Abstracts received
- Manisha Madhu, manishamadhu7@gmail.com
Research scholar in the Department of English studies, Kannur UniversityResurfacing: The Politics of Erasure and Acts of Remembrances in Deep Halder’s Blood Island: An Oral History of the Marichjhapi Massacre
This paper aims to re-investigate the Marichjhapi Massacre in the light of the emergent modalities of ‘re-membering’ and erasing erasures. Walter Benjamin’s famous formulation that “there is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism” rings true in the context of the Morichjhapi Massacre, a lesser known Dalit Genocide, which occurred in the fateful year of 1979 in Marichjhapi, one of the marshy islands of the Sundarbans in West Bengal, killing more than 10,000 people with official records documenting only 10. Commissioned by the government, these barbaric acts were guised under their well-intended motive to conserve forests. Carefully and strategically swept under the rugs with a calculated scheme to erase the memory of the Marichjhapi Massacre from the history of West Bengal, the government was, to a great extent, successful in its endeavour to confine the hapless victims to where it believed they belonged—in the margins, forgotten forever. However, with the advent of innovative frameworks of historical analysis like Memory Studies, the idea of 'resurfacing'; and ‘remembering’ has become inevitable. Re-membering something over and over again through';acts of remembrances'; makes it repetitive and this repetition, when practised with forgotten histories that had been subject to politically motivated erasure, triggers their resurfacing. These are processes by which official history or the “grand narrative” can be re-written or countered through all the “little narratives”. This paper seeks to unearth one such “little narrative”, Deep Halder’s Blood Island: An Oral History of the Marichjhapi Massacre, a work of nonfiction that could be considered a milestone in the development of historical consciousness about Marichjhapi, an otherwise forgotten chapter in the history of Bengal. The paper undertakes an analysis of the first-hand accounts of witnesses of the pogrom provided by Deep Halder and explores how recounting the horrors of their experience in the oral tradition exposes acts of erasure and activates acts of remembrances.
The Re-seen Past: History, Memory, and
Trauma in Ocean Vuong's On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
This paper analyses the complex relationship between history
and memory in the second- generation Vietnamese American diasporic community
through an analysis of Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. The second-generation Vietnamese American community
shares a complicated relationship with the idea of Vietnam war. They were brought
up in the American culture that always equated Vietnam war to the trauma of the
soldiers. But what is their relationship to the War and the traumatic past that
made them refugees in a foreign land? The second-generation access their past
through the memories of those who came before them. Postmemory is predominant
in communities that have suffered a traumatic event in the past. It is the
relationship the future generation bears to the personal, collective, and
cultural trauma of those who came before them. This postgeneration remembers
only by the means of stories, images, and behaviours among which they grew up. Through
a generational transfer of stories and recollections about a traumatic past,
the Vietnamese diaspora transforms individual memories into collective memories
that helps them build a cultural identity. In Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly
Gorgeous, we can see an intergenerational transfer of trauma enabled by
memories. Intergenerational trauma is manifested in the form of postmemory. In
the novel, Little Dog, who belongs to a Vietnamese American immigrant family,
was too little to clearly remember the events that led to their displacement.
But he is a part of his family’s trauma as he is a witness to their anecdotes about
the War and its traumatic effects on them. When stories are shared, the
boundaries between the speaker and the listener diminish and it becomes a
collective experience. Through Little Dog’s account of his life with his mother
and grandmother, I intend to analyse how they deal with memory, history and
trauma that transcend the borders of individual experience and become a
communal experience that resists the dominant discourses of history relating to
the War in America.
Keywords: postmemory, intergenerational trauma, history, Vietnamese American, postgeneration
The state as the ‘spectacle’ of the everyday
The historical juncture of the
post-Independence era allows for the study of the ‘spectacular’ display of
state power and state surveillance – from the use of exemplary force to
maintain ‘law and order’ in districts to the drafting of grand schemes designed
to ‘awe’ or ‘inspire’ the population, certain projects or actions of the state
were imbued with extraordinary meaning and designed to send a message to the
population at large. India deployed the category of ‘ceremony’ to
underscore the legitimacy of the ‘state’ and to chart a vision of the ‘nation’
The origin of the notion of the
everyday can be traced back to Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau, in their
exploration of the manner in which the life of the quotidian is held in place
by socially sanctioned practices and strategies which enable population(s) to
lead a secure existence and “to appropriate social space.
Through the visual filter of graphic novels, paintings and cartoons, my paper explores the idea of the everyday during three moments of rupture in Indian history - namely The Partition of 1947, the Emergency of 1975 and the Anti-Sikh riots of 1984.
4. Fasila M, research scholar, Department of
English, Farook College, University of Calicut. fasilathengil@gmail.com
Reclaiming memory and the past.
The birth of Israel in 1948 left the indigenous people deprived of their land, belongings identity and everything they possess .Even when scattered around the refugee camps and the different corners of the world what holds Palestinians as a community is their memories about their homeland. The mechanism of memory has been pivotal in reclaiming their past rendered by the ancestors. The forced expulsion from the home land termed as Nakba meaning Palestine catastrophe thereafter becomes a decisive site of their memory. Their memory narratives clearly depicted their lives before and after the catastrophe counter to the claim of Zionist that “a land without a people for a people without a land” .Once a land of tumultuous history, culture, politics, commerce and crossroads to different religion was constantly interrogated for its authenticity as a nation. The colonial status under the British mandate and the settler colonialism of Israel obstructs Palestine to stand for itself as a sovereign power. All they cherished was their longing for homeland and the warmth of their feelings. Palestinian American writer Susan Abulhawa has made an untiring effort to reclaim the Palestine past through her writings. The present study attempts to investigate how her debut novel Mornings in Jenin contributed in claiming Palestine memory and the realities of their lost past to the world outside. Her work also partially briefs the plight of Jews after the holocaust and the impact it had on the victims. So the author tries to extend the scope of a cross cultural analysis on reclaiming their memories and the past for both the victims of Shoah (Jewish Holocaust) and Nakba (Palestine Catastrophe). The role of collective memory in designating as a tool to reclaim the past is well depicted in the novel.
5. Muhammad Aslam KV, Department of Translation Studies, Maulana Azad National Urdu University. kvpaslam@gmail.com
A comparative study historiography among select Urdu novelists
with special focus on “Aag Ka Darya”
This paper is discussing about different political views of
historiography in Urdu novels on India – Pakistan partition with special focus
on Qurrathulain Hyder’s famous Urdu novel titled as “Aag Ka Darya”.
Qurrathulain was migrated on the time of partition to Pakistan at 1947 and she
returned to India in 1961. As a person who experienced all the traumas of
migration and memory her novel is good piece of historical fiction. Her novel contests
some historical contexts of some Urdu novelists and historians. Her legendary
literary contribution is first and only novel mentioned in Urdu literature for
Noble Prize award.
This Novel passes through historical glimpses of more than
1000 years back. Mauryan Empire, Lodhi Dynasty, Mughal rule, British Raj and partition
of India are historical spans of the novel (Through classical, the medieval,
the colonial, and the modern post-national epochs). The composition explore
various cultural identities of South Asia and adopted cultural symbols From
Turkish, Persian and from other provinces of middle East. Qurrathulain pointing
to reasons led to divide India.
