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Feminism in Literary Dialogue: A Study of two revolutionary women’s memoirs
Get PDFWomen’s writing whether studied as a pedagogical initiative within the broader inter-disciplinary field of Gender Studies or as a part of the tradition of literary criticism in India; plays an imperative role in theorising Indian feminism.The main aim of this dissertation is to recognize the multi-faceted nature of Indian feminism, and to bridge the gap between academic engagements with feminism and the lives and reflections of activists through their writing. By focusing on the memoirs of revolutionary/communist women, Ajitha and Kondapalli Koteswaramma, I have attempted to highlight the memoir as a form of life-writing within the genre of autobiographies, which expand the concept of ‘feminist archive’ in India. Ajitha’s memoir Kerala’s Naxalbari Ajitha; Memoirs of a young revolutionary and Kondapalli Koteswaramma’s The Sharp Knife of Memory represent the act of self-representation through memoir form.This dissertation analyses each in their own right and then engages the writers in a dialogue that figuratively charts out, contrasts and comparisons, between two voices in terms epistemic positioning, the worldview, political spaces imagined, constructed, and written in the course of their individualist narrative.Using the phenomenological tool of ‘lived experience’ this dissertation attempts to understand their views and understandings of how they were positioned within broader social and political movement and this positioning contributed to the processes and evolution of their respective (feminist) consciousness as revolutionary wome
Isle of the Austronesian: Indigeneity, World-Making and Taiwan
No full textIsle of the Austronesian: Indigeneity, World-Making and Taiwan brings together powerful literary and scholarly voices to explore the dynamic contours of Indigeneity in Taiwan. This anthology features poetry, stories, and essays that reflect on land, memory, identity, and ecological belongings. Highlighting perspectives often overlooked-queer, urban, and female Indigenous experiences-it showcases the richness and diversity of Taiwan’s Indigenous cultures. Writers such as Salizan Takisvilainan, Ahronglong Sakinu, Syaman Rapongan, Ma Yi-Hang, Apyang Imiq, and Liglav A-wu offer narratives rooted in both tradition and transformation. This anthology reimagines Taiwan not just as an East Asian society but as an oceanic and Austronesian world-making space, where Indigenous voices lead conversations on history, sovereignty, and cultural renewal
Art-historical Analysis of the Tsakali Collection
Get PDFAt first glance, the set appears consistent and ancient. It largely is painted in a style most commonly associated with the fourteenth century; however, it is an archaising style, as elements found on some of the figures, such as the lower garment of the Buddha’s dress, indicate a somewhat later date. This chapter will analyse the set from an art-historical perspective, considering the derivation of its style and the basis of its iconography compared with those of portable paintings and murals from across the Himalayas. Besides the actual date of th
The Lyric in Lanka: Alternative Histories of Music through the Hugh Nevill Collection
Get PDFIn 1897, a British civil servant named Hugh Nevill (1847–97) left colonial Ceylon with a vast collection of local manuscripts. This collection is now held by the British Library in London and is the largest archive of Sri Lankan manuscripts outside of Sri Lanka. Many of Nevill’s manuscripts contain lyrics, but the collection has not yet been studied as a colonial musical archive. This thesis explores Nevill’s musical holdings and his appreciation for lyrics, resulting in alternative histories of music in Ceylon and colonial listening practices.First, the thesis complicates a well-known colonial discourse that reads Sinhala music as deficient and subordinate to European music. This discourse dominated nineteenth-century literature on Sinhala music, provoked a political musical identity crisis in the mid-twentieth century, and became entrenched in the Sinhala public consciousness. Elsewhere in nineteenth-century Ceylon, Nevill and others were gathering songs as sources of sociohistorical evidence. Lyrics formed an important part of Nevill’s scholarly work and, after years of collecting and studying them, he also developed an aesthetic appreciation for them. Building on the archives and scholarship of Nevill and his peers, I incorporate Sri Lanka’s long and diverse histories of song into a postcolonial global music history that decentres European epistemologies, sketching out new readings that disrupt the historic subordination of Sinhala music.Second and consequently, the thesis nuances Jonathan Sterne’s model of the ‘audiovisual litany’, which observes an ocularcentric bias in Christian sensorial ontologies that interpret the ocular as objective and scientific and the aural as subjective and emotional. This model is considered fundamental to European-colonial readings of music, but the scholarly utility of song shared among Nevill and his peers reveals an alternative colonial context that prioritised local uses of music over the litany, challenging general assumptions about colonial listening practices and epistemologies.Drawing on the above, the thesis shows how examining a single colonial music collection can complicate understandings of global music history, reevaluate colonial interactions with non-European practices and knowledge systems, and show how something considered regional and local like debates about Sinhala musicality can have a global intellectual hinterland behind it
