Otherwise than Otherness: From Entities to Perspectives in Asian North American Studies

-- Ming Xie

This paper surveys and evaluates the recent critical and theoretical orientations in Asian North American literary and cultural studies, and articulates some central critical issues and challenges facing scholars working in this field. The paper argues that "ethnicity" as an ostensible discursive substitute for "race" may in fact reinforce it; that ethnic identity is not a matter of stable, essential identity but a matter of conflicts of identity and processes of identification; and that ethnicity and race should be conceived not as "things" or "entities" but rather as "perspectives" on the world. In identifying issues and problems like these, this paper aims for a meta-critical reconsideration of the fundamental assumptions of the field.

© 2011 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

Transgression and Liberation: Carnivalesque Elements in Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint

-- Rama Naga Hanuman Alapati

This paper focuses on the carnivalesque elements in Philip Roth's masterpiece Portnoy's Complaint. The novel concerns how ethnic identity is a hindrance to one's coming into being and how one fights it out in relation to ascertaining one's identity. Portnoy's sexual encounters and scatological instances serve as a metaphor to bring out the subversion in the rigid fixities of life. Roth's Portnoy's Complaint is thought of as a novel that is typical of the sixties, of a generation in rebellion against established values, and bears a curious resemblance to the immigrant school of Jewish-American fiction. Its hero, Alexander Portnoy, rejects all things Jewish and struggles to become integrated into what he regards as a desirable, secular, and liberal way of life. The paper examines the presence of the carnivalesque features of sexual degradation and scatology in Portnoy's Complaint and shows how Roth undertakes to carnivalize not only Jewish religious orthodoxy but also the orthodoxy of the entire literary canon. Portnoy's relentless attacks serve as an escape from himself and his own share in the continued existence of his problems arising out of his nurturing as a Jew in a family that desperately tries to cling to Jewishness.

© 2011 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

Stephenie Meyer's Twilight: A Vampire Tale?

-- Aiswarya S Babu

Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series is a vampire-teen romance that has become phenomenally popular among young adult readers. The movies based on these novels furthered the fan frenzy. Yet, its improbable success is matched by its share of criticism. Critics denounce Meyer's literary skills and accuse her of disseminating racism, sexism, and Mormon-flavored moralism. As opposed to her contemporaries, she seems to have got a slightly different agenda for her readers. This paper delves into the embedded texts in Twilight and tries to re-contextualize them. It finds these texts disseminating appropriated facts and ideals through popular fiction to a vulnerable audience. These masked inceptions of gender, racial, backward, and moralist politics cast a doubt on the authorial intentions of Stephenie Meyer. Her sin-free saga of convoluted representations does not find her guilt-free, as her fans would wish.

© 2011 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

Scheherazade in Melville's House: The Arabian Nights as an Oriental Resource for the American Novelist

-- Jalal Uddin Khan and Abdul-Salam Hamad

With Queen Scheherazade and her fascinating, disarming, and deceptively simple stories within an equally amazing broad framework, the story of Sindbad and his voyages, of Ali Baba and his encounter with thieves, and Aladin's magic lamp, the Arabian Nights is not just a timeless classic and the bible of Oriental romance, but also one of the world's most vivid and absorbing collections of stories, enthralling its readers through the centuries. Along with Asian and European writers, American writers also were influenced by this endless fountain of pleasure and inspiration. This paper makes an attempt to capture the spirit and extent of influence of Arabian Nights on Herman Melville throughout his literary career, deeply coloring and characterizing several of his works, both late and early, and providing him with a sense of the romantic "other."

© 2011 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

Expressionism in O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra

-- T Jeevan Kumar

Expressionism, in a way, symbolizes the post-World War I disillusionment. One of the symptomatic features of this disillusionment is the protest against the stultifying patriarchal concept of a family. The protest is invariably directed against family relationships and the way in which these relationships prevent the youth from developing their individuality. Another important theme of the expressionistic plays is the castigation of the parents by their children. The present paper takes a close look at the expressionistic elements present in Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra, where Orin rebels against his father and is in love with his mother, with the love-relationship suggesting a Freudian urge. Through this play, O'Neill tries to place before the audience the calamities that haunted the post-World War I household.

© 2011 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

`Amor' in Pound

-- Hoshang Merchant

Pound played with ROMA/AMOR. But it was more than word-play. This paper shows how Pound extolled heterosexual love by raising Woman to the mythic level she occupied in classical European literature, giving examples from The Cantos and the lyrics.

© 2011 IUP. All Rights Reserved.