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Amitav Ghosh and the Expression of Subaltern History:
A Study of The Calcutta Chromosome
-- S D Sharma and Suruchi Kalra Choudhary
Amitav Ghosh combines science and history in The Calcutta Chromosome. It is interesting to study how Ghosh has compared Victorian history and contemporary history, and how he handles Jamesian view that “a novel is history”. The present paper is an attempt to examine how the course of history is used creatively by Ghosh to give a significant inter-text to the novel. Perhaps, history no longer remains history for Ghosh because various psychological damages, which played a crucial role in determining the colonial identity at crucial personal level, have altered the traditional meaning of history for the novelist. The question of the colonial mimicry also attracts Ghosh’s attention, and his ambivalent analysis of the politics of history in the postcolonial world is completely submerged in the politics of identity. The paper also attempts to examine how the idea of subversion has been used by Ghosh.
© 2012 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Women and Wounded Self: Exploring Indian Women’s Short Fiction in English
--Priyanka Tripathi
In a society like ours, every woman is at the risk of becoming a victim of domestic violence. Claimed by a few to have originated as a term in the early 1970s, ‘Domestic Violence’ implies physical and emotional brutality within intimate relations, especially conjugal. Also, the term is linked with many other connotations like wife beating, spouse abuse, marital violence, marital rape, physical abuse, etc. What is more traumatic is the fact that the violence takes place at ‘home’ which is basically her sphere, a place of her security and rule. Therefore, for the purpose of this paper, domestic violence is the brutality manifested either in the form of marital rape or physical abuse that occurs between couples who are living together and sharing the bond of marriage. In the Indian society, which is basically a patriarchal construct, marriage becomes an important agency through which every aspect of our existence gets regulated. This paper attempts to study women characters in selected short stories from Indian Women’s Short Fiction in English, who suffered violence within marriage but went on bearing it in their attempt to maintain familial harmony.
© 2012 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Surendra Mohanty’s World of Piety: A Study of The Death of the Swan
--Mrutyunjaya Mohanty
This paper is a critique of the treatment of religion in Maralara Mrutyu, a book of Odia short stories by Surendra Mohanty, which has been translated into English by this author under the title The Death of the Swan. Critics have traced the influence of Freud in some stories of Mohanty. Mohanty himself states that some of his stories are influenced by James Joyce’s stream of consciousness technique. In his substitution of extraordinary heroes with ordinary people in many stories and in his vigilant role as a writer against the neocolonialists in a post-independent nation, Mohanty anticipates the postcolonial writers, especially Ngugi Wa Thiongo and Frantz Fanon. However, this paper contends that Mohanty’s stories are not confined to any theoretical framework. Mohanty’s concern is with the world of ideas, and in his treatment of religion in The Death of the Swan, his concern is with Hinduism. He deals with issues about asceticism, solitude, transcendence and the holy way of life, and the failure of most people to conform to the ideals. In The Death of the Swan, the authorial voice manifests within the narrative form, and the satiric vision plays a prominent role. The presentation of the ancient and the modern, the male and the female, the rich and the poor, and the elite and the illiterate lends universality, authenticity and relevance to his theme and the juxtaposition of the holy and the unholy and the spiritual and the mundane evokes poignancy and produces the desired effect.
© 2012 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Reclaiming the Body: A Study of Shashi Deshpande’s Novel
In the Country of Deceit
--Asha Saharan and Rekha Beniwal
Body is the medium through which we experience the world. It is the center of existence, consciousness and identity. This paper is based on the premise that female body and sexuality can be a valuable starting point for re-thinking the nature of their existential situation as cultural being. The female body is viewed as a text of femininity which is culturally coded, socially constructed and inscribed as well as agentially negotiated. It is a terrain of surveillance and exploitation with many repressive socio-religious mechanisms operating against the concept of feminine freedom, personal gratification and sexual autonomy. But for the modern women writers, the female body is also the celebratory positive source of abundant energy, desire, pleasure, agency and innovation allowing the women to tread the trajectory of resistance, rebellion, conflict, emancipation and empowerment to assert their identities as women. Deshpande in her novel rebels against conventional sexual restrictions and portrays premarital sex to show that women are becoming conscious of their sexual needs. The protagonist celebrates her sexuality, feminine freedom and individuality.
© 2012 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
The Continuing Relevance of English for Engineering Professionals
--Pretti Kumar
Effective writing skills are crucial for engineers, and engineering programs have always struggled with how to prepare their students for the writing they will do as professionals. The paper presents a survey conducted among engineers in a public undertaking which highlights the writing problems only. The findings of the study indicate that summarizing and report writing skills are inadequate among engineering professionals. Though language skills are found to be adequate and good, the respondents strongly support the need for a short English course to help them improve their English language skills. This does not imply that other language skills are unimportant. It is hoped that the study could form the basis for future investigations in determining the skill requirements for engineering professionals.
© 2012 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Conflicting Policies and Practices in Teaching English
as an International Language
--Srinivasa Rao Idapalapti
This paper attempts to bring out the existing discordance between the linguistic theories and policies that have been developed for over several decades and the continuing tendencies of the teachers, administrators and policy makers, mouthing the ‘equal opportunity’ slogan, which has been foreseen by many universities and organizations as an instrument for international integration, still a dream to be realized. The paper presents its stance in brief with a few examples in a general tone based on the critical discourse analysis of the existent literature and posits the desirable teacher and other educator dispositions in ELT contexts.
© 2012 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Scientific and Technical Writing Training Programs in India:
Integration and Implications for Engineering and Management Studies
--S Rukmini
In recent years, Scientific and Technical Writing (STW), specifically the technical writing has emerged as an important thrust area of ESP. Unlike the other areas in ESP, STW requires teaching of English language with domain-specific terminology and scientific orientation. This calls for integration of STW in English language teaching which fulfills one of the basic goals of English education in India. The aim of the paper is to discuss appropriate STW curriculum, propose strategies to integrate the domain-specific terminology and to examine the issues related to integration with English language teaching. A review was carried out on STW training programs in India and the results indicate that most of these training programs are at diploma or certificate level and the curriculum, teaching and learning process and evaluation of the training programs seems to be much focused on writing skills. It is suggested that there is a need to stress more on oral skills and focus should be on imparting the domain-specific terminology in STW academic programs.
© 2012 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Book Review:
Prayerful Tribute to a Literary Colossus
Book Review:
Wreath of Sensitive Responses
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