The present research aims at showcasing the transculturation of animals that have adapted human c... more The present research aims at showcasing the transculturation of animals that have adapted human culture in delineating the cause of the environment through Rohan Chakravarty's Green Humour for a Greying Planet (2021). The book is a compilation of comic strips that have previously appeared on various other platforms over the last decade, ranging from subjects of human-animal relationships to ecological unbalance and the impact of COVID-19 through the voices of animal characters. It primarily deals with threats to the habitat of animals (non-humans) and environmental degradation because of untoward human activities. The Anthropocene, the current geological epoch, is an offshoot of excessive human exercise on planet Earth, resulting in the deterioration of its natural resources and affecting the lives of other species. It has resulted in humans perceiving non-humans as 'other' to themselves, thereby diluting the concepts of 'symbiosis' and 'cobeing'. This paper attempts to view humans in relation to non-humans toward an agenda of establishing ecological balance. Derrida's analysis of the ontology of animals in The Animal that therefore I am (2008) focuses on the influence of animals on human lives and vision. Taking this analysis as a parameter, this paper endeavors to decode the animal sentiment as displayed in the comic strips in Chakravarty's book. This paper uses Franz Kafka's transcultural ape, Red Peter's creation of an ape-human culture, as a model to decode the neoculturation of human-animal interaction in Chakravarty's animals. By referring to the studies of anthropomorphism and anthrozoology, this study attempts to analyze the ecological debate of a world model where humans and animals play interchangeable roles. Subsequently, the paper scrutinizes the 'languagegame' that the animal characters indulge in to homogenize species differences.
Deep Ecology, one of the most recent and highly explicated philosophical theories on environment,... more Deep Ecology, one of the most recent and highly explicated philosophical theories on environment, is formulated on borrowed ideas from Aldo Leopold’s book ‘A Sand County Almanac’, Devall and Sessions’ ‘New Physics’, James Lovelock’s ‘The Gaia Hypothesis’. It is also a contribution of the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Aldous Huxley. It is Arne Naess, the Norwegian philosopher, who coined the phrase ‘Deep Ecology’ in his article “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement: A Summary” (1973). European and North-American ideology, according to Naess, was founded upon the notion of human dominance over nature and nature valued as a human resource which was later christened as ‘anthropocentrism’. After the mid-twentieth century this anthropocentric perspective gradually turned to be the major cause for exploitation of nature. So Naeess, in his eight-tier framework of Deep Ecology, proposed human beings to forget their demi-God attitude and define nature in terms of reverence and selflessness and proclaimed the theory of Personalism, a worldview that recognizes humans as continuous with nature and not its most important members. Robinson Jeffers, the critically neglected American poet for his opposition of U.S. participation in Second World War, is definitely an emblem of the environmental movement. Though Deep Ecology of Naess came much after Jeffers’ death, yet close observation revels that even unknowingly Jeffers stuck to the principles of Deep Ecology and propagated the same notion of nature as supreme and everything else as secondary to it. This paper examines the elements of Pantheism, Animism and Personalism with respect to the objectives of Deep Ecology in the poetry of Robinson Jeffers.
Anything and everything that is not restricted to only one culture and transcends the boundaries ... more Anything and everything that is not restricted to only one culture and transcends the boundaries of nations and extends through all human cultures is termed as transcultural. Feminism, the women liberation movement in literary discourses, is one such widespread phenomenon which has massive significance in all over the world. It can be argued that the pioneers of feminism were the dwellers of the west such as Virginia Woolf, Elaine Showalter and Simone de Beauvoir. However this idea of giving voice to the voiceless is later seen to be celebrated all over the world. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century there was flowering of poets in America, Africa, Canada, India and as many countries as possible, who in their poetry developed a sort of feminism which was more of a personal experience rather than a passive spectacle. Among them one such poet was Eunice Desouza, the Goan-origined poet who offers a wide range of women-centric ideas in her poetry based on her personal experiences. The kind of feminism, she deals with, is heavily inspired by western as well as Indian poets of varying cultures. Though feminism developed as a reform later it became confessional in the writings of some poets. Thus it is obvious that the confession varies from individual to individual. However there is some sense of similarity among them all. This paper shows how the poetry of Eunice Desouza is a record of a transcultural aspect of feminism inspired by poets like Sylvia Path, Emily Dickinson, and Kamala Das and many more. Keyword: Transcultural, feminism, confession, personal experience, emotions.
