My paper is a critical investigation of the socio-political situation of the Indianised spectral ... more My paper is a critical investigation of the socio-political situation of the Indianised spectral king (Bhooter Raja) in Satyajit Ray's Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (1969) and also focus on Ray's handling of the marginalised in the movie. I read the movie as an allegory of postcolonial struggle told from a regional perspective. Ray's portrayal of the Bhooter Raja (The king of ghosts) is typically Indianised. He deliberately deviates from the colonial tradition of Gothic fiction and customised Upendrakishore's tale as a postcolonial narrative. My paper focuses on Ray's vision of regional postcolonialism.
In my paper I am going to read Borden's The Forbidden Zone along with a handful of her poems to i... more In my paper I am going to read Borden's The Forbidden Zone along with a handful of her poems to investigate the nature of her war aesthetics. Surprisingly, Borden did not focus on the on the horrendous atrocities of war threatening the existence of the human race nor on the patriotic fervor but on the erosion of the earth. The aesthetics of dirt and mud seems to offer her a stronger foothold to critique the Wars. In The Forbidden Zone 'mud' is perhaps the most significant word repeated numerous times. It is the mantle of mud that offers a new identity to the war zones beyond the threshold of the nation-beyond the barb and wire of the frontiers. Sourav Kumar Nag
Bill Readings in “Pagans, Perverts or Primitives? Experimental Justice in the Empire of Capital” ... more Bill Readings in “Pagans, Perverts or Primitives? Experimental Justice in the Empire of Capital” has aptly said: ‘The claim of universal humanity inherent in the republican ‘we’ underpins the apparent paradox that a nation like the United States, dedicated to the inalienable rights of man, should be hostage to racism, sexism and homophobia, with a long history of genocide waged against Native Americans’ (117). The posthumanistic turn in the last few decades has compelled the theorists like Katherine Hayles, Haraway and others to search for a world that is free from patriarchal bias and gender hierarchies. The world of cyborgs deconstructs the boundaries hitherto assigned to man and machines. The flesh and metal amalgamation anticipates a sexless future and at the same time the extinction of gender discrimination. My proposed paper will venture to explore the politics of cyborg myth and technofeminism with special reference to Glass Houses by Laura J. Mixon.
New Historicism proposes a predefined nomenclature of evaluating a text by meticulously exploring... more New Historicism proposes a predefined nomenclature of evaluating a text by meticulously exploring a historical ‘co-text’ to understand the cultural and intellectual history through literature. My proposed paper will venture to read Thiong`o`s Weep not Child (1964)and S.M.Shamsul Alam`s Rethinking the Mau Mau in Colonial Kenya(2007) side by side to trace how Thiong`o`s subconscious has been shaped and reshaped by the colonial history of Kenya and to show how far he has constructed and reconstructed the Kenyan history in the said novel. Mau Mau was a sort of military conflict, taking place in Kenya between 1952 and 1960 that influenced the Kenyan nationalist struggle movements and nationalist ideologies greatly. The women`s role in the Mau Mau uprising was commendable and historically proven. But Thiong`o has evidently deviated from the historical veracity and has fictionalized his own feminist construct to push the female characters back and like a true patriarch has glorified the achievements of the male exponents of the Kenyan freedom struggle movements through the male characters in the novel.
Marriage and (M)otherhood have always been paired together since antiquity. With the downpour of ... more Marriage and (M)otherhood have always been paired together since antiquity. With the downpour of liberal moral in recent years various perspectives regarding motherhood are emerging, involving significant questions like whether motherhood has anything to do with marriage or if premarital motherhood is socially acceptable? Despite the changing socio-political scenario, and emerging trends of single motherhood, the traditional overviews related to motherhood still flow silently. In India single mothers face severe problems related to their social and cultural existence. Motherhood is romantically considered to be sacred only if it is post marital. Premarital motherhood is often sneered at and severely criticised. My paper focuses on that particular problem with textual references to Benare, the principal character in Tendulkar`s Silence; The Court is in Session,who has faced insurmountable threats posed by the other characters in his play.
It is a paradox that T.S.Eliot, one of the chief architects of modernism, was interested in primi... more It is a paradox that T.S.Eliot, one of the chief architects of modernism, was interested in primitivism. Primitivism to Eliot was not a dead body upon which cenotaph of modernity was built but a shadow that always follows civilization. A believer in Pound’s jargon ‘make it new’ Eliot was ever tantalized by the past and significantly contextualized myths in his poetry. The exposition of the primitive through his poetry is essentially tied to the zoic-the animal existence of the modern man. Eliot has ever remained a literary monument to the literary scholars and a source of eternal enigma. Millions of literary papers were written on Eliot though there is hardly any discussion on this area of his poetry. My paper focuses on Eliot’s use of the primitive and the zoic as two significant tropes patched together to capture the loopholes of civility and modernism.
