Volume 12 Number 4 2020

The Idea of Eternal Country in the First Epic Poems of the Turkic People

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Aslan E. Alimbayev1, Laura N. Daurenbekova2, Kayrbek R. Kemenger1, Saule K. Imanberdiyeva3 & Nurbol K. Bashirov1

1Department of Kazakh Literature, L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University, Nur-Sultan, Republic of Kazakhstan

2Department of Kazakh and Russian Philology, Eurasian Humanities Institute, Nur-Sultan, Republic of Kazakhstan

3Department of Kazakh and Russian Language, S. Seifullin Kazakh Agrotechnical University, Nur-Sultan, Republic of Kazakhstan

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.29

 

Abstract

The inscriptions on the white stones have been evidence of the fact that Turkic people had their writing, culture, tradition, history and the path they made and in the V-VIII centuries. The article introduces with the data about Turkic people inhabited in Central Asia through Orkhon monuments and determines that the ancient Turks struggled to be “an eternal independent country” in the fifth century. Moreover, the article considers the importance of runic inscriptions in the Orkhon monuments in the systematization of Turkic studies by defining the historical-comparative direction of modern linguistics.

Keywords: Turkic, translation, transcript, stone inscription, epic poem, toponymy.

Echoes of the Turkic World and Folklore in the Holy Book Avesta

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Aktoty Nusipalikyzy1, Maulenov Almasbek1, Baigunakov Dosbol2, Toty I. Koshenova3 & Leila A. Mekebaeva1

1Department of Kazakh Literature and Theory of Literature, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan

2Department of Archeology, Ethnology and Museology, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan

3Department of Kazakh Philology, Akhmet Yassawi International Kazakh-Turkish University, Turkestan, Republic of Kazakhstan

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.28

Abstract

The holy book “Avesta” is one of the magnificent creations of the world, which contains valuable information about religion, literature, culture, geography, history and mythology of the ancient peoples of Central Asia. For several centuries, many scholars of various specialties have been interested in “Avesta”. In numerous comments they discussed the history of the appearance of the book and its hymns, the personality of Zarathustra, his homeland, geographical objects, historical characters and mythological images, the ideological basis of the collection of holy books, etc. Many of the above mentioned questions are still being discussed among specialists, causing and over-colouring certain problems. In their work, the authors tried to find something in common between the “Avesta” and the Kazakh literature, exploring the spiritual relationship of the “Avesta” with the mythology of the people. As practice shows, various phenomena in the folklore of the peoples of the world are experiencing their birth, formation, flourishing, decay and death. Forms are modified, disappear, replaced by others. But sometimes the most ancient layer of folk art is preserved as a relic. Sometimes it is very difficult to see the traces of the most ancient representations in national folklore. Therefore, the authors of the article analyzed the works of Kazakhstani authors who studied some points in the “Avesta” and they made only an attempt to investigate the remains of the Kazakh archetype in this ancient literary monument. This article, without claiming to completely cover the available material, sees the main task in providing a holistic conceptual overview of the Kazakh literature on the above mentioned problem.

Keywords: Zarathustra, folklore, spiritual and moral parallels, zhyrau, spiritual heritage.

 

Aestheticizing Violence: Paul Bowles’ Prolific Partnership with His Motiveless Villain in The Delicate Prey

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Sina Movaghati

Doctoral Candidate at the Heidelberg Center for American Studies, Heidelberg University, Germany. ORCID ID: 0000-0003-3433-2487. Email: sina.movaghati@as.uni-heidelberg.de

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.27

Abstract:

Many critics have regarded the violence in Bowles as “meaningless” or “motiveless.” By defining the connection between motive and act, this article tackles the indefinite nature of violence in Paul Bowles’ collection of short stories, The Delicate Prey. To this end, a study of the typical Arab character in Bowles is offered. Also, the motive behind Bowles’ villain is defined in the light of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s term “motiveless malignity.” It is discussed that the contextless violence of Bowles has an estrangement effect on the victim; and his detached narration technique, together with the excessive occurrences of violence, leads to an aesthetic experience on the reader. “Aesthetic experience” is explained based on Slobodan Markovi?’s definition of the term. It is concluded that Bowles’ maneuvers over the subject of violence should be viewed in the light of a modernist aesthetic tradition based on violence rather than praxeological humanistic chain reactions.