So, this study will engage with many areas of this theme including global south post-colonial politics and history. And this study should be extend to areas like memory, diasporic, National literature, fictions of history/ memory and other areas. This study will bring similar contributions in Urdu literature and will analysis their views of politics along with opinions of reviewers and criticizers.
6. Sumat Balachandran and Dr. Vellikkeel Raghavan, Dept. of English and Comparative Literature, Central University of Kerala. sumatbkeezhoth@gmail.com
The Freedom Struggle as an Occurred Memory
History which has been seen as an objective way of writing the past has been reconsidered, reanalysed and posed as a subjective perspective of viewing history. The past recorded are mere writings from that of the writer’s memory. With this subjective positioning of the past based on the political, cultural and temporal events as in the life of a narrator, the past narratives as recorded might differ. In this paper, an attempt will be made to make a re- reading of the Indian freedom struggle and the existing recorded past with a deviant and unforeseen perspective with reference to the text, In the Shadow of Freedom: Three Lives in Hitler’s Berlin and Gandhi’;s India, where Laxmi Tendulkar Dhaul, the author talks about the freedom struggle in the perspective of her parents, Ayi Tendulkar and Indumati Tendulkar who had direct involvements and encounters with Gandhi and also in the Indian freedom struggle movement. Along with the outline of India’s deviant historical narrative, an attempt will be made to expose and read the said past as a narration in parallel with view on India as obtained from interactions and encounters with the celebrated novelist and filmmaker Thea Von Harbou as an overseas reading in a further different political and subjective stand, i.e., from Hitler’s Nazi Germany.
7. Pooja K,
Research Scholar, Department of Studies in English, Kannur university. poojakay0502@gmail.com
Reminiscing
the Past: Gender and Religion in B.M. Suhara’s The Dreams of a Mappila Girl
Memory
studies is a broad area covering history, sociology, psychology, archaeology,
and so on. In literature memory is represented in poetry, fiction/non-fiction,
drama. It is shaped by psychology, religion, history and sociology and vice
versa. They perpetuate the images of both remembering and forgetting. The terms
“social”, “collective” or “public” memory, are often contrasted with “private”,
“individual” or “personal” memory. All these terms derive from a new and
interdisciplinary scholarly field that is often referred to as memory studies.
Autobiographical memories can be considered as mental representations of the
self in the past. And the self is constituted by various social, cultural and
political factors. Therefore, it’s not only about uncovering the self, but the
social world the self once belonged.
The memoir, originally written in Malayalam as Ummakuttyide Kunhikinavukal is translated to English by Fehmida Zakeer as The Dreams of a Mappila Girl. It is about the life of a young Muslim girl growing up in a Muslim family. It depicts the life of women in Muslim community in North Kerala and the gender stigma they had to go through. The writer puts forward glimpses of various incidents that shows the gender disparity with the family. In the preface to her work, she writes, “I grew up at a time when Muslim girls did not even have the freedom to dream. This paper tries to look at the work from the perspective of gender and religious paradigms existed among Muslim communities of past Kerala culture.
8. Dheebika P, Doctoral Scholar, Department of Humanities and
Social Sciences, IIT Madras, Chennai-600036, India dheepikap99@gmail.com
Remembering the Tamil Genocide: Intergenerational memory
wars in the short fiction Lunugama by
Sakunthala Wijesinghe
The Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka was a brutal conflict that lasted from 1983 to 2009. The conflict was fought between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist group that sought an independent Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka. The conflict saw widespread violence, including massacres, bombings, and assassinations, and resulted in the deaths of an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 people. The conflict ended in 2009 with the defeat of the LTTE, but allegations of war crimes and human rights abuses continue to be investigated by the international community. After the end of the Sri Lankan civil war, the government initiated a process of reconciliation and reconstruction. However, the country still faces challenges such as political polarization, human rights abuses, and economic inequality. This article analyses Sakunthala Wijesinghe’s short story Lunugama to comprehend the post- war memoryscape in Sri Lanka. Using Erll’;s framework of cultural memory studies and Foucault’s politics of counter-memory, it explores the aftermath of the Bindunuwewa massacre, a real-life event in which a group of Tamil detainees was attacked and killed by Sinhalese villagers in Sri Lanka. When the protagonist, Dakshitha, returns to his village Lunugama in his home country, he finds it still haunted by memories of the blood-stained past. The article delves into the complexities of remembering and forgetting traumatic events from the perpetrator's perspective and the role of personal and collective memory in shaping individual and societal identities through generations. It also discusses the power dynamics at play in memory-making, as the protagonist’s family being the main perpetrators of the massacre, participate in completely denying their part and trivializing the brutal crime. Such acts sabotage any attempts made to commemorate the victims and are met with resistance from those who wish to silence the past. Ultimately, as argued in the article, Lunugama offers a poignant reflection on the lasting impact of violence and the importance of acknowledging and grappling with difficult histories to achieve reconciliation.
9. Jins Jose, Research Scholar in English, St. Thomas College, Kozhencherry. jinsjose103@gmail.com
Reconfiguring Fascist Representations: Confluence of Memory,
history and State Violence in T D Ramakrishnan's Mama Africa and Andhar
Badhirar Mookar
Abstract
T D Ramakrishnan is an award-winning Indian writer. He is
the author of six Malayalam novels, including Francis Itticora and Sugandhi
Alias Andal Devanayaki.His grave fiction writing predominantly focuses on the
themes of radical power constructions and subverted political equations. He has
been arguably recognized as a doyen of Contemporary postmodern Malayalam fiction.
Mama Africa and Andhar Badhirar Mookar are his two noteworthy Malayalam novels that
deal with the aforementioned themes. The imminent Savagery and the unbearable oppression
of the minorities are some of the chief focal points of the fiction of T D Ramakrishnan.
The present paper problematizes two novels of T D Ramakrishnan, namely Mama Africa, (a novel set in Uganda ) and Andhar Badhirar Mookar.( a novel set in Kashmir ) The study traces the conspicuous presence of fascist representations of infallible histories, traumatic memories and the omnipresent State Violences as tropes that intricately connect diverse worlds. In T D Ramakrishan's novels the revolt against the fascist power structures dominate the crux of the narrative where the contours of fact and fiction are meticulously blurred.
10. Jaincy John, Research Scholar, Department of English and Comparative Literature, Central University of Kerala. jaincyjo@gmail.com
Personal History and Social Memory: Reading Yiramyaavu-Adimayude Jeevitham (2004)
inhuman practice of slavery in colonial Kerala has been a
topic of interest for many scholars and discourses like colonial modernity
(Mohan 2015), Dalit literature (Yesudasan 2021), regional history and mission
history (Paul 2022) and so on. In this context, the case of Yiramyaavu as a
former slave who lived till 2008 and was acknowledged in Kerala’;s public
sphere becomes pertinent1 .
Yiramyaavu-Adimayude Jeevitham (2004) narrates the story of
Yiramyaavu, a slave in the British plantation at Cheenthalar, in colonial
Kerala, written as a memoir following conversations between Yiramyaavu, and the
writer Anilkumar A.V. The book is the first in Malayalam which elaborates on
the life of a slave. This paper attempts to position the story of Yiramyaavu
within the many emerging discourses of caste slavery in Kerala.