The restriction of the plethora of desires as well as finding satisfaction with the contempo... more The restriction of the plethora of desires as well as finding satisfaction with the contemporary circumstances and belongings can be known as the state of contentment. Ethical Contentment is the advanced form of contentment where one does not only find pleasure with things as they are but also knows the distinguished difference between what constitutes the right and wrong and moulds his attitude according to that. In other words ethical contentment is the result of balanced synchronization of the value systems. In the 21st century this value system has been degraded because of the competitiveness among everyone to succeed in the rat race. Right from family to love to culture to tradition; everything gets a secondary place in order to gain success and status. Mitch Albom in his book Tuesdays with Morrie recounts the last days of his favourite professor Morrie Schwartz battling with the lethal disease ALS. To both Mitch and the reader the element of surprise is how during the crucial days of his life Morrie, instead of shrinking into a shell owing to the disease, substitutes morality in an amoral person. This paper examines the difference of opinion of value system as per cultural tradition and ethics in relation to a dying man’s internalization of experiences. KEYWORDS: Value System, Culture, Ethics, Contentment.
The present research aims at showcasing the transculturation of animals that have adapted human c... more The present research aims at showcasing the transculturation of animals that have adapted human culture in delineating the cause of the environment through Rohan Chakravarty's Green Humour for a Greying Planet (2021). The book is a compilation of comic strips that have previously appeared on various other platforms over the last decade, ranging from subjects of human-animal relationships to ecological unbalance and the impact of COVID-19 through the voices of animal characters. It primarily deals with threats to the habitat of animals (non-humans) and environmental degradation because of untoward human activities. The Anthropocene, the current geological epoch, is an offshoot of excessive human exercise on planet Earth, resulting in the deterioration of its natural resources and affecting the lives of other species. It has resulted in humans perceiving non-humans as 'other' to themselves, thereby diluting the concepts of 'symbiosis' and 'cobeing'. This paper attempts to view humans in relation to non-humans toward an agenda of establishing ecological balance. Derrida's analysis of the ontology of animals in The Animal that therefore I am (2008) focuses on the influence of animals on human lives and vision. Taking this analysis as a parameter, this paper endeavors to decode the animal sentiment as displayed in the comic strips in Chakravarty's book. This paper uses Franz Kafka's transcultural ape, Red Peter's creation of an ape-human culture, as a model to decode the neoculturation of human-animal interaction in Chakravarty's animals. By referring to the studies of anthropomorphism and anthrozoology, this study attempts to analyze the ecological debate of a world model where humans and animals play interchangeable roles. Subsequently, the paper scrutinizes the 'languagegame' that the animal characters indulge in to homogenize species differences.
Deep Ecology, one of the most recent and highly explicated philosophical theories on environment,... more Deep Ecology, one of the most recent and highly explicated philosophical theories on environment, is formulated on borrowed ideas from Aldo Leopold’s book ‘A Sand County Almanac’, Devall and Sessions’ ‘New Physics’, James Lovelock’s ‘The Gaia Hypothesis’. It is also a contribution of the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Aldous Huxley. It is Arne Naess, the Norwegian philosopher, who coined the phrase ‘Deep Ecology’ in his article “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement: A Summary” (1973). European and North-American ideology, according to Naess, was founded upon the notion of human dominance over nature and nature valued as a human resource which was later christened as ‘anthropocentrism’. After the mid-twentieth century this anthropocentric perspective gradually turned to be the major cause for exploitation of nature. So Naeess, in his eight-tier framework of Deep Ecology, proposed human beings to forget their demi-God attitude and define nature in terms of reverence and selflessness and proclaimed the theory of Personalism, a worldview that recognizes humans as continuous with nature and not its most important members. Robinson Jeffers, the critically neglected American poet for his opposition of U.S. participation in Second World War, is definitely an emblem of the environmental movement. Though Deep Ecology of Naess came much after Jeffers’ death, yet close observation revels that even unknowingly Jeffers stuck to the principles of Deep Ecology and propagated the same notion of nature as supreme and everything else as secondary to it. This paper examines the elements of Pantheism, Animism and Personalism with respect to the objectives of Deep Ecology in the poetry of Robinson Jeffers.
Anything and everything that is not restricted to only one culture and transcends the boundaries ... more Anything and everything that is not restricted to only one culture and transcends the boundaries of nations and extends through all human cultures is termed as transcultural. Feminism, the women liberation movement in literary discourses, is one such widespread phenomenon which has massive significance in all over the world. It can be argued that the pioneers of feminism were the dwellers of the west such as Virginia Woolf, Elaine Showalter and Simone de Beauvoir. However this idea of giving voice to the voiceless is later seen to be celebrated all over the world. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century there was flowering of poets in America, Africa, Canada, India and as many countries as possible, who in their poetry developed a sort of feminism which was more of a personal experience rather than a passive spectacle. Among them one such poet was Eunice Desouza, the Goan-origined poet who offers a wide range of women-centric ideas in her poetry based on her personal experiences. The kind of feminism, she deals with, is heavily inspired by western as well as Indian poets of varying cultures. Though feminism developed as a reform later it became confessional in the writings of some poets. Thus it is obvious that the confession varies from individual to individual. However there is some sense of similarity among them all. This paper shows how the poetry of Eunice Desouza is a record of a transcultural aspect of feminism inspired by poets like Sylvia Path, Emily Dickinson, and Kamala Das and many more. Keyword: Transcultural, feminism, confession, personal experience, emotions.
