Sunday reading : Literature and Religion

Sunday reading activity :

 I have discussed about conflict between literature and Religion. And also religion reference with Northrop Frye.

If we think about literature and then we can say that literature gives us a way to think out of the box. But Religion doesn't allow to think new and unique. In India myth is co- exist with human life. Most of the Indian who blindly believe in myth and mythical heroes. They can't raise the question against foolish rituals of religion.

In Northrop Frye's work  The Archetypes of literature ,in which we find that Frye's argument. Here we looking for religion and Myth. The relation between religion and literature it's complicated, because of the thinking of critic. In Criticism divine or you can say God treated as human beings. That's why they don't believe in Superior power.

When religion and literature deals with same document then that is more complicated.  Religion is nothing but a narrative. So God for the critic is like a human being, whether that is in the Bible and the paradise lost. In India also we have God like Rama , Krishana, Shiva. But Critic do not think  like ordinary people and don't believe in rituals of warships.

Thank you........

Digital Humanities

Hello readers !

 This is my academic blog.The topic : ' Digital humanities ' we have in our syllabus in Criticism. How that is helping us.

What is Digital Humanities ?

            "Digital Humanities can be defined as new ways of doing scholarship that involve collaborative, transdisciplinary, and computationally engaged research, teaching, and publishing. It brings digital tools and methods to the study of the humanities with the recognition that the printed word is no longer the main medium for knowledge production and distribution." (Wikipedia)

Both words have different context and meaning. The words 'Digital' and 'Humanities' have opposite meanings. Many people made an argument that literature should be free from Digital technology.  Digital Humanities are an area of research, teaching. Digital technology helps us in various ways to find out more information for particular topics. Here the question raised is How digital humanities help us. That through we can say that we got speed to work in our research.

Do you think there is any need for it  in the study / research of literature ?

As students of English literature we can say that there is a need for it . Because in this time we can say that knowledge is with our touch in the mobile. I think every book is in digitized form. Whatever who reads then they get easily within a second. So we can say that is important for students and learners. And that is also helpful to researchers.

Can it help in the study / research of regional literature written in the local language as it helps in the study of literature in English ?

That is not helping as like that is helping in English literature. Because of limitations of sites. And also large numbers of people only downloaders not uploaders. So we can not find enough sources. The readers also affect that , English language is the global language, and has large numbers of readers and uploaders in various countries. Whether in regional and local literature we don't get uploaders who upload good materials. But now time we see that the revolutionary things, that the regional language also increases in digital platforms.

Thank you....

Thinking activity : Technoculture, Speed and Slow movement

Hello readers !

Welcome to my world ! We live in the 21st century in which we find that too much acceleration and speed. Each and every moment the speed is important in this age. This is my academic blog. In which I am discussing Baudrillard and his view on  Hyperreal, Simulation and simulacra) and Paul's Virilio ( Dromology)  Ulrich Beck ( Risk society ) then about Slow movement, how that is connected with the idea. Now the Culture also changed  with speed. But in Culture we need the slow movement. How the slow philosophy is helping us in are Culture.

" Learning the basics of being a digital citizen is a critical skill for all children in the 21st century. " 

– Hadi Partovi, CEO at Code.org

  I think that is related to the slow movement in which everything is going on fast. So humans think that we have to know all the things that are new and which new features are produced in technology. That curiosity is needed but in a way that is harmful for us.

Jean Baudrillard  was a French socialist and who coined the term ' Hyperrealism' .  He defined 

"A real without origin or reality"

                     Paul Virilio - (Dromology)  , he is one of the most important theorists of speed and technology. He had discussed the significance of speed and technology in the postmodern era. He also mentioned that the speed of transmission  shared not only the individual perspective but also the social, cultural aspects. That speed through we can say that the real became more fake.

                Ulrich Beak - ( Risk society )

who has written extensively about risk and globalization. He argues that the risk is not only about technology , and all the things , is n which we can include all the traditions that were abolished, the traditional custom changed, erosion of traditional family patterns and democratization of personal relations.

