Namjoshi’s work, and the way she attempts to frame an alternative universe in textuality. It argues it is because of Indian law against homosexuality and social stigma that the mission of constructing an alternative universe remains operative in Namjoshi. Further, it suggests that in Namjoshi’s work, feminism, postcolonialism and queer theory merge but her work has been deliberately sidelined by the academia…Access Full Text of the Article


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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

Performing Pride/Performing Protest: LGBT Activism Post Recriminalizing of Section 377

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Priyam Ghosh, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India

Abstract

The landmark judgment delivered by the Delhi High Court on 2nd July 2009 for reading down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code and its reinstatement on 11th December, 2013 seemed to spearhead search for alternative spaces for performances. This paper aims at mapping and studying some LGBT protest performances emerging post recriminalisation of homosexuality under Section 377. Events and performances including LGBT pride parade, gay for a day (on facebook) and Global day of Rage have stirred public conscience and are known for the level of performativity and feminist/queer strategies like parody and camp. Considering the events during this period the categorization of the performances as feminist/queer itself is problematised. This paper aims to identify potential common ground wherein the feminism-queer divide breaks to produce alternative performance spaces. The case studies are historicized and considered through impact of state surveillance, the market, globalization, culture and changing feminist/queer ideology in the above mentioned case studies.

Introduction

The 90s in India has seen the emergence of the political assertion of the ‘private realm of sexuality’ (Narrain, 2004: 1). The euphoric outburst post the 2009 judgment reading down Section 377 seemed to be a culminating moment of the ‘performative coming out’ of queer sexuality in public space. In the capital, celebratory spectacles like pride parade, flash mobs and other performances contrasted the earlier more clandestine subcultures of queer life. The performative euphoria reflected through the effects of decriminalization was seen as the ‘new lease of life’ for different feminist/queer communities, legitimizing a space where their sexuality could be performed without the constant surveillance or harassment by the State. While the recriminalisation of Section 377 in December, 2013 curbed individual rights and ‘right to life’, LGBT activists along with people from the LGBT community and supporters for equal rights resorted to occupying strategic public spaces as well as virtual world through social media.

The euphoric celebration of sexuality in form of protest indeed contrasted a number of defiant performative incidents initiated by feminist and queer groups before. These earlier incidents were now recalled and re-contextualized as significant ‘performative’ expressions, which were reflected the mood for change. For example the incident of the Mangalore Pub Attack and the subsequent ‘pink chaddi campaign’ (Bangalore 2009), performance art on sexual harassment by Blank Noise, FKBK etc (Manola Gayatri: 2009). The self-confessed ‘frivolous’ response of the Pink Chaddi Campaign nevertheless set a precedent for later modes of protest whose impact may even be seen on the later slut walks. While citing particular feminist/ queer performances, I contextualize how one is inherently connected to the other in a more complex way than cause-effect syndrome… Access Full Text of the Article

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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

Sex, Sexuality and Gender in the Delhi Metro Trains: a Semiotic Analysis

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Anuj Gupta, St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi, India

Abstract

This paper explores the way sex, sexuality and gender are constructed in Delhi, India by using a semiotic understanding of reality whereby an individual is thought of as being subjectivized due to his being embedded in the socio-semantic text of a city full of signs which he/she interprets and appropriates. Within this socio-semantic text that the individual interprets, there are various determiners of interpretation and gender is one of them. The text of analysis is the collection of signs in the Delhi Metro trains and the methodology used is loosely based on the works of Roland Barthes. The purpose of this essay is to determine the ways in which the citizens of Delhi think of sex, sexuality and gender and analyze the ways in which these notions are reproduced on a daily basis through microcosmic texts like the signs in the Delhi metro trains.

Introduction: A “bookish” understanding of reality

The idea of a book serves as an appropriate metaphor for a semiotic understanding of “reality”. In such an understanding, both a book and reality are texts or collections of signs that the individual subject interprets though his faculties of interpretation, conditioned through his identity. However, it must be kept in mind that the text of reality and the interpreter are porous categories which constantly pour into and mould each other i.e., while the subject’s interpretation constantly reproduces reality, the very tools of perception that the subject has are shaped by social factors or determiners (that which the act of perception/interpretation will then go on to reproduce), creating a cyclical rather than a linear or causal model of the creation of the self and society. A circle has no origin, which is why it is virtually impossible to pinpoint which came first; the self or the social, parole or langue, the chicken or the egg.

There are various determiners that influence this hermeneutical act of creation of meaning and being which are spread out throughout the text of reality, both inside the individual and outside in the society. In simplistic terms, one could say that the primary schools of cultural criticism today (like Feminism, Marxism, Post Colonialism etc.) are oriented to the study of one such determiner of interpretation each and then through that determiner they postulate about this entire process. (For example, a post-colonial school of criticism would ideally focus on the significance of the determiner of race or ethnicity in the meaning created in a cultural artifact (like say Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart), through which it would then go on to postulate larger theories about how this is connected to the ways in which people generated “meaning” and modes of being in the socio-cultural semantic realities from which this text emerged (In the case of the Things Fall Apart, this would perhaps refer to the interpretative communities of pre and post colonization Nigeria).

Ideas about these determinants of interpretation do not magically emerge hierarchically from “centers” of power (like the state, or the church or the police) as was thought traditionally. Foucault’s thought shows us that power rather operates in a horizontal manner and is present everywhere (Foucault 1980). It would thus be wise to rechristen these erstwhile “centers” of authority as “lenses” of authority. They should be thought of as convex lenses which concentrate certain ways of orienting these determinants onto the society in which they exist at a given time. When the individual comes into being in this socio-semantic space, his/her ways of interpreting it and orienting his/her self are influenced by such lenses of authority. Barthes’ essay, The Death of the Author argues that reading a text while keeping in mind what the author must have meant is a kind of censorship of meaning (Barthes 1978). Such a reading of a text restricts whatever meanings one might have produced. The writer figure should be thought of simply as the conductor of the textual symphony rather than its composer. If we transpose this argument onto the semantic text of reality, then just like the prominence of the intentional fallacy in the creation of meaning in the reading of a book, individuals in society too are usually influenced in their acts of interpretation of reality by the “author”otative lenses of power discussed above. Revolution in this sense would be a radical new interpretation of this text of reality that defies the meanings generated if one dutifully orients one’s interpretations in accordance with these lenses of ‘authority’…Access Full Text of the Article


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What is Performance Studies?

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