When I read “The Hungry Stones” by Rabindranath Tagore for the first time, the story appealed to ... more When I read “The Hungry Stones” by Rabindranath Tagore for the first time, the story appealed to me as a supernatural one- a tale of spectral longing for spiritual deliverance. Then the psychoanalytic interpretation of the story offered me a new way to look at it. But subsequently, a feeling of lack gripped me. I read the story repeatedly and found it out. Both the interpretations selfishly neglect the pure natural setting of Barich. In the story Tagore has referred to the green setting multiple times. The natural setting used by Tagore is not for nothing. It has a living, individualized entity. In the empty marble palace the nameless narrator suffered from existentialist crisis and to assert his androgenic presence he journeyed into the surreal realm of fantasy and erotic intercourses. In my paper I have tried to illustrate my point that the hunger does not reside among the stones but in the mind of the narrator who has imagined nature as a female body- as an anthropogenic construct.
Postmodernity witnesses the rise of concepts like the ‘production of space’ (Lefebvre), social sp... more Postmodernity witnesses the rise of concepts like the ‘production of space’ (Lefebvre), social space, urbanization, metropolitanism etc. The archeological and geographic tools for mapping human relationship are in vogue today. Chetan Bhagat’s novel 2 States explores the alleys of human relationships fraught with cultural strangeness, doubt and suspicion. Apparently, a utopian saga of marriage, 2 States: The Story of My Marriage (2009) questions the validity of the cultural and social conflicts that thwart the possibility of nuptial negotiation. The romantic ‘contact zones’ (Pratt) of Kris and Ananya threaten the root of cultural alienation and social conflicts. My paper will excavate the narrow lanes of cultural gaps existing between two families and focus on the politics of space that is instrumental in forming these gaps. Keywords: urbanization, city space, metropolitanism, contact zone
My paper is a critical investigation of the socio-political situation of the Indianised spectral ... more My paper is a critical investigation of the socio-political situation of the Indianised spectral king (Bhooter Raja) in Satyajit Ray's Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (1969) and also focus on Ray's handling of the marginalised in the movie. I read the movie as an allegory of postcolonial struggle told from a regional perspective. Ray's portrayal of the Bhooter Raja (The king of ghosts) is typically Indianised. He deliberately deviates from the colonial tradition of Gothic fiction and customised Upendrakishore's tale as a postcolonial narrative. My paper focuses on Ray's vision of regional postcolonialism.
In my paper I am going to read Borden's The Forbidden Zone along with a handful of her poems to i... more In my paper I am going to read Borden's The Forbidden Zone along with a handful of her poems to investigate the nature of her war aesthetics. Surprisingly, Borden did not focus on the on the horrendous atrocities of war threatening the existence of the human race nor on the patriotic fervor but on the erosion of the earth. The aesthetics of dirt and mud seems to offer her a stronger foothold to critique the Wars. In The Forbidden Zone 'mud' is perhaps the most significant word repeated numerous times. It is the mantle of mud that offers a new identity to the war zones beyond the threshold of the nation-beyond the barb and wire of the frontiers. Sourav Kumar Nag
Bill Readings in “Pagans, Perverts or Primitives? Experimental Justice in the Empire of Capital” ... more Bill Readings in “Pagans, Perverts or Primitives? Experimental Justice in the Empire of Capital” has aptly said: ‘The claim of universal humanity inherent in the republican ‘we’ underpins the apparent paradox that a nation like the United States, dedicated to the inalienable rights of man, should be hostage to racism, sexism and homophobia, with a long history of genocide waged against Native Americans’ (117). The posthumanistic turn in the last few decades has compelled the theorists like Katherine Hayles, Haraway and others to search for a world that is free from patriarchal bias and gender hierarchies. The world of cyborgs deconstructs the boundaries hitherto assigned to man and machines. The flesh and metal amalgamation anticipates a sexless future and at the same time the extinction of gender discrimination. My proposed paper will venture to explore the politics of cyborg myth and technofeminism with special reference to Glass Houses by Laura J. Mixon.
