Volume 13 No 4 2021 - Page 4

Embroidery and Textiles: A Novel Perspective on Women Artists’ Art Practice

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372 views

Sunanda Rani1 , Prof. Dong Jining2, Dhaneshwar Shah3

1PhD Scholar, School of Art & Design, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China. Email: sunandaartist@yahoo.co.in

2Professor, School of Art & Design, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China. Email: 1662917685@qq.com

3PhD Scholar, School of Art & Design, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China. Email: dhaneshwar005@yahoo.co.in

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.37

Abstract

The manuscript focuses on the autobiographical artistic practice of women artists and feminist expression in visual art, particularly those women artists who use embroidery and textiles as mediums, techniques, processes, styles, subjects, and themes. Women artists often use a variety of unique materials and techniques to create artwork which are primarily related to them and show a feminist identity. The research explores the mediums, tools and techniques applied by women artists in their artworks and the reasons behind choosing that particular medium and methods. In addition, women artists when, where, and how these diverse creation strategies have been adopted and developed over time are examined and analysed with the help of earlier literature, articles, research papers, art exhibitions, and artworks created by women artists. This manuscript discusses the chronological development of embroidery and textiles in the context of women’s art practice, the efforts and achievements of the “Feminist Art Movement” and the cause and concept of “Entangled: Threads & Making”, a contemporary woman artist art exhibition at Turner. Embroidery and textiles are associated with women’s art practice; women artists used embroidery, needlework, and textiles as a powerful symbolic medium of expression and resistance against the male-dominated art society. They began to use feminist expressions, forms, and materials to present their new characteristics. Women artists use embroidery, textiles and needlework as feminist traditional materials and techniques, and continue to struggle to blend them with other new contemporary mediums.

 Keywords: Art, Feminism, Women, Gender, Embroidery, Textiles, Autobiographical Practice

Effect of Egyptian Culture on the Design of Jewelry (Cultural Design Based on Ancient Egyptian Patterns)

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320 views

Eman Ramadan 1, 2 and YuWu 1

1School of Art and Design, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China. E-mail: eman.salah@fsed.bu.edu.eg

2Department of art education, college of specific education, Benha university, Egypt. ORCID: 0000-0002-1567-7386. E-mail/ yuwu1981@gmail.com.

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.36

Abstract

We are now living in an era in which modern media and advanced technology, including satellites, satellite channels, and the information network, are intensifying, all of which are working to dissolve cultural subjectivity and remove popular legacies to replace them with Western cultural values ??and behavior patterns. Hence, the Egyptian researcher sees the necessity of reviving contemporary inspired, where every civilization in history has its own culture and pattern which always reflects civilization and expresses their lives and beliefs. Herein, we will mention about the ancient Egyptian civilization, in northeastern Africa that dates from the 4th millennium BCE. It has many achievements, which preserved in its art and monuments. It holds a fascination that continues to grow as archaeological finds expose its secrets. This article focuses on ancient Egyptian culture through the patterns of their beliefs, and how did these patterns affect the designs of the jewelry, and how we can benefit from these patterns in the creation of innovative designs. Here, we focused on the Egyptian pattern because of its great importance in ancient Egypt. Besides, its distinctive shapes enable us to create new modern designs for this era.

Keywords: Patterns, Egyptian culture, Cultural product, Jewelry design.

Only ‘Time’ will ‘Tell’: Influence of temporality on the interpretation of narrative discourses

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202 views

Debmalya Biswas

PhD Research Scholar, Centre for Linguistics, Jawaharlal Nehru University. ORCID: 0000-0002-1543-6769. Email: debmal33_llh@jnu.ac.in, debmalyabiswas.professional@gmail.com

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.34

Abstract

The notion of language has been broadly understood in different ways with respect to existing literatures revolving around form, meaning, sound & context. Although overtly these understandings do try to integrate with the functionality of a complex organic system, they glaringly lack reference to the basis for its realization, i.e., time. Approaches to problematize the understanding of language have overlooked the issue of time. Temporality introduces a distinct fuzziness in qualitative and abstract expressions beyond just the action or the state. It is also evident in the context of names in a diachronic sense. A systematic exploration of this gap can lead us to a time-oriented understanding of the faculty of language.

Keywords: temporality, space, time indexation, interpretation, discourse, language, part-of-speech categories.