                 In a modern society, there is technological change. Industrial society has created many new dangers of risks unknown in previous ages. The risks associated with global warming are one example. In the present era of industrialization. In nature obviously the risk is there. But we can say that new modernity creates dangerous risks for society. There is a chain of problems and solutions.  How hurriedly the atomic power and weapons industry increases, in a way that is the risk. So for that risk another country tried to make more powerful weapons. In that way the chain of problems and solutions going on. We are in a trap if social evils.

Organizations are not only part of the solution but also very much part of the problem: “We have more to fear from organizations and experts overextending their reach, propelled by forces endemic

to modern society, than from conniving conspiracies,” argues Clarke

(1999, p. 2).

If we think about how Culture and the postmodernist are looking at Slow movement. Slow movement is about knowing the speed of the world and to desides what speed one should maintain.

“Is it possible in today’s superfast world to live slow? Would I be able to keep my job? Provide a good living for my family? Does being ‘slow’ mean low efficiency, low effectiveness?”

– G. Berthelsen

That is the question of how we can define what is low efficiency. The Slow Movement’s roots are traced back to the original slow movement, Slow Food.

Thinking activity: Cultural studies: Frankenpheme and writer's Market

Hello readers !

Welcome to my world. This is my thinking activity on Cultural studies. This subject we have in our syllabus. In  which here I am going to discuss about frankenpheme and writer's Market. Cultural studies approach sometimes concerns not only the work that is produced but also the means of production. There is a question about how the author finds publishers, how he produces his work , and which way  he markets.

What is Frankenpheme ?

The term Frankenphemes drawn from phonemes as "elements of Culture that derived from  particular literary work". Any movies, drama, serials, any other literary work that is based on any particular work. One famous author's work  repeated in another median. For example famous novelist Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.  Based on this famous work we have found that many fiction, Drama, Film, Television etc: 

                    In which we find that the language plays a vital role like if work is written in English then that is widely spread in the  world. So many famous and valuable works written in English language that are also adapted by different countries' directors, and make films on that. Like the work Hamlet, Frankenatein, Jane Austen's many works.

Farnkenpheme in contemporary Indian culture :

Here I am trying to apply the term Frankenpheme in Indian literature.  Indian literature is written in various languages like Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi, Gujarati, English,  and many more. That's why like English language, Indian literary work is not as famous as English.

Here I am taking one example that is R.K. Narayana 's " Malgudi Days ". That is the well known short story collection published in 1943. The book was republished outside India in 1982 by Penguin Classics. The book includes 32 stories, all set in the fictional town of Malgudi, located in South India. Each of the stories portrays a facet of life in Malgudi. 

The New York Times described the virtue of the book as "everyone in the book seems to have a capacity for responding to the quality of his particular hour. It's an art we need to study and revive."

In 1986, a few of the stories in the book were included in the Malgudi Days television series and directed by actor and director, Shankar Nag.Malgudi Days is an Indian Hindi-language television series based on the eponymous works of R. K. Narayan. 

the project was revived with film-maker Kavitha Lankesh replacing the late Shankar Nag as director. The new series was telecast from April 26, 2006 on Doordarshan.

In 2014, Google commemorated Narayan's 108th birthday by featuring a Google Doodle showing him behind a copy of Malgudi Days.

If we look at on Gujrati literature :

Saraswatichandra - 

That is the Gujarati novel by Govardhanram Tripathi, an author of the early twentieth century from Gujarat, India. Set in 19th-century India, It is acclaimed as one of the masterpieces of Gujarati literature.

Gunsundarino Gharsansar :

The novel was adapted in 1972 Gujarati film ગુણસુંદરીનો ઘરસંસાર directed by Govind Saraiya, which won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Gujarati at the 20th National Film Awards. The film was considered important for its artistry and aesthetic. It was adapted in TV serials four times.

Well, I think it sucks. What you must make her watch instead is the 1968 movie starring Nutan and Manish in the lead roles. If not that, make her read the book these two have been adapted from.

There is a serial also in the star plus channel. That is also based on Saraswatichandra. 