New Historicism proposes a predefined nomenclature of evaluating a text by meticulously exploring... more New Historicism proposes a predefined nomenclature of evaluating a text by meticulously exploring a historical ‘co-text’ to understand the cultural and intellectual history through literature. My proposed paper will venture to read Thiong`o`s Weep not Child (1964)and S.M.Shamsul Alam`s Rethinking the Mau Mau in Colonial Kenya(2007) side by side to trace how Thiong`o`s subconscious has been shaped and reshaped by the colonial history of Kenya and to show how far he has constructed and reconstructed the Kenyan history in the said novel. Mau Mau was a sort of military conflict, taking place in Kenya between 1952 and 1960 that influenced the Kenyan nationalist struggle movements and nationalist ideologies greatly. The women`s role in the Mau Mau uprising was commendable and historically proven. But Thiong`o has evidently deviated from the historical veracity and has fictionalized his own feminist construct to push the female characters back and like a true patriarch has glorified the achievements of the male exponents of the Kenyan freedom struggle movements through the male characters in the novel.
Marriage and (M)otherhood have always been paired together since antiquity. With the downpour of ... more Marriage and (M)otherhood have always been paired together since antiquity. With the downpour of liberal moral in recent years various perspectives regarding motherhood are emerging, involving significant questions like whether motherhood has anything to do with marriage or if premarital motherhood is socially acceptable? Despite the changing socio-political scenario, and emerging trends of single motherhood, the traditional overviews related to motherhood still flow silently. In India single mothers face severe problems related to their social and cultural existence. Motherhood is romantically considered to be sacred only if it is post marital. Premarital motherhood is often sneered at and severely criticised. My paper focuses on that particular problem with textual references to Benare, the principal character in Tendulkar`s Silence; The Court is in Session,who has faced insurmountable threats posed by the other characters in his play.
It is a paradox that T.S.Eliot, one of the chief architects of modernism, was interested in primi... more It is a paradox that T.S.Eliot, one of the chief architects of modernism, was interested in primitivism. Primitivism to Eliot was not a dead body upon which cenotaph of modernity was built but a shadow that always follows civilization. A believer in Pound’s jargon ‘make it new’ Eliot was ever tantalized by the past and significantly contextualized myths in his poetry. The exposition of the primitive through his poetry is essentially tied to the zoic-the animal existence of the modern man. Eliot has ever remained a literary monument to the literary scholars and a source of eternal enigma. Millions of literary papers were written on Eliot though there is hardly any discussion on this area of his poetry. My paper focuses on Eliot’s use of the primitive and the zoic as two significant tropes patched together to capture the loopholes of civility and modernism.
When I read “The Hungry Stones” by Rabindranath Tagore for the first time, the story appealed to ... more When I read “The Hungry Stones” by Rabindranath Tagore for the first time, the story appealed to me as a supernatural one- a tale of spectral longing for spiritual deliverance. Then the psychoanalytic interpretation of the story offered me a new way to look at it. But subsequently, a feeling of lack gripped me. I read the story repeatedly and found it out. Both the interpretations selfishly neglect the pure natural setting of Barich. In the story Tagore has referred to the green setting multiple times. The natural setting used by Tagore is not for nothing. It has a living, individualized entity. In the empty marble palace the nameless narrator suffered from existentialist crisis and to assert his androgenic presence he journeyed into the surreal realm of fantasy and erotic intercourses. In my paper I have tried to illustrate my point that the hunger does not reside among the stones but in the mind of the narrator who has imagined nature as a female body- as an anthropogenic construct.
Postmodernity witnesses the rise of concepts like the ‘production of space’ (Lefebvre), social sp... more Postmodernity witnesses the rise of concepts like the ‘production of space’ (Lefebvre), social space, urbanization, metropolitanism etc. The archeological and geographic tools for mapping human relationship are in vogue today. Chetan Bhagat’s novel 2 States explores the alleys of human relationships fraught with cultural strangeness, doubt and suspicion. Apparently, a utopian saga of marriage, 2 States: The Story of My Marriage (2009) questions the validity of the cultural and social conflicts that thwart the possibility of nuptial negotiation. The romantic ‘contact zones’ (Pratt) of Kris and Ananya threaten the root of cultural alienation and social conflicts. My paper will excavate the narrow lanes of cultural gaps existing between two families and focus on the politics of space that is instrumental in forming these gaps. Keywords: urbanization, city space, metropolitanism, contact zone
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Papers by Sourav Kumar Nag
Keywords: urbanization, city space, metropolitanism, contact zone
Keywords: urbanization, city space, metropolitanism, contact zone