While Yiramyaavu depicts the experience of slavery in its
universal features, it gives primary importance to personal history and social
memory constructed therein. The memoir is an example of the liberation acquired
by runaway slaves through their suffering and struggle for emancipation. It
also acts as a counter-narrative, contributing to the Subaltern Historiography
of Kerala when major movements and figures like Vaikom Satyagraham, PRDS, and
Sree Narayana Guru are being recounted through the memory of Yiramyaavu.
1. 1. The story of Yiramyaavu first appeared in Deshabhimaani in 2001, written by
Pradeep Pampadi. After this, Yiramyaavu was honoured by the then-opposition
leader V S Achudanandan.
Collective Memory, Identity, and Dalit Experience; A
Post-Colonial Reading of Bama’s Karukku
The paper essentially attempts to analyse the autobiographical text Karukku by Bama. The shared social knowledge about cultural practices influences the emergence, transformation, and extinction of individual identity. A new exploration of issues such as identity and the past relevance of those practices serve as a part and parcel of the modern society. It concentrates on how the intersection of gender, class, and religion lead to social marginalization. This paper also portrays how identities have become an ancestral inheritance which is an agency of power in the hands of the “other”. It seeks to interpret how caste history, ceremonial purity, and traditional occupations play an important role in Dalit subjugation. It examines the way women in the Dalit community are portrayed as more Dalit than men of the same social class.
12. Chandan Kumar, Assistant Professor, English and Cultural
Studies, BGR Campus, Christ University,
Bangalore chandan.kumar@christuniversity.in
“Nach” as a Contested Space: A Present and Past of a Past
Nautanki or orchestra, a popularly known term is referred to as a group of folk performers who performs dance and drama on various occasions in the different parts of Bihar and UP. This has been one of the affordable local entertainment for the people. The nautanki or Nach has been subject to socio-cultural transformation, particularly the influence of popular culture. Some of the overt and arguable changes are (a) people disfavouring boys imposters (what is referred to as Launda Nach), (b) entrance of girls in nautanki and dance, (c) loss of drama (folk and Mythological stories enactment), and (d) Bhojpuri songs taking the canter stage and vulgarity associated with song and dance. These changes threatened both the civil society as well as the State and called for certain kinds of action with regard to the moral conduct in public spaces. Despite the state and civil societies’ aims to regulate morality in public spaces through various censorship mechanisms, a rise in the popularity of the present form of Nach can be noticed. Nevertheless, the state cannot legally ban Nach as it is deeply rooted in the folk performative tradition. However, when Nach adapts to the contemporary cultural conditions it is in continuous conflict, negotiation and compromise with its earlier perception. The paper dwells with this question by taking memory study and semiotic analysis as frameworks to see how much present departs from the past and to what extent the past still resides in the present. The journey of the Nach in Bihar is covered by accessing texts and personal memories (personal interviews), and the association of the present form with the traditional idea of Nach is approached through analyzing language, space and cultural context.
Memory loss, fantasy, and sectarianism in British history :
A discourse of collective memory in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant
Collective memory refers to complex social process in which a society or social group constructs and reproduces it’s relation to the past. A remarkable event in the past which bears trauma remains a memory. It is often reinvented with the association of cultural practices. Historical past has been narrated and fantasied in fictions. This paper proposes to discuss the role of memory loss and sectarianism in a discourse of collective memory in Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2015 fantasy novel The Buried Giant. Set in the Arthurian England, the text brings a tale of hope, vengeance, chivalry and existentialism. The story follows the pursuit of the an elderly Briton couple in search of their lost son. The paper analyses the role of the long term memory loss called mist in keeping the harmony between the Britons and the Saxons. The elements of fantasy contributes to the peace that existed. The mist erased the animosity between the Britons and Saxons. The collective memory is altered with a most desired outcome of peace and comfort in the Arthurian England. The paper observes chivalry as the projections of ego with Sir Gawain and Wistan, challenging each other. The interests of neither the Britons nor the Saxons are dominating. Querig, the dragon symbolizes the memory loss or mist as an positive agent. The extermination of Querig leads to the dissipation of mist causes wars among Britons and Saxons. The collective memory of hatred and chivalry returns with full power. The paper concludes that Ishiguro had successfully incorporated memory as a tool of parley into the British history with fantasy elements.
14. Nayana Fathima M, Research Scholar, CTARA, IIT Bombay. nayanafathima372@gmail.com
Knowledge of indigo dye; A story beyond the frameworks of
post- colonialism and post-modernism
In approaching the knowledge of the Global South, the significant tendencies lie within the nationalist, post-modern, and post-colonial framework. These frameworks progress through dichotomizing the colonizer and colony, considering knowledge as unidirectional. This dichotomy leads to considering native knowledge systems of the global south as a passive recipient of Eurocentric knowledge. It also fails to accommodate the heterogeneity of diverse origins of knowledge and its circulation and co-production through encounters and interactions. Thus, it becomes crucial to think beyond the blankets of these frameworks to understand knowledge in a more subtle form that accommodates multiple narratives. In doing so, this paper attempts to elaborate on the knowledge discourse of indigo dye through analyzing the simplistic claims of synthetic dye replacing natural dye. The remarkable survival of many indigo practices and the related communities to date in India offers a possibility for explorations that complicates the singular narrative of knowledge by examining these developments at the boundaries of science, technology, and craft. This critical examination of indigo dye as a part of craft and plantations will provide a significant corrective to the understanding of the complexity of knowledge and practices.
15. Lisha Kunjumon, II MA) and Dr. Vellikeel Raghavan, Department of English & Comparative Literature, Central University of Kerala lishakunjumon@gmail.com
Voicing the Queer Memories: Analysing the ‘Identity Formation’ in I Am (2011)
The paper focuses on the documentary feature film I Am by Sonali Gulati released in 2011. This documentary accounts for the narration of the memories related to the different coming out stories, mainly of upper-middle-class Indian members of the queer community who identify themselves as lesbians and gays during a period when homosexuality was penalised according to the law, through a collection of interviews, social participation, and observation, and associates it with the chronicle of the filmmaker’s own experience of not being able to come out to her mother before she loses her to death. This documentary portrays probably the first-ever union of gay men in India through marriage. Critical reading of I Am for this study has been done with the aid of the nonfiction film analytical insights of Carl R. Plantinga such as voice, rhetoric, style, and technique and the concepts related to cultural memory by Jan Assmann. The study aims to examine how crucial memories get incorporated during the act of identity formation and exploring one’s self. It inspects the role of the family in the construction of the general nature of memory formed in various individuals, how they differ in each case, and how it architecture them into their present identity. It traces how heteronormativity gets reinforced into societal norms and the various methods through which patriarchy encourages compulsory heterosexuality. It also discusses the need for a healthy environment as a breeding ground for queer identity formation and to avoid the dissension caused while coming out of the closet in subsequent times.
