Beginning with the complexities created by the color line in the racial discourse of the world’s most powerful democracy, the USA, the paper brings into bold relief the significance of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man in the pantheon of African American writings. It offers a kaleidoscopic vision into the major historical landmarks that shaped the racial experience in America. The nameless black narrator, in his journey towards self-discovery, realizes he is invisible not because people cannot see him but because they refuse to see him. He is treated not as a human being but simply as a natural resource for the benefit and convenience of the white man. Unlike the overtly militant Bigger Thomas in Richard Wright’s Native Son, the narrator in Ellison’s novel accepts and affirms that even an invisible man has a “socially responsible” role to play. Rather than indulging in a politics of retreat, he prefers the stance of the politics of affirmation to assert his own identity and existence. By exploring all the significant aspects of the racial confrontation and by looking for a tangible solution to bring about a black-white interface, Ellison has produced through Invisible Man a state of mind from where one can begin to understand the “American Dilemma” better than ever before.

One of the most enduring influences of poststructuralism is its radical redefinition of subjectivity. The constructed nature of the “self” or rather the “subject” and the contingencies involved in its construction have been discussed by poststructuralist philosophers in quite interesting ways. The theorization of gender by Judith Butler is mostly on these lines. Taking her cue from Derrida, Lacan, and Foucault, Butler makes a close study of the “constructed” nature of gendered identity and the mechanics of power that has gone into the making of it. For Butler, gender is not what one is born into, but a “role” one performs, comprising repeated stylized acts which are “citational” in nature. Her deliberations on gender become more significant when we read the creative works of writers who have delved into the intricacies of gender construction, from this perspective. Kamala Das’s works display an amazing affinity to deconstruct the behavioral patterns associated with gender roles. The way Das’s characters debunk the gender roles that they are expected to perform and the close portrayal of their subjectivity that resists the taxonomy of a gendered identity are quite “Butlerian” in spirit. Hence, this paper, while trying to bring out how gender is “performed” differently in Das’s works, also seeks to shed light on the resistance to power such difference in gender performativity entails.

This paper examines how nature is culturally inscribed and how there is no retreat into a tranquil pastoral landscape from the decadent human world through a study of Nadine Gordimer’s Get a Life. In this novel, Gordimer explores how the moment of crisis (the protagonist’s fatal illness) explicitly foregrounds what commonplace rhythms might conceal, namely, attachments to both places and people that are more and more deterritorialized in the contemporary age of global connectedness. The author here, interestingly, emphasizes the wrongness of any human claim over land as it equally belongs to all the beings living on the planet. Thus, the whole idea of land ownership and redistribution, closely associated with colonial, neocolonial, and postcolonial pursuits, is invalidated here. Globalization has led to economic growth and technological progress around the world, but it has also given rise to certain major environmental inconsistencies, especially in the developing nations. Thus, the paper examines the South African landscape as explored in Get a Life where the author propagates an understanding of nature as both a physical entity and a cultural construct, thereby debunking the notion of hierarchical human dominance.

Both the sea and history occupy prominent places in the literature written by postcolonial writers. Derek Walcott shows a great interest in both the sea and history in his poetry. This paper investigates, through a close analysis of selected short poems by Walcott, how he uses both the sea and history as loci to search for his identity.

Delirium is a psychiatric disorder featuring disturbance of consciousness and cognitive changes, usually secondary to underlying medical conditions. It commonly occurs in hospitals, particularly in postoperative settings. Despite its frequency, its description in literature, specifically in Southeast Asian literature, is rare. This paper examines “Last Days in Hospital,” a contemporary poem by Malaysian poet Wong Phui Nam, as part of an interdisciplinary Medicine and Humanities module at a medical university. It explores the evidence for delirium from the poem and the sound imagery that further bolsters the diagnosis, and examines the synthesis of these two factors in contributing to the poem’s being a unique and interesting way of looking at contemporary portrayals of delirium in poetry.

The entire corpus of diasporic and migrant films is punctuated with various instances of loss of identity and pangs of alienation. With multiculturalism lurking large at the core of every fundamental aspect of diasporic films, the settings, characters, situations, and plots get imbued with multiple colors that blur the overall identity of an individual. This is seen not just in films, but also in theatre, in literature, and in art. One such tale of diasporic displacement and finding the identity of the female self is narrated in the 1999 film Chutney Popcorn directed by Nisha Ganatra. The film is a fine tapestry of sexual conflicts, marginalization of women, and re-identification of the national distinctiveness of a woman. The other film that is part of this discussion is Amu directed by Shonali Bose, starring Konkona Sen Sharma as the protagonist. The film is set in the backdrop of the Sikh massacre in India in 1984. It is not just about how Kajori, a twentyone- year-old American-Indian woman discovers her roots and the taste of “real India,” but it is also a vivid frame capturing the ideas of truth, injustice, and the (mis)representation of history. Finally, this piece also analyzes the position of women in the life of a male partner, or in a husband’s life. The Great Indian Butterfly directed by Sarthak Dasgupta takes us on a meandering journey of human relationships, marital fidelity, and the illusions surrounding the concept of blissful conjugation.

Ecocritical tools offer an opportunity to analyze not only literary texts but also other art forms like visual arts, paintings, and sculptures. More than any art form, it is sculpture that has been used most as a propaganda tool. Kings and leaders have erected sculptures of themselves or their ancestors in great numbers. Even greater numbers of sculptures have been carved with a view to propagating religion. Historians today are discovering the hidden messages in sculptures when they examine them with newer tools of analysis. This paper uses ecocritical tools to analyze a sculpture and propounds an oikic interpretation of the sculpture of Mahishasuramardini at Mamallapuram in the state of Tamil Nadu, India.

Even though English is not the primary or even secondary source of communication in Iran, it is considered as a language of high importance due to several reasons. Iranian EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners experience a kaleidoscope of feelings and emotions ranging from extremely positive to highly negative to neutral. Considering that EFL learners encounter such feelings and emotions consciously or subconsciously, this study introduces the term “language learner immunity” to incorporate the notion of EFL learners’ ability to overcome psychological barriers such as demotivation and stress. They do so by shielding themselves with a protective armor, i.e., learner immunity, which in turn might lead to effective language learning. To this end, twelve Iranian university students majoring in English were interviewed in-depth in an attempt to gain a deep insight into their experiences. The data were then qualitatively analyzed by a thorough process of coding and memoing. Based on the analysis, language learner immunity was broken down into five categories depending on the extent to which the learners were immunized.

It is found that the ability to read a printed text plays a vital role in developing a student’s comprehension. Many students struggle to comprehend what they read in their class because they lack not only deep involvement with their text but also strategies which help them in understanding a text. Pre, while, and post reading activities assist the learners in successfully reading, understanding, learning, and enjoying a selected text and make reading more communicative. This empirical study emphasizes on pre, while, and post reading activities to teach prose. For this study, two prose lessons of equal complexity were selected and taught to one group. The first lesson was taught using the traditional method, and the second lesson was taught using pre, while, and post reading activities. A questionnaire and a checklist were prepared to evaluate the students’ attitude, and data with written answers was collected. Informal discussions were held after the sessions. The findings of the study revealed that pre, while, and post reading activities helped the students improve their reading skills.