Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature
Not a member yet
528 research outputs found
Sort by
Sultana’s Utopian Awakening: An Ecocritical Reading of Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s Sultana’s Dream
Get PDFThe essay examines Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s seminal work in context of Utopian fiction, science fiction and ecofeminism. With Sultana’s Dream, Begum Rokeya invites women of her society to have an illusory experience of freedom that exists outside purdah and beyond the four walls of the zenana. Centring its focus on the woman question in context of the Bengali Muslim society of her time, the satiric narrative of Sulatana’s Dream (1905) takes into consideration the issues of gender, science, education and religion, and as the story proceeds, the concept of restriction as a master tool is set in reverse in such a provocative manner that the apparently simple writing of a “veiled†Muslim woman unveils a path of discourse that challenges the very foundation of Muslim patriarchal systemisation. Needless to say, such an audacious attempt raises more questions than it can answer, especially when the questions that are raised are yet to be asked by her fellow contemporary women
Author-Activism: Philosophy of Dissent in the Writings of Arundhati Roy
Get PDFIn this paper our analysis focuses on theorising “dissent†as a philosophical-political “moment†and studying the voice of “dissent†through the writings of Arundhati Roy. We argue through a close reading of Roy’s texts that dissent is intrinsic to human thoughts and dialogues. Taking our cue from Robert Barsky’s study of Noam Chomsky’s life as a “life of dissent†and from Brian Martin’s paper “Advice for the Dissident Scholar,†in Thought and Action, Vol. 14, we argue that the term dissent is set in a complex interplay of multiple subjectivities. A dissenting voice is looked upon as a voice that goes against, rather than with the established norms of the society, and in extreme cases, is fiercely opposed. Taking these theoretical premises further into apraxical mode, we analyse Arundhati Roy’s non-fictional works, and bring out the element of dissent, which is implicitly present in each of her essays. Roy’s dissent, mainly political in nature, usually takes the form of scathing criticism – the expression of which is fearless and forthright. Our interpretation of Roy’s works is in connection with the impact and the substantiality of her dissent
Ecology, Nature and the Human in Edwin Thumboo’s Poetry
Get PDFIn recent decades a growing concern for the environment and humans’ relationship to it has prompted a group of literary critics, who have since been labelled ecocritics, to foreground place in literature as a new critical category. All ecological criticism shares the fundamental premise that human culture is connected to the physical world, affecting it and affected by it. Ecocriticism takes as its subject the interconnections between nature and culture, specifically the cultural artefacts of language and literature.  This study attempts to make a case for Thumboo as an ecological poet. It discusses why Thumboo’s treatment of the historical theme is distinctive, subversive, and even at times anathematic to progress-oriented national discourses. It will then examine ways in which his poems forge an “organic†synthesis with nature and conclude by discussing Thumboo’s eco-critical leanings
The Célestin Prophecy: Ha Jin’s “After Cowboy Chicken Came to Town,†Lawrence Chua’s Gold by the Inch, and the Limits of Exoticism
No full textIncreasingly, postcolonial scholars are recognising that the discipline must move beyond the mere critique of European imperialism, and that the future lies, in part, in seeking solutions to the conflicts and injustices that remain the persistent legacy of the colonial era. A concurrent trend in literature departments has been the push to incorporate and encourage comparative methodologies. This essay brings into conversation two works of Asian American fiction that address the problematics of transnational encounter in the age of globalisation. In both Ha Jin’s “After Cowboy Chicken Came to Town†and Lawrence Chua’s Gold by the Inch the authors explore familiar postcolonial themes: Western economic and cultural hegemony, cultural imperialism, the legacy of the Euro-American colonial era – yet they do so from a very particular (and increasingly common) perspective that as yet has not been sufficiently addressed by postcolonial scholars. Reading these texts through the lens of Roger Célestin’s theorisation of the limits of traditional literary exoticism in From Cannibals to Radicals, this essay calls for a re-evaluation, not merely of our understanding of literary exoticism, nor merely of our understanding of the transpacific as a political imaginary, but also of our long-held conceptions of national literature and comparative scholarship
Edwin Thumboo: Two Voices
Get PDFThe article finds two dominant approaches in the poetry of Edwin Thumboo. In the first, the speaker stands as observer-biographer of the world of public affairs and shared space; in the second mode, the speaker of the poems comprehends that world from a point of view of lyric empathy, as part of a process of self-disclosure. Though the first mode yields poems of particular excellence, I suggest that it is the second, lyric, impulse that is fundamental, and more productive of poetry likely to be seen as occupying a central place in his oeuvre. A brief final section surveys what seem to be some new directions in Edwin Thumboo’s poetry