16. Dr. Dhanesh Mankulam, Assistant Professor, Dept. of English and Cultural Studies, School of Arts and Humanities, CHRIST University-BGR Campus, Bangalore. English and Cultural Studies (BGR) dhanesh.m@christuniversity.in
Narratives of Memory, History, and Knowledge: Reading through The Legends of Khasak and Eri
The current study attempts a close reading of the two
Malayalam novels, The Legends of Khasak by O V Vijayan and Eri by Pradeepan
Pambirikkunnu side-by-side to study how the two novels not only present certain
counter narratives to some of the existing mainstream narratives of knowledge,
history, and memory but also pose alternative retellings of some of these grand
narratives.
These two novels, published decades apart, are selected
because they represent two stages in the development of the critique of the
notions of memory, history and knowledge in the Indian (particularly in
Malayalam) literature. If The Legends of Khasak marked with its publication
what we might call an ‘alternative modernity’ in literature, Eri has marked yet
another milestone in the development of the critique of
power/memory/history/knowledge in the context of postmodernity and contemporary
discourses. In a sense, the critique that Eri presents is also a critique of
the sensibility that Khasak had presented. This paper attempts to trace this
development as we move from Khasak to Eri.
Up until recent times, the notions of memory and history
have been understood from a particularly European perspective informed by the
Western Enlightenment ideals. These notions presuppose a certain kind of
‘linear time’, an ‘unfolding’ temporality, and a ‘progressive’ history. The
individual is located at a very specific point in this linear temporality
within an inescapably forward-looking historicity. The implication of this
model is that other notions such as knowledge, life, death, self, society and
universe are conceptualized on the basis of this linear temporality and
specifically forward-looking historicity. This eurocentrism has been colouring
our epistemic domains as well as our social imaginaries.
Contemporary times mark an epistemic disjuncture in many ways. Emerging fields such as ‘memory studies’ is no longer looking at memories as remains of a long-lost past. Memories are active agents in the present, determining the experience of reality on a day-to-day basis. In a land of prominent oral traditions and vast variety of languages and cultures, it becomes even more important to look at how the very idea of ‘memory’ or ‘history’ operates from an alternative paradigm of thought. While we see certain archetypes of myths and legends running across the land and cultures here, the kind of practices and symbols that these myths and legends foster is totally different. These varied cultural constructs need different methods and epistemic enquiries which a Western logic may not be able to grasp. This is where explorations into the local knowledge systems and alternative sociological imaginaries become crucial. This can be done by way of looking at various narratives of history and memory. History is undoubtedly understandable as a narrative of life. Memory also is always part of narratives. Modern Trauma-Theories and Affect Theories underline the point that memory is inherently part of a linguistic expression coloured with cultural perspectives— in short narratives.
17. Ahalya A, Post Graduate student at Sree Narayana College Chempazhanthi, Thiruvananthapuram (University of Kerala) ahalyaashtami@gmail.com
Folk Memory as Political Consumption : Its Discourses among
Select Forms
Folk memory is a term sometimes used to describe myths,
stories or folklore about past events that have passed orally over generations.
Those events may date back thousands or even tens of thousands of years and
often possess a local significance. They provide reasons for cultural
traditions .In our world superstition and science, myth and legend ,morality
and mathematics merge and re-emerge in the modernity. Here people’s lives are
contained and conditioned by their memories and beliefs . Although Kerala is a state
recognised for various socio cultural achievements , the cults of the past Maintained
and codified the social and political systems even among it’s intellectually advanced
communities.
Even at a glance it is evident that Kerala is rife with myths, legends , folklore and tales. The region breathes through its memories. Here three folk-narratives are still popular despite the widespread acceptance of Aryan god heads like Vishnu and his avatars. Although the facets of an earlier tribal culture still exist, the tribal king, Mahabali, may not stand divinised at quite the stature of Vishnu. His image is still held dear deep in these parts. Similarly off-springs of Vararuchi and the woman of a lower caste are almost deified. In this region, brahmin and paraya, high and low classes run alongside without barriers. In the region which possess myth, class and caste differences might not be too obvious. Almost all myths that are popular down to the present day involve the upper and lower classes.The folktale tellers are deeply embedded in the narrative and they are inseparable from the tale.The narrative fabric is always in close relation with people’s lives and it’s the same around the world. There are too many examples and evidence that shows the same.The narrative fabric of Kerala is coterminous with people’s lives even in contemporary times There emerges the scope in analysing the reviewing trend of current society over folklore and folk memory which in turn takes way to ‘political consumption'
18. Debarati Das, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Tripura University (A Central University) Suryamaninagar. debaratielizabeth@gmail.com
Resistance movements and the role of history, myth, and
memory:: A Reading of particular narratives from the Sub-continent.
Social oppressions and resistance movements are dynamic processes which constantly modify and engender themselves repeatedly from their immediate pasts, while attempting to forge agency through controlling the narrative of one’s own story, one’s history. That “one” here can be just one person, a community or one or more villages. In certain corners of Indian Literature, especially in narratives of indigenous communities such as in the works of NE writers like Mamang Dai and Easterine Kire, or in Bengali writer Mahasweta Devi’s ‘journalistic’ novellas such as Chotti Munda and his Arrow, we see how lived experiences are transmuted into songs and tribal narratives which foreground the triumph against the defeat, creating the ground for future resistance movements; how the oppressed provide counter-narratives to dominant social history, to attempt to provide the linkages and reasons for ownership of land and river; and curiously, at times, may even situate the whole definition of a social strata such as that of the prostitutes, the rudalis, or the witches, as a gendered creation of the oppressors. These are just some of the ways in which history is re-written to create a landscape, a cultural hold which not only provides an effective counter-argument but also works as the storehouse from where communities draw legitimacy and power. Here, we see dynamic connections forged between history, memory, myth and resistance, as a continuous process of reality. All of these provide interesting points for re-evaluating ‘history’, ‘literature’ and ‘culture’ all of which is what the paper plans to explore in detail.
19. Atri Majumder, Research Scholar (JRF), Dr. Gyanabati Khuraijam, Dept. of Management, Humanities and Social Sciences Assistant Professor, NIT Agartala. atri.cal@gmail.com
Memory and Historicity: Subversive Identities in Salman Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence
The transmutation of memories within fictional spaces is contiguous with the formation and metamorphosis of identities, which are elided by the exclusionary politics of historiography. The ephemerality and immediacy of memories gain substantiality through the mnemonic devices, embedded in particular spatiotemporal configurations. This paper would explore how identities are forged and even engendered through memories, which are inextricably interweaved with spaces - both narrative and geographical. Salman Rushdie’s historical novel The Enchantress of Florence delineates the instrumental role of spaces in fostering cosmopolitan identities and reinscribing them within a malleable history. The juxtaposition of the psychogeographic cartographies of Renaissance Florence and Fatehpur Sikri, affords a narrative space that sustains the historicity of the fabricated identities. Rushdie’s narrative construction interrogates the dominant Eurocentric historiography of Enlightenment rationality and progress, by foregrounding the syncretic culture and flourishing art of the Mughal empire during Akbar’s reign. The liminality of dreams and memories are symptomatic of the dialectics of memory and history, and the transgressive spaces of potentiality lying in-between. The politics of memory inexorably entails the questions of historicity and authenticity. This study argues for the consecration of identities, through the aesthetic distance of collective and subjective memories, reconfigured through spatiotemporal migration and enrooting. We would thus seek to establish the subversive potential of memory in reinscribing identities through the space of fiction, by undermining the hegemony of historicity.