Writer's market :

Amish Tripathi 

Amish Tripathi was born in Mumbai and grew up near Rourkela, Odisha.He is an alumnus of Cathedral & John Connon School, St. Xavier's College, Mumbai and Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. He worked for 14 years in the financial services industry, in companies such as Standard Chartered, DBS Bank and IDBI Federal Life Insurance, before beginning his writing career.

His work :

No.	Notable work	Year
1.	The secret of Nagas	2011
2.	The Immortals of Meluha	2010
3.	The Oath of the Vayuputras	2013
4.	Sita : Warrior of Mithila	2017
5.	Rama : Scion of Ikshvaku	2015
6.	Raavan:Enemy of Aryavarta	2019
7.	Immortal India in August	2017

Influenced by :

  When We think about how he was inspired to write and renarrate mythical characters in this age of science and technology. The characters like Rama, Sita, Ravana, Shiva. Then we find that :

His grandfather was a Sanskrit scholar and a Pandit in Benares. Tripathi says that he gathered most of his knowledge of Hindu theology and religion from his grandfather and his very religious parents. He believes that religiosity and liberalism go hand-in-hand in India.

His Marketing strategies :

His marketing skills and strategies have been widely credited for the success of his novels.He also made presentations to big retail chains, visited smaller retailers, met local distributors and regularly sent email updates to various stakeholders. He targeted social media websites for promoting his debut novel, and made a trailer film with a background score reportedly by Taufiq Qureshi and uploaded it on YouTube.

In 2013, a music album called Vayuputras, an original soundtrack based on The Oath of the Vayuputras, the final book of the Shiva Trilogy, was released. The album featured songs. This was the first time ever that an original soundtrack was made for a book series. This type of innovative marketing has never been done before for a book and was very successful.

He has stated,

"It’s a fallacy to think that a good book sells itself. I can give you a long list of books that I think should have been bestsellers but nobody’s ever heard of them. My management background along with marketing experience helped me devise effective strategies for promoting my book."

In a way we can say that because of his expertise in marketing as well as his writing style and choosing the subject, he has become a popular writer in India. He was very much conscious about his Marketing and his readers also. In his writing he loved envious character ravana, that thing is related to the Indian youth. Nowadays youth mostly remember the bad character. In a way that is not bad but society makes a point that ,that is good, this is good. If we ask Indian audience what is your favorite dialogue in Sholay , then the answer must be "are o Sambha, kitane adami then", "Tera kya hoga kaliya ". That all dialogue from the villain's side. I think that is the one reason behind the grand success of his work Raavan.

He was an expert writer as  well as an expert in marketing.

Thank you...

Cultural studies in practice : Hamlet and To Coy his Mistress

Hello readers !

                     Welcome to my world !  This is my academic thinking activity. We have a very interesting subject to study. That is cultural studies, in which Here I am going to practice cultural studies in William Shakespeare's Hamlet and Andrew Marwell's "To His Coy Mistress".

👉 Two character in Hamlet : Marginalized with a Vengeance 

                   Through the power relationship's lens Hamlet is studied in  Cultural studies. How power is work in the whole play, so let's see Hamlet with a view to seeing power in its Cultural context.

                  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Hamlet's fellow students from Wittenberg. If we look at how power is worked then we can say that eager to curry favor with power even if it means spying on their erstwhile friend. Both characters are marginalized people.

They are the pawns for Claudius first, for Hamlet second.

              So, they are pawns, sponges and monkey food, the message of power keeps coming through. But their more constant motive is to please the king, the power that has brought them here.

              In the twentieth century the dead or never living, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were resuscitated by Tom Stoppard. In his  famous absurd play " Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead " has given the contemporary audience a player that examines existential questions in the context of a whole world that may have no meaning at all. In Stoppard's  version also they are even more obviously two ineffectual pawns, seeking constantly to Know who they are.

So here Stoppard  was not repeating that story but through that story  he notes that the essence of marginalization is here in this view Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Archetypal human beings.

