Volume 12 Number 1 2020 - Page 4

Gender Identities and its Correlation with the Cultural Settings in the MulluKuruma Tribe of Wayanad, Kerala

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Neethu Parvathy S.1 & A. Balasubramanian2

1 Research Scholar, Department of Mass Communication, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore, India. Email: p_neethu@cb.students.amrita.edu

2 Assistant Professor, Department of Mass Communication, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore, India. Email: a_balasubramanian@cb.amrita.edu

 Volume 12, Number 1, January-March, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n1.05

ABSTRACT

MulluKuruma tribe being the predominant tribal community of Wayanad in Kerala is known for their unique culture and the ability to intermingle with the outside world. Culture can manifest itself in different forms, which can be identified physically and visually, at different levels (Hofstede, 1991). For this study, the researcher adopted Geert Hofstede’s manifestation of culture into three levels, namely rituals, symbols and myths to generate the values (the building blocks of a culture). Culture performs a requisite role in fortifying gender, and the way gender is constructed through everyday activities, defines gender roles, relations and identities (Schalkwyk, 2000). Adopting a triangulation methodology, the research tries to apprehend data through the lenses of Ethnography and Edmund Husserl’s Phenomenology, followed by correlation design. The study concludes that the indigenous culture of the tribe has influenced the gender identity of the elderly people in  the tribe. Even though there have been cultural changes, the elderly generation of the tribe tries to stay close to their authentic culture.

Keywords: MulluKuruma, Phenomenology, Ethnography, Gender identities.

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What is Performance Studies?

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Butler avec Agamben on the Spectrality of Love in a Post-Theoretical Culture

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Jan Gresil S. Kahambing

Leyte Normal University, Tacloban City, Philippines, vince_jb7@hotmail.com, ORCID: 0000-0002-4258-0563

 Volume 12, Number 1, January-March, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n1.09

Abstract

Cultural studies of recent memory tend to cling to love and find a certain answer from its musings. This critical move proceeds from various interrogations of cultural or cross-cultural practices towards adapting a linear progress so that love is tasked to provide an antidote to contemporary social maladies. This critical paper, however, attempts to appraise the idea that love is not a panacea, especially in a setting where theory is fragmented and assumes almost definitively a dead state. Instead, love functions as a specter that haunts a post-theoretical culture. The paper hinges this take from contemporary thinkers whom Nicholas Birns points to as “theorists without ‘theory’.” As such, the spectral concept of love is explored and critiqued in the lens of Judith Butler and Giorgio Agamben – both thinkers taken as separate and together – as a subversion to its affirmative theoretical standing and as a proposal on how its spectrality can inform the possibilities of its function.

Keywords: Love, Spectrality, Agamben, Butler, Culture, Theory

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What is Performance Studies?

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Genre of Folk Narratives as Rich Linguistic Resource in Acquiring English Language Competence for Young Learners

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Prachishri Mishra & SwayamPrabha Satpathy

Dept. of Humanities. ITER,Siksha O Anusandhan University. Email: mishraprachishree7@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 1, January-March, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n1.08

  Abstract

Folk narrative (tales) is the reflection of culture for a particular group of people, it’s an amalgamation of the traditions common to a particular culture, subculture or group. These include tradition of narrating tales and proverbs. Ever since story telling has been a very alluring feature to understand a culture as well as helps in language learning. The frequent repetitions make them excellent for reinforcing new vocabulary and grammar. The natural rhythm that  is associated with the tales is useful to work on stress, rhythm, and intonation in pronunciation. It is difficult for a learner to learn a language which is not his mother tongue. The cultural elements of folktales help to bridge common ground between cultures and bring out cultural differences. It   develops cultural awareness that is essential if we are to learn to think in another language and understand the people who speak it. In this paper, it is analysed   that can these folktales be used as a language learning tool? First of all, however, we would like to consider the definition of folktales and explain the hidden subtypes behind the term. Apart from looking at folk tales in general, this paper would take a look at their function it also discusses the reasons for using these in school. The main purpose of this study is to examine the role of folk narratives in teaching English to young learners as second language.

Key words:  Language, Teaching, Learning, Folktales, Narrative, Culture.

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What is Performance Studies?

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Reconstructing the Changing Urban Landscape beyond Spatio-Temporal Dimensions: Post-colonial ‘Allahabad’ in Neelum Saran Gour’s Invisible Ink

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Chhandita Das1 & Priyanka Tripathi2

1Institute Fellow (PhD), Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Patna. daschhandita1993@gmail.com

2Associate Professor of English, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Patna. priyankatripathi@iitp.ac.in. ORCID: 0000-0002-9522-3391.

