Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature
Not a member yet
528 research outputs found
Sort by
A Sport, A Tradition, A Religion, A Joke: The Need for a Poetics of In-ring Storytelling and a Reclamation of Professional Wrestling as a Global Art
Full text linkThough professional wrestling offers a variety of unique and highly stylised in-ring dramas, the actual process of this dramatic construction is frequently overlooked, misunderstood, or undervalued. This paper questions the seeming uniformity of much Western cultural analysis of professional wrestling and proposes a specific engagement with the poetics of in-ring dramatic construction – rather than an exclusive focus on the surrounding spectacle of the wrestling show itself – to appropriately contextualise professional wrestling beyond the rigid constraints of monopolistic and monolithic promotions. With a focus on poetics in line with David Bordwell's “poetics of cinema,†and drawing on a number of wrestlers’ descriptions of their own artistic processes, professional wrestling emerges as a unique and multi-faceted dramatic construction and as a global art-form that continually recreates itself through reflexive international and inter-cultural influences
Gregory Nalpon’s “The Rose and the Silver Keyâ€: A Historicist Reading
No full textGregory Nalpon, while today a virtually forgotten Singaporean writer, represents one of the most unique, imaginative and colourful voices in Singapore fiction, c. 1960-80. This paper focusses on Nalpon’s most well-known, and perhaps most accomplished short story, “The Rose and the Silver Key.†By subjecting Nalpon’s story to a careful historicist reading I suggest that the distinctive qualities of “The Rose and the Silver Key†derive from both the specific moment and the normally marginalised figures represented, as well as Nalpon’s fairly unique stance, in the Singapore as Indian, trades unionist and “gentleman of leisure.†At the same time this historicist reading complements Frank Brennan’s earlier benevolent reading, revealing “The Rose and the Silver Key†as mediated and often beguilingly ambiguous social critique of the colonial city c. 1960 and the nation state c. 1978
Retrieving Lost Histories: Spaces of Healing, Spaces of Liberation
Full text linkA major theme in postcolonial fiction is the struggle to forget the traumas of colonisation and that is why issues related to memory and history frequently emerge in contemporary texts. Tan Twan Eng (1972-) is an acclaimed Malaysian author who deals with the theme of memory particularly with regard to the Chinese community in Malaya during the Japanese Occupation. Using ideas of space and spatiality, this study investigates the postcolonial reclamation of history and home through the medium of memory in The Gift of Rain (2008). In this context, the notion of space used by Tan includes the physical landscape and the psychological landscapes of memory and history. In The Gift of Rain, the memories of the characters are sometimes in conflict with official historical narratives. This article argues that the slipperiness between personal and public narrations of history opens up a space that allows for a renegotiation of identity and understanding of self