Keywords: Paul Bowles; The Delicate Prey; motiveless violence; aesthetic experience

 

Poetics of Space and Its Association with Human Soul in Brian Dillon’s In the Dark Room

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Hassan Abootalebi1 & Alireza Kargar2

1PhD student of English Language and Literature, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran. Email: abootalebi2010@gmail.com

2M.A in English Language and Literature, Lorestan University, Khorramabad, Iran. Email: alirezakargar1984@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.26

Abstract

The present paper intends to analyze and put under scrutiny Brian Dillon’s memoir In the Dark Room (2005) in the light of Gaston Bachelard’s theories of house as an intimate space explicated and expounded on in his magnum opus The Poetics of Space (1964). Since Bachelard’s ideas are often associated with phenomenology which accentuates the significance of the manner in which phenomena appear to us and are given meaning, the house and objects in it as a place of intimacy are of paramount importance to him. The spaces along with objects are not merely possessions which can be lived in or owned by individuals, but rather they express and suggest human emotions and human soul. They also have the power to transport us back into a distant past and evoke deeply buried memories and feelings. The house, says Bachelard, protects both daydreaming and the dreamer and allows one to dream in peace. Moreover, it provides a restful place in which imagination and thought are both stimulated. The title-mentioned work can be investigated in the light of Gaston Bachelard’s theories to provide proof for the above claim. The narrator of In the Dark Room is surrounded with objects and places which are capable of taking him back to the past arousing his interest and making him conjure up bygone days. Not only does the house function as a metaphor for evoking memories, but also the street and the place in which Dillon’s mother was hospitalized are accentuated. Hence, in the subsequent sections of the current paper, first phenomenology will be defined and elaborated on, then Brian Dillon’s selected work will be scrutinized based on Gaston Bachelard’s house-related theories and notions in order to demonstrate the association of the house and its objects with human soul and imagination.

KEYWORDS: Gaston Bachelard, Poetics of Space, Brian Dillon, In the Dark Room, phenomenology

Review Article: The Crises of Civilization: Exploring Global and Planetary Histories (2018) by Dipesh Chakrabarty

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Publisher: Oxford University Press (2018). Language: English

ISBN-13 (print edition): 978-0-19-948673-1. ISBN-10 (print edition): 0-19-948673-5

Reviewed by

Shikha Vats

Doctoral Fellow and Teaching Assistant, Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology – Delhi. Email: shikhavats.iitd@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.25

W. E. B. Du Bois (1903) had famously said that the problem of the twentieth century “is the problem of the color-line” (p. 13). Dipesh Chakrabarty declares, in this new volume, that the question of the twenty-first century will be that of climate crisis. The major events of the twentieth century, including the processes of imperialism, colonization, and globalization led to widespread migration of people all across the globe framing new intersubjective equations such as oppressor-oppressed, privileged-marginalized, mostly along what Du Bois called ‘the color-line’. The major fallout of this colonial and capitalist project in the last century has been global warming which is set to affect the entire planet and hence needs to be at the forefront of all policy decisions in the twenty-first century. In order to grapple with this new age of the Anthropocene, whereby human beings have become a geophysical force capable of altering the course of the planet, Chakrabarty urges a rethinking and reformulation of the discipline of history…Full Text PDF

Book Review: Interpreting Cinema: Adaptations, Intertextualities, Art Movements by Jasbir Jain

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Reviewed by

Somdatta Mandal

Former Professor of English, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, W.B. Email: somdattam@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.24

Film studies now has become a full-fledged discipline with several theoretical approaches lined up behind it and has a strong foothold in serious academics. Films are now read from various perspectives as text, as a serious novel is read over and over again, since every successive reading/viewing yields additional insights into their meaning. Interpreting Cinema: Adaptations, Intertextualities, Art Movements by eminent academician and scholar Jasbir Jain is a collection of sixteen essays which explores the academic aspect of film studies and has a wide range of primarily Hindi films for discussion crossing decades, genres and cultures. The essays in this volume take up adaptations from fiction and drama both from within the same culture and across cultures and explore the relationships between cultures and mediums. There are individual essays on relationships, theoretical frameworks and art movements, reflecting the intimate connection between critical theory and filmmaking…Full Text PDF

Review Article: Rewriting Tibet in The Tibetan Suitcase: A Novel (2019) by Tsering Namgyal Khortsa

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Publisher: Blackneck Books, (Under the Imprint: TibetWrites)

The First edition (November, 2019). Language: English. ISBN: 978-93-85578-12-0

Reviewed by

Koushik Goswami

PhD Research Scholar, Department of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University. Email: koushikgoswami4@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.23

The Chinese invasion and occupation of Tibet in 1950 compelled a sizable number of Tibetans to leave their homeland. They were relocated to India, Nepal, Bhutan and different parts of the world as refugees. These displaced people do not want to forget their own history. Tibetan authors have taken upon themselves the responsibility of keeping alive the memory of the great exodus in which Dalai Lama was a participant and of what happened after that. The flame of patriotism and the desire for a return to the homeland filter through their literary works. These authors writing in English nurture a free Tibet in their national imaginary. As the Tibetans lack political and military power to overwhelm the might of the Chinese colonisers, the works of these writers of Tibetan origin are of paramount importance. Combining the functions of both creative authors and activists, they help sustain the Tibetan struggle for freedom, draw global attention to the plight of Tibetan refugees scattered all over the world and put pressure on the repressive Chinese regime in Tibet. They address issues related not only to their longing for their distant homeland, its culture and the political situation there but also to their own lived experience in the diaspora…Full Text PDF

Review Article: English Studies in India: Contemporary and Evolving Paradigms (2019)

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Edited by Banibrata Mahanta and Rajesh Babu Sharma