 Volume 12, Number 1, January-March, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n1.07

 

Abstract:

One of the pressing concerns of our times is the rapid change of urban landscape resulting in environmental degradation. However, there are other concerns too that leads this paper to deliberate on how individual and collective experiences and identities get reshaped extensively with the change of urban landscape across temporality. Within this framework, this paper analyses Neelum Saran Gour’s novel Invisible Ink (2015) which projects Indian city ‘Allahabad’, now referred as ‘Prayagraj’ in two different time scales with a gap of forty-four years mostly through the subjective experiences of two women characters, Rekha and Amina.  In the conventional discipline of Geography, landscape is often assumed to be a visual entity (Cresswell, 2015) but appropriating Leila Scannell and Robert Gifford’s “Defining Place Attachment: A Tripartite Organizing Framework” (2010), landscape (both built and natural) unfolds its meaning more through human interaction constructing cultural values leading to spatial distinctiveness which is always in flux. Thus, urbanization is not just a transformation of physical topography of the ‘city’ but ‘includes the changing façade of socio-cultural environments which unquestionably impacts on the existing values of both private and public space reshaping the experiences of its people. Therefore, this article will also examine the ways in which literature documents urban spaces.

Keywords: ‘Landscape’, ‘Urbanization’, ‘Experience’, ‘Identity’, ‘Public space’

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‘Screaming with Joy’: Allen Ginsberg and the Politics of Queer Masochistic Performativity

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Anil Pradhan

PhD Scholar, Department of English, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. Email: anilpradhan.eng.rs@jadavpuruniversity.in

 Volume 12, Number 1, January-March, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n1.06

 

Abstract

Allen Ginsberg’s Howl presents a complex idea of queer identity politics restructuring American urbanity. In a de Certeauan portrayal of ‘queer’ sexual encounters, the actors tend to subvert notions of the heteronormative hegemony over sexuality, sexual bodies, and masculinities. The writing back by the marginalised sexual ‘Others’ employs the agency of representing pain as liberating, subversive, and pleasurable. These ecstatic performances reveal gender and sexuality as ‘performative,’ contributing towards a construction of a ‘homosexual masculinity’ which is subversive of heteronormative politics. However, there can be located a counter-subversion at work in this portrayal of queer masculinity by virtue of its drawing from the very heteronormative constructs that it intends to subvert. Nevertheless, the agency of a Deleuzian ‘queer masochism’ entailed in a Butlerian queer performativity can be inferred as a potential strategy for refashioning queer literary politics. This paper attempts to interrogate this very discursive queer identity and performative politics in Ginsberg’s poetry.

Keywords: Ginsberg, Howl, queer, performativity, masochism, public, space

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What is Performance Studies?

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Aloha Aina: Native Hawai’ians’ Environmental Perspective in O.A Bushnell’s Ka’a’awa

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Kristiawan Indriyanto

Ph.D Candidate, Doctoral Program of American Studies, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia. Email: kristiawan.i@mail.ugm.ac.id. Orchid: 0000-0001-7827-2506

 Volume 12, Number 1, January-March, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n1.04

Abstract

This paper foregrounds the Native Hawai’ians’ environmental perspective of Aloha Aina in Oswald Andrew’s Ka’a’awa. By asserting that the land and all the entities are part of their family (ohana), this epistemology stresses the equality of human and non-human which run contrary to the Western anthropocentric view.  This present study is conducted within indigenous ecocriticism perspective, in which alternative epistemology of human and non-human interaction should be considered in the light of global environmental crisis. In Ka’a’awa, Bushnell explores how reconciliation of indigenous perspective and White settler proves difficult to achieve under Orientalist discourse that derogatively perceive the native epistemologies as superstitious and irrational. Moreover, the enforcement of Western anthropocentric view towards the local natives through colonialism causes the islanders to forget their ancestral epistemology. This paper concludes that Bushnell’s elaboration of a novel culture which embraces both side of the spectrum, indigenous and white settler culture is an avenue to achieve sustainable ecological condition.