20. Aparna Reghunathan, MA English and Comparative Literature, aparnareghunathan16@gmail.com
Forging the History of a Land and its People – Memory in
Sheela Tomy’s Valli
Sheela Tomy’s novel Valli was first published in Malayalam in 2019 and translated into English by Jayasree Kalathil in 2022. It tells the story of Wayanad, a forested district in the north-east of Kerala. The culturally, politically and ecologically distinct land takes shape in the narrative through a series of recollections encompassing four generations of the land’s inhabitants – the indigenous Adivasis as well as settlers from distant corners. Memory is passed on from one generation to the next through a series of diary entries and exchanged emails. Through acts of recollection, the politics of the land – of its Adivasis, their language, culture, forest as well acts of resistance – is unfurled. The paper will attempt to examine how a history of Wayanad, its forest and people is narrativized through and as memory in Valli.
21. Bhagya V.J and Rukmini Sarma, MA (English), Christ Nagar College, Maranalloor, Trivandrum nandhu172001@gmail.com
Blurred Visions: A Study of Ananya Jahanara Kabiris
Partition’s Post - Amnesias
The division of Hindustan into India and Pakistan in 1947 resulted in violence, identity crisis, and traumatic experiences. Homes were lost and lives were irrevocably changed when the citizens were forced to make choices between two the nations. The paper, by analyzing the work Partition’s Post-Amnesias by Ananya Jahanara Kabir, brings to light the concept of repressed memory, wherein the partially retained images trigger the feeling of trauma endured during the partition. This paper aims to combine ideas of displacement with memory, hope, and enchantment to rediscover the frail bundles of kinship and memory that hold people in place even after political and personal circumstances have caused them to be unwillingly displaced from their homeland. According to the partition accounts described in the book, thousands of men were killed, countless women were sexually assaulted, and even newborns and little children were not spared the savagery. The post-partition resonances transport the people beyond generations and geographical boundaries. The paper aims to re-address the questions of belonging and loss of identity that people suffered during the time of partition through an analysis of memory. For this, it scrutinizes the given work in detail and attempts to uncover its extended impact across time. The paper further explores the role of religion in constructing the horrors of partition, and argues that since religion is a major ground on which the division of the nation occurred, the significance attributed to it has to be examined from a multiplicity of perspectives.
22. Khamarunnisa PA, Research scholar, Department of Russian and Comparative Literature,University of Calicut. khamarubdk@gmail.com
Restating Political Turmoil, Queer memory and Transgenerational
Trauma in Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re
Briefly Gorgeous
Vietnam War, the zenith proxy war has been a source for literature for more than a couple of decades. Ocean Vuong, the Vietnamese American poet and novelist explore the concerns of war, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and transgenerational trauma in his award winning 2019 novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Even after decades, the Vietnamese people still struggle with identity crisis and displacement. Ocean Vuong brings out the aftermath of the historical instances from a queer point of view in this text. The political memory and queer memory-the protagonist being gay- goes parallel in the non- linear narration. The text can be read as semi-autobiographical as Ocean Vuong being a diasporic writer was himself displaced multiple times from Vietnam to refugee camp in Philippines to United States. Even though the protagonist, Little Dog lacks first-hand experience of the war, the transgenerational trauma lingers through the people who lived the struggled past. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a historical narrative that incorporates the harsh realities of historical amnesia and the psyche of the marginalized people. This study aims at locating the the gay identity in the cultural and political memory as well as to place the trauma and its aftereffects in the light of political history.
23. Kavya Venugopal, (II MA English), Palayad Campus, Kannur University,
Spear: A Unique
Experience in Urgent Storytelling
The paper check into the ideas related with the minority writing and it gives the insight of the politics of memory and history by examining the dance film canon Spear (2015),directed by choreographer Stephan Page. The film explores the tumultuous past of Australia’s indigenous people. The development of a young indigenous man from his symbolic birth to his different circumstances while preserving his cultural upbringing in an urban aboriginal environment portrays the ideas related to the past, memory , nostalgia and politics.
24. Nivea Thomas K, Assistant Professor, Department of English and Cultural Studies, English and Cultural Studies, BGR Campus, Christ University, Bangalore nivea.thomas@christuniversity.in
Transforming Memory into Narrative: The Folk Narratives of
Kadamattathu Kathanar
Legends carry memories of the past. They entail the collective memories of a community that are passed from one generation to another in the form of oral narratives. However, as they pass through each historical and cultural context, they appropriate history and skilfully intertwine it with fiction and fantasy. In this sense, they bear the historical imprints of each cultural context through which they have evolved. The legend of Kadamattathu Kathanar is one such legend that has acquired multiple intended, and unintended dimensions and significance in its journey through various historical contexts. Moreover, it has so many fascinating elements such as magic and horror that it has been subjected to multiple versions, interpretations, and rewritings over time. It has been re-represented through various genres and media including print, film, theatre, TV serials and new media platforms. This paper aims to examine the contemporary oral narratives of the legend of Kadamattathu Kathanar and looks into the impact of the present experience on the rendering of the past. As the story spreads over two regions- Kadamattom and Panayannarkkavu, it analyses six oral versions of the legend collected from both regions (two from Panayannarkavu and four from Kadamattom). The process of narrativization is impacted by a set of significant factors ranging from the narrative conventions of the present to the influence of popular media versions of the legend.
25. Rohini Panicker. M.Phil. Women Studies from Tata Institute
of Social Sciences, rhnpnckr80@gmail.com
British Women in the ‘Mutiny’ Literature
The term 'mutiny novel' refers to the novels written during
the rebellion of 1857 by Victorian authors. As the name suggests, it
represented the experiences of British men, women, and children. Between 1858
and 1900, Europeans published more than fifty novels about the 1857 revolt.
Novel analysis can be divided into two sections. The first section would look
at the novels that victimized British women and set the stage for men's heroism
and chivalry to emerge. The second part would demonstrate how novels from the
1880s and 1890s depict the 'heroism' of British women.
I contend that four factors inspired the authors of mutiny
novels. Edward Money, for example, fought in the rebellion and subsequently
wrote a novel titled 'The Wife, The Ward; or A Life's Error' (1859). Money's
novel was one of the first works written about the 1857 uprising, and it depicted
the lives of British men and women during the revolt, particularly in Kanpur.
Money may have recreated some of the events he observed during the rebellion in
his novel. Second, novelists relied on newspaper stories, journals, letters,
and memoirs released in print. Novelists like James Grant, who had never
visited India, relied on newspaper reports, sensational news, and even
eyewitness accounts to compose his novel titled 'First Love, Last Love (1869).
Third, they based their stories on real-life events and individuals from places
like Cawnpore (modern-day Kanpur), Delhi, and others.'