Example : 

In Indian democracy we find that those people who don't get any power are marginalized by powerful people. Indian poor people who don't voice to speak out. Currently one incident is happening in Ahmedabad. There is an opening ceremony of Motera stadium at that time America's president Dronald Trump is coming for this ceremony for 3 to 4 hours. So the slums are living in the nearby area in  Motera stadium. So here 45 families are living in this area, that all get eviction notice. But the power who doesn't accept all the things. The government doesn't think about that slum , what are their problems. What will they do ?

Whether  slums are happy with this decision or not. They don't think about it. The voiceless poor people are today's marginalized people.

Ahmedabad Municipal Commissioner Vijay Nehra (click here to know more) told The Hindu that the “decision to build a wall to prevent encroachment on the road was taken two months back” and has nothing to do with the visit of U.S. President.

“It is not correct to link the building of the wall to the VIP visit. After my visit to the area, we had decided in consultation with slum dwellers to build a wall to prevent encroachment and secondly to save trees which were getting damaged,” Mr. Nehra said.

👉 "To His Coy Mistress": Implied Culture Versus Historical Fact :

                 The poem  "To His Coy Mistress" written by Andrew Marwell.  We know that  the speaker is knowledgeable about poems and conversations of classic Greek and Roman literature, about other conventions of love poetry ,such as the country love conversations of medieval Europe and about biblical passages. 

                Jules Brody Posits " Implied readers " . In this poem we point out how  the writer expresses his views in which event. He has thoughts about love , beauty and wealth rather than  current issues at that time , what is the reality of the society. He was not talking about reality and the history of the era but he showed implied Culture over reality. For this thing we don't conclude that he was not a good poet and knowledgeable person, but he was a highly educated person, one who is well read.

In a way the poem tells the reader a good deal about the speaker  of the poem , much of which is already clear from earlier comments  in this volume, using traditional approaches. In this poem might appear to be the Culture and the era of the speakers,his lady and his implied reader. 

In every literary work we find that hat glimpses of the particular era. But in this poem he has not expressed the real Culture of the age but there is implied Culture. But he explained  wealth and leisure and sexual activity are his currency , his coin for present bliss worms and marble vaults and ashes are not present, hence not yet real.

But What does he ignore from his Culture? What is the history of the time?

• He does not think about poverty. During this era at least one quarter of the European population was below the poverty line. 

• Don't think of disease as a daily reality  that they might face.

• In the consideration of Historical reality , a dimension that the poem ignores. The probable time of composition of the poem in the early 1650s. At that time a recurrence of the Black Death, in the Great Plague of London.

Everyday life is absent in this poem. It was for elite people not about the whole society.

Thank you……..

Thinking activity : Five types of Cultural studies

Hello readers !

This is my academic blog. This blog is about Cultural studies (what is cultural studies). This task is given by Dr. Dilip barad sir. Some of the questions are given below. So exactly the task is we have to give answers to the questions.

• Your understanding of British Cultural Materialism, in your words ?

 In Cultural materialism we find that 'Marxist idea' and 'hegemony'.  As Matthew Arnold mentioned materiality is not culture but that beyond something is happening very significant.  So the materiality in the past and how that is changed in future and presence. How power is changed with cultural Materialism. In Which parameters culture is changing, materialism is one of them. In British materialism we find that the class distribution through the materialists things. In modern Britain two trajectories for   Cultural materialists deal with specific historical documents and attempt to analyze and recreate the zeitgeist of a particular moment in history.

• What is the contribution of Michel Foucault in new historicism ?

The New Historicism was influenced by Foucault‘s theories of Power/Knowledge and Discourse. So from Foucault's point of view New historicism 

developed the idea of a broad " totality" function of culture observable in literary texts, which Foucault called the episteme.  From Foucault's point of view history  is the important thing that was not the working out of "universal ideas ".  If we don't know the history then we can't understand the governing ideas of the past and present. That though we got the knowledge of how the power changed with time and also in which factor that is too much changed. History is a form of social oppression told in the series of explodes with previous ages. 

