Volume 10 Number 3 2018 - Page 2

“I don’t even feel human anymore”: Monstrosity and Othering in Ken Dahl’s Monsters

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Sathyaraj Venkatesan1 & Chinmay Murali2

1Associate Professor of English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the National Institute of Technology, Trichy, India. Email: sathya@nitt.edu

2Research Scholar in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the National Institute of Technology, Trichy, India. Email: chinmay.murali@gmail.com

  Volume 10, Number 3, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n3.07

Received March 25, 2018; Revised October 11, 2018: Accepted October 27, 2018; Published October 27, 2018.

 

Abstract

The idea of the monster has functioned within various Western discourses, always carrying with it elements of difference, deviance, exclusion, and marginality irrespective of spatiotemporal differences. The monstrous often signified a liminal state of existence, remaining well within the western dualistic logic that operates through a series of binaries such as natural/unnatural, human/animal, self/other, normal/deviant. Within the discourses surrounding body and illness, sexual transgression and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as AIDS, syphilis, and herpes, among others, are often portrayed as monstrous. Ken Dahl’s autopathography Monsters (2009) is a harrowing account of his experience of dealing with herpes infection and the personal, psychological and socio-cultural impact of encountering his own vulnerabilities as an STD-infected person. In close reading Dahl’s memoir, this article aims to investigate the author’s use of the monster metaphor and abject art to depict the stigma he faced as a carrier of an incurable and contagious disease. Drawing theoretical insights from Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, and Julia Kristeva among others, the essay also seeks to examine the social mechanisms and the discourses surrounding body and illness which operate in stigmatizing and othering an STD patient as monstrous.

Keywords: comics, graphic medicine, abject art, monster, body, STD

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Mourning for the (M)otherland: “The Virtual Space of Spectrality” in Ginu Kamani’s “Just Between Indians”

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Bahareh Bahmanpour1 & Amir Ali Nojumian2

1PhD in English Literature, Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch (IAUCTB), Tehran, Iran, b_bahmanpour@iau-tnb.ac.ir, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4971-6486

2Associate Professor of English Literature, Shahid Beheshti University (SBU), Tehran, Iran, amiran35@hotmail.com

  Volume 10, Number 3, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n3.06

Received August 15, 2018; Revised August 28, 2018: Accepted October 27, 2018; Published October 27, 2018.

 

Abstract

The present article is based on the major premise that the loss of a homeland (in the present case, Mother India) gives rise to such a long complicated mourning process that not only the first-generation diasporic subjects but also their second-generation offspring are afflicted by the infection of the original wound of departure. Synthesizing the trope of departure-as-death (a trope used here to compare the original departure from the motherland to a psychological death of a kind) and the trope of the dead mother (a trope used here to compare the dead-yet-living motherland and its cultural markers to the haunting phantom of a dead-yet-living biological mother), the paper argues that the diasporic subjectivity (in the present case, the Indian diasporic subjectivity) is a site at which a dialectic struggle between the two contending forces of the metaphoric death of the motherland and the constant desire for her is re-enacted. It is this same struggle, the present article claims, that is best illustrated in Ginu Kamani’s “Just Between Indians,” the penultimate story of her 1995 debut collection of short fiction Junglee Girl. As a story written by a second-generation Indian diasporic woman writer, “Just Between Indians” highlights the haunting quality of the absence/presence of Mother India in the lives of the second-generation diasporic subjects. Exploiting Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok’s notion of “the exquisite corpse” within a diasporic context, this article then not only throws into sharp relief the representational possibilities that “the virtual space of spectrality” has to offer for the literary signification of the trauma of displacement (or the diasporic trauma), but also brings to the fore the therapeutic and liberating force of the trope of the return of the dead mother. Creating an ethical space which can facilitate embracing the dead-yet-living (m)otherland on its own terms, such a trope helps both in re-constructing the desire for the homeland and in fulfilling a rather belated process of grieving for an apparently irremediable loss.

Keywords: Diaspora, Trauma of Displacement, Spectrality, Exquisite Corpse, Abraham and Torok, Ginu Kamani.