Finally, they were influenced by Indian and British social
and political initiatives such as the Widows Remarriage Act of 1856, the Ilbert
Bill of 1883, and others. The narrative that British women were raped by Indian
men, for example, was interpreted as British retaliation for British women
seeking public rights in Britain. The novels were also created to instill the
idea that British women needed to be protected in alien space. In the novels
published soon after the rebellion in the late 1850s and 1860s, women were
portrayed as passive victims and main sufferers. British men were portrayed as
the protector of British females. However, the narrative became more women
centric when women suffrage began in Britain in the 1880’s and 1890’s. It the
period when women were presented as the heroes of their own stories.
Six books written during the rebellion of 1857 are analyzed in two parts: first, the books written by British men and how the narrative of rapes got embedded into the minds and writings of the authors; and then the novels written by British women and how they portrayed themselves as the heroes of their own stories and how they reduced themselves from difficult situations rather than waiting for to be rescued by the men.
26. Nasooha M, PhD Scholar, Dept. of studies in English, Kannur University mnasooha92@gmail.com
Reconfiguring History through Memory: The Palestinian Experience of the Gulf War
The Gulf War of 1991 was the first heavily televised war, with live reporting by CNN and the use of satellite technology for wider coverage. This paper attempts to look at the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the subsequent Gulf War from the perspective of Palestinian immigrants to Kuwait, as depicted in three novels by Palestinian American women. One of the many aftermaths of the Gulf War was the exodus of the Palestinian population of Kuwait- around half of the 400,000 Palestinians living in Kuwait at the time left during the invasion for various reasons including fear of mistreatment by Iraqi troops, and the remaining half had to flee after the liberation of Kuwait out of fear of persecution by Kuwaiti security forces, in retaliation to the PLO’s support for Saddam Hussein. This paper examines the plight of Palestinians in Kuwait during the invasion and following the liberation as portrayed in Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa, Salt Houses by Hala Alyan and A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar. The role of individual memories as opposed to, as well as in compliment to, the accepted history of the event has been studied. Though each novel looks at the invasion of Kuwait in different ways, all of them view this displacement as a continuation of their earlier expulsion from Palestine, resulting in an incorporation of these events into the collective memory of their past as Palestinian people.
27. Karunya U, as Assistant Professor , Department of English, Stella Maris College, Chennai. karunya@stellamariscollege.edu.in
Foregrounding Memory as Archive in The Kite Runner by Khaled
Hosseini
This paper explores the idea of memory serving as the archival source and replacing history as the chief source of information regarding the past as portrayed in The Kite Runner (2003). The paper would situate the novel as fiction of history/memory, as it provides an overview of the varied historical, political and social changes of Afghanistan beginning with the description of monarchy till the depiction of the transfer of power to the Talibans, through the personal memory of the protagonist, Amir. This analysis challenges the power and position associated with history that delineates it as the only medium through which anything about the past can be understood or validated, thus bringing the age-old debate between history and memory to an end. The paper would also analyse the significance of memory in not just handing down historical events but also personal moments of struggle connected with the larger picture of the nation. Memories of Amir reveal his guilt ridden past along with the political turbulence in Afghanistan. The impact of the political on the personal is highly evident through the lives of Amir and his father Baba who experience the pain of being Diaspora and feeling isolated and alone in a foreign land. The paper would highlight their struggles of trying to decipher their own identity and feeling lost and alone in the land that is not their own. Moreover, the assertion of Afghan culture in America is established in the paper. Hence, the personal memory of the protagonist aims to achieve these three things: to narrate Afghanistan’s past through the protagonist’s life story, to constantly remind them of their roots, their guilt, their belonging and finally their culture and tradition. This clearly goes against the notion that history is the only source of the past, since memory dives into the personal lives of ordinary and common people making counter memories emerge in the process. Through the concepts propounded by Pierre Nora, Paul Ricoeur, Astrid and Erll, the conflict between history and memory is discussed and the idea that memory is inevitable in today’s scenario is brought out.
28. Dr. Sambhu R., Assistant Professor,, PG Department of English,, N.S.S. College, Pandalam. 3333sambhu@gmail.com Dr. Anjana R.B, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Christ Nagar College, Trivandrum
Collective Memory and Selective Amnesia in Elif Shafak’s The Bastard of Istanbul
The present paper attempts to examine the identity crisis suffered by the Armenian diaspora settled in America through an analysis of the interconnected notions of home, space, history, and memory as delineated in Elif Shafak’s The Bastard of Istanbul. The novel narrates how the ruling elites of Turkey attempted to transform the multicultural ethos of the Ottoman Empire into a sterile monolithism by slaughtering the Armenian Christians who were thought to constitute a menace to the former’s agenda of homogeneity. It portrays, on the one hand, the intentional amnesia of the Turks about the genocide, and on the other, the Armenians’ preservation of their collective memory and their attempts to reforge their identity. The paper argues that, though the Armenian diaspora was assimilated into other geographical spaces in the wake of their displacement, their personal identity, which is tied up with the socio- cultural memory of their homeland, is defined by an irredeemable lack springing from the absence of a place of belonging. Since home is more of a mental space rather than a mere geographical location one inhabits and then leaves behind when conditions prove inconducive, the paper considers the Armenian diaspora as straddling two worlds. If anything, it is the nostalgia for their homeland and the reminiscence of dislocation that constitutes the core of their collective identity. Taking this nostalgia as a jumping-off point to problematize the collective amnesia of the Turks about the Armenian genocide, the paper delves into Shafak’s portrayal of Armenian refugees in their longing to reconnect with their past even as they are resettled in America, and in so doing, elucidate the complex interfaces between cultural memory and identity (re)construction.
29. Sonu S Pappachan, MA Education, Azim Premji University, Bangalore sonu.pappachan21_mae@apu.edu.in
Hijab controversy and the educational space: looking through the lens of governmentality
India is a secular nation which is
completely different from the western way of understanding secular nations. The
recent hijab controversy in the Karnataka schools which again brings back the
discussions on the idea of secularism and how to practice it in an educational
space. Educational institutions are considered to be a space of inclusion and practice
of celebrating diversity. Beyond a piece of cloth, hijab has a cultural and
political connotation. Due to recent political events in the current Indian
scenario Muslim community feels a sense of othering.
The idea of uniform is an instrument to build a common consciousness among students through imposing authority and control. Does the hijab create a hindrance into this common consciousness? Is this uniformity considered as the fundamental aspect to achieve education? This discussion reinitiated many of these questions in the socio-political realm. Including the women's autonomy over their clothing in a public space. However a deeper understanding through the nuances of this discussion with different narratives is the need of the hour. This study tries to navigate through the nuance discourses on hijab controversy along with the foucauldian framework of governmentality. This paper tries to look upon the impact of this discourse in formulating a collective memory that further led towards the creation of others.
30. Navya Raveendran, Research Scholar, Department of Studies in English, Kannur University. navyarnambiar@gmail.com
Reclaiming Memory : A Reading of The Malayalam Movie Paathi
Chandran Narikode’s movie Paathi revolves around the life of Kammaran who is the subconscious
mind of the locality. As the title indicates, the life of each individual in
the society remains to be a mystery. Kammaran, who has an access to the very
personal lives of the people, stands as the axis of the movie. He is the other
half of every individual in the society— ‘paathi’,
the liminal space. Kammaran understands the difficulties of each individual as
a deity and solves those issues, which makes him the all-knowing person. His everyday
activities negotiate the interstices of history and memory of that region.
