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Representation of Trauma as a Political Apparatus in Julian Barnes’s The Noise of Time
--Karam Nayebpour
This paper explores the function of trauma as a political apparatus in Barnes’s (2016) latest novel The Noise of Time. Focusing on the artistic life of worldly, well-known Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, Barnes’s narrative shows how trauma, as a dominant political apparatus, is systematically implemented by Stalin’s State of Terror or Power and how it dramatically impacts the psychological state of an artist. By presenting three stages of the central character’s traumatic experiences, the omniscient narrator represents trauma’s continuous impact on Shostakovich’s mind through his own retrospective perspective. The narrative focuses on Shostakovich’s constant sense of fear and intense panic at three decisive points of life when he finds himself in humiliating conversations with Power. The narrative presents the manner in which Shostakovich’s mind is possessed by the horrors, fears, and anxieties of both his traumatic experiences and posttraumatic recollections.
© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Deconstructing Feminist Ethics in Amish Tripathi’s Shiva Trilogy
--Rakhi Deshmukh and Jaya Dwivedi
The works of feminists over the centuries have been grounded in the conviction that women have been inordinately subjugated more in comparison with men, but the basis for this comparison is somewhat unjustified. The canon of feminism undertakes to study and interpret feminism from various perspectives, one of which is feminist ethics. Feminist ethics reformulates and rethinks the status and moral experience of women which has been largely criticized in the domain of traditional ethics. The present research, therefore, intends to deconstruct this feminist presumptuous conviction, where Indian and Western lenses have been taken together to be applied as the framework in order to elucidate the shortcomings found in traditional ethics. The female characters in the novels of Amish Tripathi speak for themselves, thereby falsifying the claims of traditional ethics and supporting feminist ethics. The female protagonists of his novels highlight the gendered and ethnically underlined identities, especially of Indian women. They are strong, challenge traditional norms, stay factual to the spirits of investigation, learn the covert art of endurance, and make a position for themselves in a world that seems to plot against them at every step.
© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Carnivalesque Motifs and Dialogic Laughter in the Guru Granth Sahib: A Bakhtinian Evaluation of Guru Nanak and Kabir
--Jaswinder Singh and Rano Ringo
The idea of this paper is to foreground the popular overtones of laughter and carnivalesque subversion in the Guru Granth Sahib, which Bakhtin sees as an indispensable part of all human history where people collectively express their consciousness against all normative or dogmatic forms of human life. The paper centers on the writings of Guru Nanak and Kabir to manifest the popular and subverting consciousness which substantially point to the Bakhtinian notions of carnivalesque ambivalence. Bakhtin finds that laughter and carnival celebrate equality, freedom, and change. It suspends all distant zones and dogmatic forms which centripetal forces of time try to create or impose on the people. The Guru Granth Sahib, apart from externalizing the divine understanding of various medieval mystics, also enriches its semantic sites with contesting consciousnesses and socio-historical contradictions of the Bhakti era where Nirguni thoughts, represented by its preceptors like Guru Nanak and Kabir, manifested unconventional unity of the sacred and the secular. There are plenty of instances where laughter and its ironic double along with its carnivalesque decrowning emerge with displacement of the old world and creation of the new people-oriented consciousness.
© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Countering the Machiavellian:
Power, Intrigue, and Resistance in the Soliloquies of Shakespeare’s Hamlet
--Lekha Roy
Taking as a framework the theory of power as “domination over,” a theory propounded by social critics such as Machiavelli (1961), Hobbes (1968), Foucault (1980), Weber (1986), and Bordieu (1994), this paper attempts to decipher the dilemma evident in the soliloquies of Shakespeare’s Hamlet as the result of an unresolved conflict between a Machiavellian (external) political world and a Montaignian (internal) world guided by Platonic ideals. The paper traces how the changed dialectics of reason and power at the court in Denmark leave a chasm in Hamlet’s personality, through which the relation of the past and present surface as a disjointed continuum, disturbing the metaphysical structure of temporality that gives meaning to action. Treating the play as a political statement on the discourse of power, it analyzes how a dissonance between the ideals that govern Hamlet’s inner world and the political machinations that rule the court at Denmark leads to a crippling psycho-spatial imbalance that makes action impossible, and warns of the reification of power and the return to a pre-Renaissance Machiavellian structure of ethics that endangered England at the turn of the century.
© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
A Study on the Theatrical Techniques Employed in Brecht’s Plays
--D David Wilson
To understand the subtle ideas expressed by Bertolt Brecht, an outstanding German playwright of the twentieth century, in his plays, it is essential that the audience practice complex seeing. It means, to be alienated from the play and be made aware of it as a play and nothing more. To make his audience experience this, Brecht jolted them out of their expectations and deliberately avoided theatrical techniques that would make appearances realistic. People were forced to confront the issues at hand and decipher the meanings behind what they had witnessed on the stage. This paper discusses how Brecht achieved the alienation effect and the techniques that Brecht employed in his plays.
© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Emergence and Growth of African American Women’s Poetry
--Tanima Kumari and Rajni Singh
According to Maharaj (2008, 23), “The Indian diaspora may be regarded as international phenomena—it has a presence in more than 100 countries globally.” In recent times, the evolving role of migrants in the labor markets of the Gulf countries has attracted many people from developing countries like India. The people of the southern part of India, particularly Keralites and Tamils, have considered the Gulf a “promised land” for pursuing a good career and to attain economic stability. The “Gulf boom” is a period in the recent history of Kerala during which a large number of people have gone to the Gulf countries with great hopes and dreams. These people are ready to do all kinds of jobs and are willing to work hard. They put in a lot of efforts into their jobs and save most of their earnings. A visa to Gulf is like a treasure even at this point of time. Even the popular media cultivated this image of “gulf” as a “promised land.” While the flashy nature of the Gulf countries has enchanted many people, for others, it has been like a mirage in a desert. Only after reaching there, they realize that those dreams still remain dreams and are not realized. This is well evident in the novel Goat Days written by Benyamin, which this paper focuses on.
© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Content-Based Language Learning and Communicative Approach to English Language Teaching for Technology and Management Courses: Integration and Implications
--S Rukmini
Language is not only a system of rules but also a dynamic resource for the creation of meaning. Thus, it becomes imperative to distinguish between knowing various grammatical rules and being able to use these rules effectively when communicating. This view has underpinned one of the most popular approaches to language teaching: Communicative Language Teaching (CLL). Accordingly, the shift in the teaching of English and the role of English Language Teaching (ELT) in higher education stand as evidence to it. There is a growing stress on the processes and means rather than the products of a language. In recent years, communication has become the main focus of second language curriculum. Consequently, Content-Based Language Learning (COBALL) assumes one of the leading positions in the language teaching-learning process. Given this background, the present study aims at examining the positive effects of COBALL on the learning of a second language for Technology and Management Students. The results of the study indicate that COBALL provides students with the necessary social and academic skills, promoting productivity and achievement. The study also focuses on the integration of COBALL and communicative approach to language teaching and draws implications for the creation of SL curriculum for technology and management studies.
Using Humor as a Supplementary Tool in the ESL Classroom
--D Praveen Sam
Homer’s Iliad is a poem on Achilles—who “has allowed thymos to dominate his soul” (Edmundson 2012)—and his wrath. Râma of Vâlmîki’s Râmâyana is a man of righteousness, with an admirable admixture of wisdom and strength, courage and compassion, conviction and consideration, dedication and detachment—the basic virtues that make a man complete. Reading about Achilles’ blind submission to pride and anger and his craving for glory and enduring fame even after death that brought endless sufferings to his own side and ultimately to himself makes a reader wearisome. On the other hand, Râma’s submission to dharma even in the midst of the malice of circumstances, that too, more by the glory of his own choice, bestows a grace, a dignity, and a significance to his character. If poetry is “a vehicle of inspiration” for building the ideal human society, obviously, Râma becomes the choice to idealize, and that is what this paper attempts to delineate.
© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
The Necessity of Teaching Sustainable Development Through English Language Teaching
--Zeeshan Ali
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) emphasizes the need for stimulating a holistic, integrated, and interdisciplinary approach to developing the knowledge and skills needed for a sustainable future as well as changes in values, behavior, and lifestyles. The United Nations (UN) Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) 2005-2014 states that “Universities must function as places of research and learning for sustainable development” (UNESCO 2005). While encouraging the universities to adopt sustainable practices, the department also sees curriculum development as an important aspect in higher education with the opportunity to create informed graduates who are knowledgeable about sustainability and can influence others. An effective English language curriculum will play an important role in promoting sustainability literacy among engineering undergraduates. It will not only raise awareness about sustainable development but also give them the skills to put sustainable development into practice globally and regionally. This paper shows how English language teaching, with a curriculum that has sustainability as a subject, can help in teaching sustainable development to engineering graduates.
© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
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