Weaponising sectarian emotions: Iran’s mobilisation strategy during the Syrian conflict (2012–2024)
Get PDFConventional scholarly explorations into Iran’s involvement in the Syrian turmoil (2012–2024) primarily highlight geopolitical motivations, particularly Tehran’s strategic interest in preserving the Assad regime. Such analyses, while possessing merit, often overlook the systematic weaponisation of sectarian sentiments by the Islamic Republic to rationalise its intervention and mobilise Shia fighters. This article investigates how emotional convictions – specifically fear, trust, devotion and historical sectarian grievances – were stimulated within the Shia populace amid rising sectarian hostilities intensified by Sunni jihadist rhetoric. Employing an analytically eclectic approach that merges political psychology with geopolitical analysis, this research argues that sectarian emotions were not merely incidental but integral to Iran’s strategic framework. The collapse of Assad’s regime in 2024 underscores the persistent significance of these emotional drivers among combatants motivated by more than mere geopolitical allegiance, but by the protection of what they perceived as revered beliefs. This study provides a nuanced understanding of how sectarian emotions intertwine with rational strategy, offering new insights into the dynamics of Middle Eastern and Levantine conflicts
Urban Theo-topias: Religious Claims to Space and the Language of Administrative Rationality in the New City of Gurugram, India
Get PDFThe city of Gurugram, the administrative headquarters of a district of the same name, is located in the state of Haryana. Gurugram adjoins the southern borders of Delhi and has been the site of intense urban development over the past two decades. Rapid urbanisation has attracted a variety of workers from different parts of the country. Unlike Hindus, however, the majority of the Muslim migrants to the city tend to be poor and unskilled. In recent times, there has been a great deal of public debate and conflict over Muslims offering namaaz (prayer) at different public places – such as streets and parks – in the city. Both official and private pronouncements regarding public namaaz is couched in the language of urban administrative rationality: viz., the ‘proper’ uses of public land and religious practice as a possible source of permanent illegal occupation of public land.This article explores the manner in which specific discourses of planning and administration in Gurugram – despite their ‘neutral’ vocabulary – become aligned to political and cultural agendas of urban ‘theo-topias’, viz., the processes of producing religion-specific spaces. It also outlines relationships between class, religious identity, the state and private capital that produce new ideas of ‘the people’
GVCs meet robots: smiling, smirking or flattening? The case of the automotive value chain
Get PDFThe paper contributes to the fast-growing literature on the structural dynamics of digitalization with a focus on robotization, and its heterogeneous diffusion and impact along and within global value chains. Specifically, building on an innovative granular analysis of the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) dataset, we provide new empirical evidence of the disproportional distribution of robotization across countries, sectors and along different stages and production functions of global value chains (GVCs). Moreover, with specific reference to the automotive sector, we identify some features that characterize industrial robots’ adoption across different applications and along different stages of the automotive value chain. Such characteristics are also assessed through a sectoral case study analysis based on primary data collection conducted in the automotive sector in South Africa
How Indonesia and Vietnam navigate coalitional networks in the Indo-Pacific
No full textThis article explores how two Southeast Asian middle powers, Indonesia and Vietnam, have responded to U.S. and China-led efforts to build coalitional hegemonies in the Indo-Pacific. Through the lens of network analysis, the article argues that while Indonesia and Vietnam have sought to enhance their positions in the coalitional networks that are being established by China and the United States, neither Jakarta nor Hanoi wants to be embedded exclusively in either network. The aim is to maximise their respective agency and level of autonomy in an era of China-U.S. rivalry, and avoid the worst-case scenario of being forced to choose between Washington and Beijing. Consequently, Indonesia and Vietnam have cautiously pursued greater social access in both networks while at the same time diversifying their alternative network options. Contrary to theoretical expectations, the two middle powers have been ambivalent in assuming brokerage roles in the China and U.S.-led networks. The analysis here contributes to the discussion on middle powers and networks—especially in the context of competing networks—as well as to the existing literature regarding Southeast Asian responses to China-U.S. rivalry
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