Kammaran acts as the collective memory of a society that
faces a social and cultural deterioration. It is through Kammaran that the
memory of the place is returning back. Kammaran helps to abort undesired
pregnancies by using his regional medicines and all those tipped buds visits
the memory of Kammaran as grown up children. Those children invade into the
unconscious mind of Kammaran which indicates his ideological invasion of the private
spaces of other natives.
He seems to be the collective unconscious that each of the natives of the region carries within themselves. It contains memories of most private and personal moments of each individual of the region. He reclaims the memory and the past of the locality. This study considers film as a visual text and analyze the visual text and its content in the light of collective cultural memory and consciousness. The storyline of the movie is anchored on the idea of demonization of a local culture by de-centering almost all the characters from normality. Activities of certain characters of the movie suggest a kind of colonial conquering of the body even though almost all characters are subaltern in one or the other way.
31. Gayathri Varma U., Research scholar, Department of English, St. Joseph's College, Devagiri, Kozhikode gayathrivarma508@gmail.com
Storing and Storying: Memory, Space, and Selfhood in N S
Madhavan’s Litanies of Dutch Battery
(2003)
Memory, place/space, and identity carry an integral,
intrinsic, and inseparable bond among each other. Thinking beyond
postcolonialism and postmodernism, Memory Studies is an efficient tool to study
the nuances of memory as a determinative and decisive factor of one’s identity
and examine its role in constructing the notions of selfhood and spatiality.
The paper is an attempt to read N S Madhavan’s Lanthanbatheriyile Luthiniyakal (2003) translated as Litanies of Dutch Battery by Rajesh Rajmohan (2010), an autobiographical retelling of the first sixteen years in the life of a Latin Catholic girl named Jessica (fictional), born and brought-up in a real-imaginary island called Lanthanbathery in Kochi, in the light of Memory Studies and Spatial Studies. Departing from the conventional autobiographical form, the text clubs Jessica’s personal narrative with the political, social, cultural, historical, artistic, culinary milestones of Kochi during 1950-1965, which makes it a product of hybridity and fictional-factual amalgamation. The paper examines the role of memory in the text on two levels – as a narrative tool or technique and as a thematic concept in autobiography- in constructing the macro-space of Lanthanbathery, the micro-spaces within such as the Malacca House, the Church, the Cannon ground and the school, and the identity/selfhood of the narrator in a certain way. How does memory colour the engagement of the protagonist with various spaces, how do power-equations and notions of centrality- periphery operate with regard to the different spaces constructed, how does memory politically playout in developing certain ideologies and driving Jessica’s agency, and also parallel the speaking body and the island through various correspondences and resonances are the concerns of the paper. Analytical tools from the disciplines of Memory Studies and Spatial Studies are employed for the study.
32. Safwana Salam, Research Scholar, Department of English & Comparative Literature, Central University of Kerala safwanasalam@gmail.com
Between Shaheed and Shirk: Revisiting the Anti-Colonial
Resistance and Collective Trauma of Portuguese Dismemberment of Mappilas in
Ramanthali
The intensity of Portuguese atrocities in Malabar has been
documented as early as the sixteenth century in the works of Sheikh Zainuddin
Makhdoum I and II, Qazi Muhammed and so on. Many recent studies have come up on
the resistance literatures- oral, written as well as performative- which
address the Portuguese brutalities around Malabar. Ramanthali, situated in
Ezhimala of Kannur, Kerala, is one such site where a Mappila uprising against
the Portuguese was brutally crushed. Shaikh Zainuddheen Makhdoum II, in his
celebrated historical work Tuhfat ul Mujahideen mentions the incident at
Ramanthali, Ezhimala. The collective trauma as a result of the dismemberment of
seventeen Mappila warriors who waged war against the Portuguese invasion is
relived every year by conducting the ritual of Uroos or the shrine festival at
the Ramanthali mosque.
The paper addresses the historical incident at Ramanthali and its various discursive engagements as testimonies of resistance. Its complex negotiation with the reformist concept of shirk (deviation from monotheism) regarding saint veneration is also looked upon. An attempt to trace the transformation of a social protest into a religious act; and the canonisation of anti-colonial martyrs into holy figures are made. Here, cultural memory and collective trauma intersect where ‘remembrance’ and ‘repetition’ function as political acts of resistance.
33. Aamina Akhtar, Research Scholar, Department of English, MANUU, Hyderabad, aaminazargar@gmail.com
Memory and Identity in Dystopian Fiction: A Comparative
Study of The Memory Police and The Maze Runner
This research paper investigates the importance that memory and identity play in contemporary dystopian fiction, with a particular emphasis on Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police and James Dashner’s The Maze Runner as the two primary works of study. Through a comparative analysis of the two novels, this study examines how memory and identity are constructed and manipulated in these dystopian societies. Drawing upon theories of memory and identity formation, this paper analyzes how both novels use these concepts to explore themes of resistance, survival, and power. The study presents evidence to support the notion that memory and identity play a significant role in both the protagonist’s ability to endure in these authoritarian regimes and their capacity to fight back against them. The erasure of memories in The Memory Police results in the loss of identity and agency, whereas in The Maze Runner, the loss of memory enables the governing body to manipulate identities and exert more control over its subjects. In addition to that, the study delves into topics such as traumatic experiences, overcoming adversity, and the influence that one’s memories have on their sense of identity. Ultimately, this study provides new insights into the ways in which contemporary dystopian fiction uses memory and identity to engage with pressing social and political issues, and underscores the importance of memory and identity in shaping individual and collective resistance.
34. Shubhangi,
MA Department of English, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. nishshubh209@gmail.com
Title:
The term ‘Postmemory’ was coined by American professor
Marianne Hirsch in her 1992 article titled “Family Pictures: Maus, Mourning,
and Post-Memory”. Postmemory refers to “the experience of those who grow up
dominated by narratives that preceded their birth”, creating a conflict of
individualistic identity between pursuing modernity and retracing tradition. Independent
journalist, Adivasi activist, and poet Jacinta Kerketta’s writings elaborate on
similar issues of tribal (land) displacement, hence cultural displacement in
the northern tribal belts of India, perpetual memory of violence against women
in her community, and the habitual apathy of the state.
Kerketta’s
poetry describes the relationship of the present (also older) generations of
Adivasis, using memories of the poignantly traumatic experiences of loss and
feeling of alienation. Many poems discuss memories of the personal loss of her
Adivasi ancestors (through Kerketta as the poet) that have been transferred to
her through the privilege of personal as well as communally imparted memory.
The paper will consider Kerketta’s poetry collections, Angor and Ishwar aur Bazaar, to understand the impact of collective cultural memory, the process (and effect) of being ‘othered’, the attempt to re-establish Adivasi traditions, and physical displacement on Kerketta’s identity (as an Adivasi, a woman, an activist, and a poet), and how she positions and articulates herself to make sense of her autonomous place and role in an exploitative society. The impact of rewriting the traumatic narratives (personal and memorial) of loss, oppression, and displacement through Kerketta’s reclamation of her long-confiscated Adivasi voice will be studied and analysed.