Publisher: Springer (Singapore, 2019). ISBN 978-981-13-1524—4

Reviewed by

Himadri Lahiri

Professor, Department of English, Netaji Subhas Open University, West Bengal, India. Email: hlahiri@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.22

In the context of the changing times and gradual evolution of what we know now as ‘New Humanities’, it is time for us to re-evaluate the role of English studies. As the hangover of colonial ideological control and the reigns of ‘universal truths’ waned and as new generations of students, teachers and academic administrators took control of the discipline, English studies began to face new ideological and pedagogical challenges. Moreover, the perception that the study of Humanities does not have much utilitarian values and hence government funds should be diverted to the study of science and technology has put English studies in a precarious condition. At a time when the academic fraternity is wrestling with discursive questions on textual-methodological orientations, pedagogical experimentations and innovative teaching-learning designs in order to sail through the adversity, the publication of the book under review is a welcome event…Full Text PDF>>

Review Article: Homelandings: Postcolonial Diasporas and Transatlantic Belongings (2016) by Rahul Gairola

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Kanta Kochhar-Lindgren, Ph.D.

Director, Folded Paper Dance and Theatre Limited (Hong Kong, India, Seattle). Independent Researcher, Fulbright-Nehru Scholar, 2017-2018. Email: kanta.kochhar123@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.21

We all discover over and over again the kind of strange and violent stranglehold history has over us. We deploy histories to explain our pasts, identify the present, and orient us to the future. As Rahul K. Gairola shows in Homelandings: Postcolonial Diasporas and Transatlantic Belongings, the multiple currents of history have dictated our methods for establishing our home-sites: who belongs and who does not belong in any given place. Our “at-home” practices, one dimension of “the double-bind of history as home…” (2016, xvi), have a deep and lasting impact on how we move about and participate in the world-at-large. Homelandings provides a timely intervention into the theoretical discourse on the “home-site” as the outcome of a “home-economics” that continually reenacts the persistent racism, classicism, sexism, and queerphobia of a neoliberal bio-political governmentality of the Anglosphere (Bennet’s term, cited in Gairola, 18). The project offers “homelandings,” Gairola’s neologism, as the process of resistance to and reappropriation of “home-sites”: “producing new homes in which alternative modes of community and belonging flourish and reproduce” (17). Homelandings—with “landings” as the demarcator of that which is in motion, always about to happen—then act as a series of transversal disruptors of the neoliberal sphere. In this way, these resistances provide a conceptual and practical apparatus for the emergence of domestic orientations, relations, and spaces, even if these are often provisional…

Review Article: We Mark Your Memory: Writings from the Descendants of Indenture (2018)

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Edited by David Dabydeen, Maria del Pilar Kaladeen and Tina K. Ramnarine

Reviewed by

Arnab Kumar Sinha

Assistant Professor, Department of English and Culture Studies, University of Burdwan, West Bengal, India. Email: arnab.ks@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.19

Writing the history of indentured diaspora primarily depends on the available archives that contain the official and personal documents related to this history. While the State archives contain scanty materials for research in this area, considerable efforts have been made by the descendants of the indentured labourers to retrieve personal narratives of their ancestors. Retrieving these personal narratives, have indeed, played a major role in creating small family archives, which have inspired the present generation of authors/researchers to document the history of indentured diaspora. Indeed, this history is the outcome of intensive research on the genealogies of the descendants of indentured labourers. Stories narrated by the indentured labourers, old photographs, diary writings, travel documents and such other records are significant archival materials based on which the present generation of authors/researchers trace their family’s past as well as that of the community. These family archives provide considerable resource for research on history of indentured diaspora. It is in the context of this background that the anthology, We Mark Your Memory: Writings from the Descendants of Indenture (2018) edited by David Dabydeen, Maria del Pilar Kaladeen and Tina K. Ramnarine may be considered as a worthy contribution to the history of indenture diaspora. This anthology, which the editors of the book claim to be a “commemorative volume” (Dabydeen, Kaladeen, & Ramnarine, 2018, p. xii), is an attempt to collate the creative/critical pieces written by the descendants of indentured labourers (coolies). Production of such an anthology to mark the centenary year of the abolition of indentureship (1917) is a praiseworthy initiative. The publication of this book is the outcome of a collaborative venture between the School of Advanced Studies, University of London and the association of Commonwealth Writers, which inevitably foregrounds the active global network of almost thirty writers from various regions of the world working seriously on this project of retrieving the lost indentured narratives. The editors of the book acknowledge the genuine contribution of the association of Commonwealth Writers, which is “the cultural initiative of the Commonwealth Foundation” and this association, the editors claim, “inspires and connects writers and storytellers across the world, bringing personal stories to a global audience” (Dabydeen et al., 2018, p. vii). The pronoun ‘we’ of the title of this book represents the storytellers of the present generation, while the determiner ‘your’, mentioned in the title, refers to the coolies, the ancestors of these storytellers. The book therefore is indicative of academic activism that seeks to highlight the significance of reading, researching and discussing these personal narratives in the context of indenture diaspora…Full Text PDF>>

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