Silence, Satire and Empathy: Reading Appupen’s Topoi in His Wordless Graphic Narratives

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304 views

Kabita Mondal1, Joydeep Banerjee2

1Assistant Professor of English, Sarojini Naidu College for women, Kolkata 700028 & Research Scholar, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology, Durgapur, 713209. Orcid Id: 0000-0001-9109-9891. E-mail: kabita.mondal@sncwgs.ac.in,

2Associate Professor of English, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology, Durgapur, 713209. Orcid Id: 0000-0003-3319-4991. E-mail: joydeep.banerjee@hu.nitdgp.ac.in,

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.32

Abstract:

The projection of the incongruities of contemporary times through the frame of satire is a powerful instrument in the genre of comics and graphic narratives and in Indian graphic literature as well. Mendiburo-Seguel and Heintz (2020) explain eight Comic Style Markers (CSM) in Latin-American cultures, and satire, a “darker style”, is one of them. The paper aims to conceptualise how Appupen’s wordless graphic narratives Moonward: Stories from Halahala (2009), Legends of Halahala (2013), Aspyrus: A Dream of Halahala (2014) and The Snake and the Lotus: A Halahala Adventure (2018) register black satire against society, politics, religion, industrialization, consumerism, advertisement and so on and how they prove to play the role of “corrective humour” (Ruch and Heintz, 2016). This paper attempts to explore how the “author-artist’s” (Aldama, 2010) fantastical and dystopic graphic narratives, excoriate social and political issues to create a unique aesthetic of thoughtful critical writing in graphic mode, thereby collectively contributing to the interdisciplinary studies of fantasy and dystopia and helping to proliferate the genre of Indian Comics and graphic narratives as well. Moreover, as “satire had a moral goodness that was lacking in sarcasm and cynicism” (Ruch, Heintz, Platt, Wagner, and Proyer, 2018), this essay argues what kind of empathic feeling, perspective sharing and cognitive overlap Appupen cultivates in these four narratives and develops their moral, aesthetic and humane tenacity. The article discusses Appupen’s satire as a vehicle by which he prudently moulds empathy with the reader to convey the intrinsic values of the texts.

 

Keywords: silent, dystopic, graphic, fantasy, society, empathy, altruism.

 

The Beast in the Closet: Interrogating the Trauma of Sibling Incest in Emma Donoghue’s Neo-Victorian Novel The Wonder

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418 views

Poulomi Modak

Ph.D Scholar (JRF), Department of English, Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University, West Bengal.  ORCID id: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1204-7378. Email: poulomimodak1992@gmail.com

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.31

 Abstract

Emma Donoghue’s neo-Victorian novel The Wonder (2016) is a remarkable exploration of the Victorian era’s indifference towards the issues of woman and child safety against the heinous crimes of sexual abuse. The horror of sibling incest, which eventually develops the sense of guilt within the protagonist and gradually isolates her from the entire extrinsic world, has been taken into consideration for the analysis of the unusual narratives of tremendous shock and trauma that the novel enterprises. The paper examines incest as a trope for inflicting everlasting trauma and seeks to locate if amelioration is at all achievable for the abused ‘body’. The intended study further interrogates the placid indifference of the contemporaneous behavioural patterns of the societal institutional bodies of family, religion, and law, while encountering the forever forbidden taboo of incest.

Keywords: dysfunctional family, fasting body, incest trauma, neo-Victorian fiction, sibling incest.

Postmodern/Post-mortem Human Body-Parts: Grotesque Subjects in The Melancholy of Anatomy

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299 views

Jharna Choudhury

PhD  Scholar, Tezpur University, Assam, India. ORCID ID: 0000-0002-0916-373Email: jharnachoudhury123@gmail.com

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.30

Abstract

This paper critiques the literary representation of the human body as a “clean” slate, an organically wholesome subject by delving into the postmodern body-writing of Shelley Jackson’s short story collection The Melancholy of Anatomy (2002). Building upon the idea of “metabody” or grotesque body-part as subjects, the flesh-characters, namely Egg, Sperm, Foetus, Cancer, Nerve, Phlegm, Blood, Milk and Fat, breaks apart from their marginality, and evolves in a rhizomatic structure, pressing their possibilities of manifold existence in a fantastical world. Through the lens of body studies critics (Mikhail Bakhtin and Elisabeth Grosz) and recent postmodern scholarship, the paper studies the performance of flesh-characters, creating a post-mortem pathology in literature. Jackson’s deviant approach re-maps the anatomy of the human body and engages in psychophysiological parodies, thereby disclosing social phobias pertaining to the repulsive sides of the human and feminine body. Metabodies are self-reflexive, postmodern grotesque, with micro-narratives; and their innovative representations give agency and consciousness to the usually discarded body-parts and fluids, thereby making the human body a non-normative and discursive text and context.