How people narrate the history is more important. So the "fault" lines that must be integrated into succeeding culture by the epistemes of power and knowledge. Foucault also mentioned  Methods of expression can also be methods of oppression.  The modern age is governed by a complex master narrative. It may still be seen only as a narrative to succeed those of earlier generations. So there is a new episteme that will render obsolete our ways if organizing knowledge and telling history. One of Foucault's main ideas is that knowledge is always constructed in specific historical contexts

• How can new historicists help in answering the questions raised against the Laputa episode in Gulliver's Travels ?

So the question is that  What did Jonathan Swift mean when he gave that name to the flying island in the third voyage of Gulliver's Travels ?  The science fiction aspect of that island still amuses us but why "the whore" ?

So here Susan Bruce offers a reading of book 3 that makes some new historicist sense out if Swift's use of  Laputa.  Here we get the sense how to analyze the thing from the new historicism point of view. Bruce tries together the current issue and event happening at that particular time. The situation and the behavior of the women that particular time and what is portrayed by Swift.  In which the female body leads not to enhanced appreciation but rather to horror and disgust. Laputa is a gigantic trope of the female body. As Bruce remarks," It's this which engenders the name of the island: in a paradigmatic instance of misogyny, the achievement of mle control over the female body itself renders that body the whore: Laputa".

• Exemplify  four types of analysis of popular culture. Apply it on Cultural artefacts ?

 These analyses seek to get beneath the surface meanings and examine more implicit social meaning. In Popular culture we find that four types of analysis that are given below :

Production analysis : 

 So in this study the following kinds of questions asked, who owns the media ? Who creates text and why? Under what constraints ? How democratic or elitist us the production of popular culture? What about works written only for money?

Textual analysis:

 Textual analysis  examines how specific works of popular culture create meanings.

Audience analysis:

Audience analysis asks how different groups of popular culture consumers, or users, make similar or different sense of the same texts.

Historical analysis :

Historical analysis investigates how these other three dimensions change over time.

• Difference between Modernism and postmodernism. If possible give examples also .

First in the late 19th century and early 20th centuries in Europe and North America the term modernism started. The Modernist writers in general rebelled against clear-cut storytelling and formulaic verse from the 19th century. Instead, many of them told fragmented stories which reflected the fragmented state of society during and after World War I.

Definition of postmodernism :

" A general and wide-ranging term which is applied to literature, art, philosophy, architecture, fiction, and cultural and literary criticism, among others. Postmodernism is largely a reaction to the assumed certainty of scientific, or objective, efforts to explain reality."

Postmodernism is the reaction to Modernism that was influenced by World War 2.

What is the difference between Modernism and postmodernism :

If we differentiate both terms then we find that both have very vast differences. 

The Modernist who thinks about the search for an abstract truth of life . While the postmodernist thinkers believe that there is no universal truth abstract or other.

If we think about art then the modern art is simply focused on the piece and the postmodern art is focused on the way the piece is made or told. 

Ex. The Modernist will draw attention to the painting but postmodern will also draw attention to the frame.

The modernist who focused on writers and the postmodernist who focus on the readers.

Modernism is an effort to reconcile the principles underlying architectural design with rapid technological design with rapid technological advancement and the modernization of society. And the postmodernism refers to the functional and formalized shapes and spaces of the modernist style are replaced by diverse aesthetics.

Thank you…..

Feminism : Elaine Showalter and Gayatri spivak

Hello readers!

Elaine Showalter and Gayatri Spivak play a vital role in feminism. Here is am going to write about her views on feminism. What exactly they think about feminism . How they differ from others. This movement feminism is started by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The first gathering devoted to women's rights in the United States was held July 1848, in Seneca Falls, New York. The principal organizers of the Seneca Falls Convention were Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a mother of four from upstate New York, and the Quaker abolitionist Lucretia Mott.

So let's think and Know about Showalter and Gayatri Spivak about feminism. Let's take one by one.

• Elaine Showalter :

 Who has better known as American literary critic, Feminist and writer on cultural and social issues. And also known for Gynocriticism. Showalter has been a television critic for people magazine and a commentator on BBC radio and television. She had faced many problems , easily did not get this position, and fought with her parents.A school of feminist criticism concerned with “woman as writer…with the history, themes, genres, and structures of literature by women.”