Keywords: Indigenous Ecocriticism, Hawai’ian Literature, Aloha Aina, Novel Culture

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An Investigation into the Teaching Competency of English Teachers of Tripura Board of Secondary Education

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Debabrata Bhattacharjee1 & Remith George Carri2

1Post Graduate Teacher, Govt. of Tripura. Email: debabratajoynagar6@gmail.com

2Assistant Professor, A.M. School of Educational Sciences, Department of Education, Assam University, Silchar

 Volume 12, Number 1, January-March, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n1.03

Abstract

The paper intends to identify teaching competency of English teachers at secondary level of Tripura Board of Secondary Education (T.B.S.E.). Descriptive method is applied to collect data and stratified random sampling was applied during the 2016-2017 academic year. A standardized tool was administrated to measure teaching competency of English. The present paper intends to test the significant association of English teaching competency with selected variables. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were used to draw inference on the hypothesis. The major recommendations focused that: English teachers of T.B.S.E. should be given individual attention to each of the learners, English teachers of T.B.S.E.  should impart teaching properly without discriminating of gender bias, individual attention must be given to poor performing students in English subject, English teachers of T.B.S.E. must not use too much vernacular (mother tongue) languages in the class while teaching a foreign or second language, English teachers of T.B.S.E. should be more punctual, serious while teaching, The teachers of English belonging from T.B.S.E. should be very conscious at preparation, presentation, closing, evaluation and managerial part of the teaching, and should take care of  individual attention to each of the learners. The paper grounded the proposition that English teaching competency can be achieved when the three phases of teaching (pre-active phase, inter-active phase and post-active phase) will have their proper coordination in terms of context-specific application.

Key words: English teaching competency, Secondary level, Stratified sampling, ETCOS.

The Political role of ‘Bihu’ in Assam Movement (1979)

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Debajit Bora

Assistant Professor, Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research, Jamia Millia Islamia, debojeetbora@gmail.com, ORCID: 0000-0002-6424-2522

Volume 12, Number 1, January-March, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n1.02

Abstract

This paper aims to understand the political role of Assamese traditional performance ‘Bihu’ during Assam movement in 1979. It argues that beyond its role as Assamese cultural identity, ‘Bihu’ had transformed itself into a political space and fueled upon expanding the idea of Stage Bihu. While looking at the performance as medium of political messaging, the paper brings together the three specific case studies seemingly unknown in the documented cultural history and located in the rural Assam. The idea is to comprehend the larger scope of traditional performance in accommodating political events. The debates are being weaved together through theoretical frames of historian Eric Hobsbawm’s ‘Inventing tradition’ Thomas Postlewait’s ‘theatre event’ in order to see the transformation and changes within the repertoire of Bihu. The paper tries to resurrect an alternative historical discourse, often neglected by the dominant historical cannons.

Keywords: performance, identity, Assam movement, politics, Assam.

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An Indigenous Woman in the Apocalyptic City: Exploring the Multifaceted Urban Panorama in Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God

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Svitlana Kot

PhD student, English Philology Department, Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University, Mykolaiv, Ukraine. ORCID: 0000-0002-1462-1276. Email: svitlana.kot@chmnu.edu.ua

Volume 12, Number 1, January-March, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n1.01

Abstract

In light of rapidly spreading urbanization and the constant growth of indigenous populations living in cities, urban Indian narratives emerge as a means to battle simulations and invisibility of Native Americans in the city by demonstrating stories of resistance, survival and identity preservation. Native American literature written in the city and about the city plays an essential role in reimagining and redefining indigenous space and its representation in modern American culture. This study aims to contribute to this growing area of research by exploring urban space in novel Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich, a Native American writer. Despite apocalyptic symbolism and fictional nature, this novel is both an indigenous perspective on the city space and a reflection of urban Indian experience. By employing an interdisciplinary coordinate system and combining spatial analysis with the transcultural approach, eco-feminism and Foucauldian analysis of power distribution, this study offers some critical insights into Native American vision of urban nature and future, as well as culture, gender, politics, and ecology, while also demonstrating that indigenous people are active thinkers involved in urban discourse.

Keywords: dystopia, eco-feminism, Native Americans, transculturalism, urban space.

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Review Article: An Excellent Introduction to Diaspora Theory and Transnationalism

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Book Name: Diaspora Theory and Transnationalism

Author: Himadri Lahiri

Genre: Scholarly

Publisher: Orient Black Swan

Year of Publication: 2019

ISBN: 9789352876143

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviewed by

Suparno Banerjee

Associate Professor of English, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX, USA. Email: sb67@txstate.edu

Volume 12, Number 1, January-March, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n1.10

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