The restriction of the plethora of desires as well as finding satisfaction with the contempo... more The restriction of the plethora of desires as well as finding satisfaction with the contemporary circumstances and belongings can be known as the state of contentment. Ethical Contentment is the advanced form of contentment where one does not only find pleasure with things as they are but also knows the distinguished difference between what constitutes the right and wrong and moulds his attitude according to that. In other words ethical contentment is the result of balanced synchronization of the value systems. In the 21st century this value system has been degraded because of the competitiveness among everyone to succeed in the rat race. Right from family to love to culture to tradition; everything gets a secondary place in order to gain success and status. Mitch Albom in his book Tuesdays with Morrie recounts the last days of his favourite professor Morrie Schwartz battling with the lethal disease ALS. To both Mitch and the reader the element of surprise is how during the crucial days of his life Morrie, instead of shrinking into a shell owing to the disease, substitutes morality in an amoral person. This paper examines the difference of opinion of value system as per cultural tradition and ethics in relation to a dying man’s internalization of experiences. KEYWORDS: Value System, Culture, Ethics, Contentment.
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Papers by Shrabanee Khatai
Robinson Jeffers, the critically neglected American poet for his opposition of U.S. participation in Second World War, is definitely an emblem of the environmental movement. Though Deep Ecology of Naess came much after Jeffers’ death, yet close observation revels that even unknowingly Jeffers stuck to the principles of Deep Ecology and propagated the same notion of nature as supreme and everything else as secondary to it. This paper examines the elements of Pantheism, Animism and Personalism with respect to the objectives of Deep Ecology in the poetry of Robinson Jeffers.
Among them one such poet was Eunice Desouza, the Goan-origined poet who offers a wide range of women-centric ideas in her poetry based on her personal experiences. The kind of feminism, she deals with, is heavily inspired by western as well as Indian poets of varying cultures. Though feminism developed as a reform later it became confessional in the writings of some poets. Thus it is obvious that the confession varies from individual to individual. However there is some sense of similarity among them all. This paper shows how the poetry of Eunice Desouza is a record of a transcultural aspect of feminism inspired by poets like Sylvia Path, Emily Dickinson, and Kamala Das and many more.
Keyword: Transcultural, feminism, confession, personal experience, emotions.
Mitch Albom in his book Tuesdays with Morrie recounts the last days of his favourite professor Morrie Schwartz battling with the lethal disease ALS. To both Mitch and the reader the element of surprise is how during the crucial days of his life Morrie, instead of shrinking into a shell owing to the disease, substitutes morality in an amoral person. This paper examines the difference of opinion of value system as per cultural tradition and ethics in relation to a dying man’s internalization of experiences.
KEYWORDS: Value System, Culture, Ethics, Contentment.
Robinson Jeffers, the critically neglected American poet for his opposition of U.S. participation in Second World War, is definitely an emblem of the environmental movement. Though Deep Ecology of Naess came much after Jeffers’ death, yet close observation revels that even unknowingly Jeffers stuck to the principles of Deep Ecology and propagated the same notion of nature as supreme and everything else as secondary to it. This paper examines the elements of Pantheism, Animism and Personalism with respect to the objectives of Deep Ecology in the poetry of Robinson Jeffers.
Among them one such poet was Eunice Desouza, the Goan-origined poet who offers a wide range of women-centric ideas in her poetry based on her personal experiences. The kind of feminism, she deals with, is heavily inspired by western as well as Indian poets of varying cultures. Though feminism developed as a reform later it became confessional in the writings of some poets. Thus it is obvious that the confession varies from individual to individual. However there is some sense of similarity among them all. This paper shows how the poetry of Eunice Desouza is a record of a transcultural aspect of feminism inspired by poets like Sylvia Path, Emily Dickinson, and Kamala Das and many more.
Keyword: Transcultural, feminism, confession, personal experience, emotions.
Mitch Albom in his book Tuesdays with Morrie recounts the last days of his favourite professor Morrie Schwartz battling with the lethal disease ALS. To both Mitch and the reader the element of surprise is how during the crucial days of his life Morrie, instead of shrinking into a shell owing to the disease, substitutes morality in an amoral person. This paper examines the difference of opinion of value system as per cultural tradition and ethics in relation to a dying man’s internalization of experiences.
KEYWORDS: Value System, Culture, Ethics, Contentment.