• Her works :

- Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing (1977),

- The Female Malady (1985)

- Towards a feminist Poetics (1979)

- Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siècle (1990)

- Sister’s Choice: Tradition and Change in American Women’s Writing (1991)

- Hystories: Historical Epidemics and Modern Culture (1997),

- Inventing Herself: Claiming a Feminist Intellectual Heritage (2001),

 - A Jury of Her Peers (2009),

- The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe (2016)

This Toward a Feminist Poetics Showalter best known work. It is divides feminist criticism into two sections:

• The Woman as Reader or Feminist Critique :

So in the first part we find that the women as a reader. Male writers written and the women who just go through the reading. So we can say that male writers can't express female thinking , female psychology. One of the problems of the feminist critique is that it is male–orientated. How women are manipulating and exploiting. in literary work. If we study stereotypes of women, the sexism of male critics. Writers are not learning what women have felt and experienced, but only what men thought women should be.

They used women as a sign. As many popular literature and add. Women show work in the house , to care for their children. Unconsciously women also believe that idea, women are for doing household work. She also treats her girl as the same ideas. In many advertisements we saw that mother and daughter work together at home instead of the boy who goes outside and plays. So in this way think about feminist critique.

Here one proverd and related that one story is here. In which the narration is very problematic. Here we can see that how male writer think about woman's psychology and thinking.

• The Woman as Writer or Gynocritics : 

Gynocriticism attempts to construct a female framework for the analysis of women’s literature and focus on female subjectivity, female language and female literary career. She says that gynocritics may never succeed in understanding the special differences of women’s writing, or realize a distinct female literary tradition.

"Gynocritics begins at the point when we free ourselves from the linear absolutes of male literary history, stop trying to fit women between the lines of the male tradition, and focus instead on the newly visible world of female culture."

So that through bwe understand that the Gynocritics main aim is to understand the specificity of writing not as a product of sexism but as a fundamental aspect of female reality. Language  and the theories all are man dominated. There is a concept like the otherness of language.Many female writer like Meena kandaswami, Maya Angelou's poem "Still I Rise" written in her way.

• Three phases :

1)    The ‘feminine phase’ 

It dates from about 1840-1880. Women, in this stage, wrote to level standards of intellectual achievements with that of male culture. Use of male pseudonyms on the part of female writers is one of the most unique aspects of this stage. For example women like George Eliot who started writing with pennames

2)      The ‘feminist phase’  :

 It ranged from 1882 to 1920.  It followed the efforts to win rights for women. The New Women Movement had become quite strong and women had won the right to vote. During this stage, women writers expressed their feelings regarding sufferings of women in the society.

3)      The ‘female phases:

The Female phases has been continuing since 1920.  Showalter considers imitation and protest to symbolize the dependence of females on male. Thus, women rejected both these ideas. Here women depend on their own attitude and experiences to participate in the literary process. Writers like  Dorothy Richardson, Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen and Mary Shelley who represent this stage, also identified the uniqueness of female experience. They went to the extent of identifying differences between male and female sentences.Women, in general, began to be more aware about forms and techniques of art and literature.

• Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak :

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (24 February 1942) is an Indian scholar, literary theorist, and feminist critic. She is a University Professor at Columbia University and a founding member of the establishment's Institute for Comparative Literature and Society.

Her famous essay is "Can the subaltern speak ?Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, in her essay “Feminism and Critical Theory”, describes the relationship between feminism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, and deconstruction through her own thoughts, critical literary works of others and a image of the present state of these areas of thought.

Her essay is divided into four parts :

 “The first section of the essay is a version of a talk I gave several years ago.  The second section represents a reflection on that earlier work. The third section is an intermediate moment.  The fourth section inhabits something like the present.”

In the second part she says that :

“In a matter of race-sensitive analyses, the chief problem of American feminist criticism is its identification of racism as such with the constitution of racism in America.” 

Thank you.....