Keywords: Postmodern; Shelley Jackson, Grotesque, Metabody, Human Body

Spaces of Care and Graphic Medicine

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382 views

Sathyaraj Venkatesan1 & Livine Ancy A2

1Associate Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology, Trichy. Corresponding Author. Email: sathyaiitk@gmail.com

2Research Scholar, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology, Trichy. Email: livine2212@gmail.com

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.29

 Abstract

While there are several studies that focus on care settings in relation to verbal narratives, only a few studies have paid attention to how comics in general, and graphic medicine in particular, engage critical care environments and settings. Drawing strengths from the underground and alternative comics and capitalizing on health humanities, graphic medicine, a recent development in the comics genre, concentrates on the issues related to health, illness, and care. Coined by Ian Williams in 2007, graphic medicine refers to the intersection of comics and concerns of healthcare. Graphic medicine has always engaged informal, formal, and biomedical caregiving settings. Against this backdrop, the present article, drawing on relevant theoretical debates on spatial studies and care, examines Stan Mack’s Janet& Me (2004), Joyce Farmer’s Special Exits (2014), and Sarah Leavitt’s Tangles (2012). In so doing, the article seeks to delineate care facilities (family, hospitals, among others) and their impact on patients.

Keywords: graphic Medicine, informal care, hospital Care, institutional care, spaces of care.

“The cripple walked! The cripple talked!”: Contextualising Sign Language and Audism in Memoirs of Deafness

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253 views

Bonjyotshna Saikia

Research Scholar, Department of English, Tezpur University, Assam, India.

ORCID id: 0000-0001-6253-9333. Email:bonjyotshnasaikia263@gmail.com

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.28

Abstract

The hegemony of speech has created notions of superiority among the hearing community propagating an audist attitude, which Tom Humphries defines as a form of discrimination towards the deaf in a hearing-dominant society. Deafness as a social phenomenon necessitates a reconsideration of the status of speech and sound. The huge chasm between the hearing and the deaf can be resolved only through the normalisation of every mode of communication. In a close reading of two memoirs of deafness: Henry Kisor’s What’s That Pig Outdoors? (1990) and Madan Vashishta’s Deaf in Delhi (2006), this article examines the similar experiences of the deaf from different linguistic, national and cultural backgrounds. Drawing theoretical insights from Leonard Davis, Neil Stephen Glickman, and Dirksen Bauman, among others, the article argues that these memoirs enable a non-essentialised perception of deafness and question the preconceived stance in relation to language. In so doing, the article also addresses the status of Sign Language as a means of communication in contemporary times.

Keywords: Audism, Deaf memoirs, Derrida, Deaf Identity, Sign Language, Phonocentrism

Spatial Imaginings in the Age of Colonial Cartographic Reason: Maps, Landscapes, Travelogues in Britain and India by Nilanjana Mukherjee

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272 views

London and New York: Routledge, 2021, xiii+300 pp., $160.00 (hardbound), ISBN 9780367749583

Sutapa Dutta

Gargi College, University of Delhi. Email:  sdutta.eng@gmail.com

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.25

Nilanjana Mukherjee’s book looks at construction of space, leading from imaginative to concrete contours, within the context of the British imperial enterprise in India. Fundamental to her argument is that colonial definitions of sovereignty were defined in terms of control over space and not just over people, and hence it was first necessary to map the space and inscribe symbols into it. In the latter half of the eighteenth century, imperialism and colonization were complex phenomena that involved new and imminent strategies of nation building. No other period of British history, as Linda Colley has noted, has seen such a conscious attempt to construct a national state and national identity (Colley 1992). Although the physical occupation of India by the British East India Company could be said to have begun with the battle of Plassey (1757), nevertheless the process of conquest through mediation of symbolic forms indicate the time and manner in which the ‘conquest’ was conscripted. Full-Text PDF>>

The Nineteenth Century Revis(it)ed: The New Historical Fiction by Ina Bergmann

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220 views

New York: Routledge.  2021. ISBN: 978-0-367-63466-7 (hbk), 978-1-003-12807-6 (ebk)

Prashant Maurya

Senior Research Fellow, Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India – 247667. Email: prashantlinguistics@gmail.com

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.24

The nineteenth century is a crucial phase in America’s history. Key features such as geographical expansions, the industrial revolution, development in science and technology, and America’s emergence as a super power, after the American Revolution and the War of 1812, mark the century. The Civil War becomes the most important historical event of this phase that will impact the lives of Americans in the years to come. The century has literary importance also because, during this phase, forerunners of American literature, like, Edgar Allen Poe, James Cooper, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, etc., come to the scene. Thus, the century as the setting has always been a literary choice for historical novelists.  Full-Text PDF>>