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Book Review: Literary Theory: Textual Application

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ISBN-13 9788126926107
Author Sk. Sagir Ali
Original Price INR 595
Publication Year 2018
Pages 212
Publisher Atlantic Publishers and Distributors (P) Ltd
Binding Hardbound

Reviewed by

T. Marx

Professor of English, Pondicherry University, Puducherry. Email: drtmarx@gmail.com

Volume 10, Number 3, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n3.r1

Literary criticism is the branch of study concerned with defining literature. This could be done by classifying and evaluating works of literature. G.B. Shaw’s view that civilisation cannot progress without criticism underlines the value of literary criticism. Any literary criticism begins with the question, “what is literature?” Literature, in the widest sense of the term, is simply anything that is written. This should be distinguished from what is called “imaginative literature” with which a thoughtful student of literature is primarily concerned. However, a satisfactory definition of literature is difficult to arrive at. Literary theory is the study of the principles of literature, its categories, criteria and the like. Studies of concrete works of art can be called either ‘literary criticism’ or ‘literary history’. However, literary theory or criticism cannot exist in isolation. All the three are interrelated. Keep Reading

Dance movements of baksy as a paradigm of development of the Kazakh dance art

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A. T. Moldakhmetova, G.T. Zhumaseitova, L.V. Kim, G.Y. Saitova, R. V. Kenzikeev

T. K. Zhurgenov Kazakh National Art Academy, the Republic of Kazakhstan. Email: alimusha_88@mail.ru

  Volume 10, Number 3, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n3.05

Received May 15, 2018; Revised May 25, 2018: Accepted May 29, 2018; Published September 27, 2018.

Abstract

The interaction of traditional and innovative aspects in choreographic art leads to the emergence of a different palette of interpretations and stylizations of folk dance, and most frequently, in order to determine the most important aspects, there is a need to resort to its origins, management of the knowledge of traditional material, its early stages of formation. In this article, the authors investigated the origination of Kazakh dance from the shamanic dance. They revealed the influence of the dance element of shamanistic mysteries based on the comparison of examples of historical figurative artifacts and modernity. Using the method of paleochoreographic analysis of the images of shamanic dance, they revealed and presented the semantic load of the choreographic lexis of Kazakh dance, indicated the influence of religious viewpoint of Tengrism, and determined the types of imitative and ecstatic dance of the shaman. The article indicates the role of the knowledge of key bases of formation of national dance for future choreographers.

Keywords: Kazakh dance, baksy, specific position, visual artifacts, paleochoreography, tradition, innovation, shamanistic ritual.

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The Golden Pentagon of Albert Dürer in the Baroque Art of Nouveau España: A Case Study in an Altarpiece at an Augustinian Church in Salamanca, México.

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José Armando Pérez Crespo

Assistant Professor, Department of Art and Business, Engineering Division Campus Irapuato-Salamanca, University of Guanajuato, Mexico. Email: armando.perez@ugto.mx

  Volume 10, Number 3, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n3.04

Received May 21, 2018; Revised May 20, 2018: Accepted May 24, 2018; Published September 13, 2018.

 Abstract

The present article is a review of the artistic aspects of Baroque architecture in Latin America. Special reference may be made to at least one significant pattern among others: namely, ‘altarpiece’ design. I shall conduct this discussion with reference to the walls of the nave of the Augustinian temple of San Juan de Sahagún in the city of Salamanca, Guanajuato, a city located in the central highlands of Mexico, also known as the “El Bajío” region. The altarpiece theme has been the subject of study by local and external researchers who have dealt with its historical antecedents, from the first Christian altars in the times of the Roman persecutions, to its appearance in the Middle Ages, and its final manifests in the splendor of the Baroque period and its arrival in America. Thus, in the colonial period of the Americas the formal elements of the Baroque were used by the colonisers to project a status symbol in front of the powerful creole and peninsular groups. But the Baroque age symbol was also an artistic expression and it combined with the culture of the indigenous world, adding to the rich body of architectural expression, material resources, diversity and contexts. Baroque synthesis also comprised spirituality and gave rise to artistic creations with specific functions within a religious system- in this case the city of Salamanca on Mexico’s Bajío area. Gómez (2011) argues with respect to the purpose of the artistic object: “Altarpieces play a very special role in religious art in that they are differentiated from the rest of the liturgical material. It is also an instrument of religious stimulus for with its illustrative nature and pedagogical  impacts on people visiting the church”(par.1).

 Keywords: Baroque architecture, Latin America, Augustinian temple, altarpiece

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Urban Metaphors in the Interaction of Child with Public Space

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Hare Kiliçaslan

Karadeniz Technical University, Faculty of Architecture, Department of Architecture, Trabzon, Turkey. ORCID: 0000-0002-6113-7962. Email: hkkilicaslan@gmail.com.

 Volume 10, Number 3, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n3.03

Received May 24, 2018; Revised May 27, 2018: Accepted on August 15, 2018; Published September 13, 2018.

 Abstract

This research aims to reveal out the urban perceptions of 6-7-year old children and their sensual experiences about public spaces. The research comprised of 35 students in total (14 girls and 21 boys), studying at first grade in Bedri Rahmi Eyübo?lu Primary School in Ortahisar district of Trabzon province and was conducted in 2016-2017 academic year, spring term. The public spaces physically experienced by the children were identified through survey forms. Their urban perceptions were tried to be identified through the metaphors they created. Children filled in the blanks, “Trabzon is like ……… because ………..” to make statements, which were analyzed and interpreted through content analysis. The metaphors obtained were categorized based on their common characteristics. This research aims to reveal out the perceptions of the children on Trabzon with respect to the physically experienced public spaces and urban metaphors. The research findings are assumed to help the parents and teachers enhance the interaction of the children with the cities they live in and thus, improve the level of their spatial perception.

Keywords: Urban, Public Space, Perception, Child, Metaphor.

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The Clue of Life: Translating Feuerbach in George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss

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Saswati Halder

Associate Professor, Department of English, Jadavpur University. Email: saswatihalder@yahoo.com

Volume 10, Number 3, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n3.02

Received April 30, 2018; Accepted on  August 15, 2018; Published September 13,  2018.

Abstract

The central preoccupation of George Eliot’s life was with religion. In her novels she searched for a view of life that would give modern man a sense of purpose, dignity and ethical direction. On reading Eliot’s novels with the knowledge of her intellectual development, one must ask how this earnest agnostic could treat traditional religion so sympathetically, why she made the religious experience the subject of her creative work, and what moral truth she found religion to embody. It was the philosophy of the German anthropologist Ludwig Feuerbach, whose book The Essence of Christianity she translated in 1854, in combination with her own earlier experiences as a Christian, which led Eliot to her understanding of the subjective reality embodied in Christianity. ‘With the ideas of Feuerbach,’ Eliot wrote, ‘I everywhere agree’ (Haight, 1954-55, p.153). My paper attempts to show how the influence of Feuerbach achieves complexity and vitality in Eliot’s novel The Mill on the Floss and how Eliot establishes her faith in firm and lasting relations, which could be attained through the adjustment of the individual to the community. This adjustment comes as a corollary to the protagonist’s realization of the principles that promote love, respect, tolerance and sacrifice for others.

Keywords: religious humanism, suffering of love, Feuerbach

Proclus on the Atlantis Story

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José María Zamora Calvo

Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain. ORCID ID: 0000-0001-7101-2234. Email: jm.zamora@uam.es

Volume 10, Number 3, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n3.01

Received April 30, 2018; Accepted August 09, 2018; Published September 13, 2018.

Abstract

This paper explores the central thesis of the story of Atlantis put forward by Proclus in his Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus. For Proclus, who interprets this story eight centuries after his invention by Plato, the Atlantean account does not constitute the “birth of fiction”, nor a historical novel composed in order to critize the politics of his time, but a total historical account, “entirely true”. The conflict between ancient Athens, the city of Athena, and Atlantis, dedicated to Poseidon, exposes an episode of the constitution of the cosmos of which the history of humanity is a part. Therefore, the story of Atlantis is a representation of the new creation or second demiurgy.

Keywords: Atlantis; Proclus; Neoplatonism; Athena; Poseidon

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