35. Ritwik Balo, PhD Scholar, Department of English, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. ritwik.jude@gmail.com
Restorying Partition through Comics: A Study of Testimonial, Autobiographical, and Historical Memory
This
article explores the significance of memory in comics with a particular
emphasis on the testimonial, personal, and historical aspects of the partition
of the Indian subcontinent in 1947. As a case study, the paper examines how authors
and artists from India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan collaborate and engage with
the traumatic event of Partition in the transnational comics anthology
"This Side, That Side: Restorying Partition" curated by Vishwajyoti
Ghosh.
The
study investigates how the tension between individual and collective memory is
historicized, as well as how personal experiences are located within a larger
socio-political context. In doing so, it also attempts to understand the
potential of comics as a tool for historiography, because they often offer
alternative perspectives on histories that can go unnoticed in traditional
historical accounts.
Through close readings of several graphic narratives in this anthology, the study demonstrates how comics, as a hybrid media that mixes text and picture, may transmit the complexity of memory and history in ways that are both visually appealing and intellectually rigorous. In conclusion, this paper makes the case that these visual accounts provide a distinctive perspective on the events of the Partition and contribute to a more inclusive and diverse understanding of South Asian history.
36. Gireesh C., Assistant Professor of English, C.K.G.M Govt. College, Permabra. gcgireeshcholayil@gmail.com
Global
South and the praxis of theorisations : From Walter Benjamin to the archives of
the futures.
The
idea of the Global South has been conceived as an assemblage of shifting
terrains of concepts , experiences and interventions on multiple contexts not
pertained to the South as such but forms of refracted sense of veritable issues
at large. Is the Global South an assemblage of theoretical speculations? Is it
a bricolage of theoretical moments on praxis ? Or, does it emerge as a space of
liminalities ? The critical impasse to programme and posit the notion into a
certain theoretical specifics makes it an eclectic baggage of theories from the
sites of Postcolonialism and diverse modernities of recuperated process in the
social circulations. In the case of theory as a resisting phenomenon of
pointing signals of singularities , the Global South falls in line with the
theoretical intersections with an absence of theories to an amalgamation of
archives of the present. The ever widening shifts on the issues of migration ,
class , gender , transnationality , labour crisis , neo-liberalism, fascism ,
virtual world , technocracy intersect various modes of praxis that arise from
the different generic levels of theoretical postulations of the future. However
, the theoretical non/necessity to navigate various issues of the Global South
generate praxis into a deterritorialised realm that reshapes hemispheric
imaginations .
The paper looks into the recoverings of filterd platforms of hitherto pronounced theories into a crystal solid floating tectonics of praxis in the Global South as the ethical responsibility of the divergent worlds. The paper problemtises Praxis of the Global South from the neo-conventions of theories with the flashes of cultural memories of Walter Benjamin focusing authority, aura and historicity. Walter Benjamin’s notions of de-auratic textual narratives and a sense of history become sites of contestations in the Global South’s positional fields. Thus the aesthetics of the Global South gets reinvigorated into social and cultural narratives into praxis of de-authorial and historical imaginaries on the project of hybrid locations. The sense of authority and the solidifying sites of social habitus of theories of the past make the Global South as a bricolage of universal-specifics of praxis without a linear notion of historicity. This sense of theoretical vulnerability rearranges cultural memories of the present, as Walter Benjamin sites, and posits cluttered and floated valences of praxis on narratives. From the trajectory of the Third World, Postcolonial, Postmodern, Poststructural, Marxist, Feminist, Cultural studies, the Global South runs not as a parallel line but as a rigorous yet slippages of associations that resist any particular affinities of theorisations. The argument posits that the Global South as an ambivalent spaces of praxis reimagines the theorizations as a decentered fulcrum of convergences by the archives on universals of specificities.
37. Preeti Sharma, Ph.D. Scholar, Department of History (AISS), Amity University, Noida, Uttar Pradesh. preetivashist26@gmail.com
Reclaiming
Memory: A Historical Study of The Yogini/Dakini Cult In Ancient India (9th–12th
century)
The term “Yogini or Dakini,” which translates to “women who dance in space” or “women who rejoice in the freedom of emptiness,” is frequently used to refer to the women of Hinduism and Tantric Buddhism. They depicted as “sinister,” “demonic,” “blood-drinking goddesses,” and sometimes portraying in wild shapes with animal heads. Their path occasionally vanishes into thin air as they took flight on their enlightenment journeys. They guard esoteric tantric information and spread it. They are thought to possess the power to “shapeshift” into feminine animals and to change other people. The cult represents the climax of negative energy directed toward a positive end. The cult has a special place because it honors feminine energy in all of its manifestations, including the darkest. It represents the fusion of destructive and empowering energy and is an amalgam of many felinities. Yogini/Dakini are so furious that they break free from the constraints of motherhood and direct all of their bad energy toward a greater good. They practice rituals in liminal spaces such as crematoriums and are associated with the Bhairava, they are frequently carrying skulls and other tantric symbols which caused “ordinary” people to feel a “deep sense of terror and awe” till the late 20th century. The purpose of this research is to share the historical knowledge regarding one of the most significant Cult of Yogini/Dakini (9th -12th century) in India but in modern times the cult has lost its significance. The investigation into yogini/dakini cult will be conducting through exploratory research to ensure that all aspects of the cult of yogini will be analyzed critically before drawing conclusions.
38. Muhamed Shareef K, Research Scholar, Department of English, Pondicherry University. mhshareef528@gmail.com
The
Malleable Memory of Eyewitness and Wrongful Convictions: An Analysis of Testimonies
of the Wrongfully Convicted
Wrongful conviction has widely been used as a term referring to the conviction of a factually innocent man. Edward Borchad initiated a systematic study of wrongful convictions in 1932 through his book Convicting the Innocent: Sixty-five Actual Errors of Criminal Justice. Later, developments in DNA testing and forensic science in the 1980s exposed errors in the judiciary and hundreds of convicts were exonerated in the US. Attorneys Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld established a non-profit organization called Innocence Project in 1992 in the US, later expanded to many other countries, for legal assistance to innocent prisoners. According to the latest report of the National Registry of Exonerations, 3340 convicts were exonerated in the US after 1989. The testimony of eyewitnesses is considered a piece of strong evidence in a court during prosecution. An eyewitness is “a person who has seen a crime and can describe it afterwards” (OED). Research in wrongful convictions shows that more than half of the wrongfully convicted cases are due to errors in eyewitness identification. The memory of eyewitnesses need not be true or accurate always. Memory can be manipulated, invented, planted or changed by the police and the media or by self-interest. This research paper analyses the testimonies in the book Anatomy of Innocence: Testimonies of the Wrongfully Convicted (2017) by Laura Caldwell and others, to understand how the fallible memory of the eyewitnesses.
39. Heavenly Joy, Research Scholar, Department of English and Languages, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Kochi Campus, India. heavenly.joy21@gmail.com
Traumatic
Memories of Bangladesh: A Genealogical Study
The Bangladesh liberation war that led to the partition of Pakistan in 1971 has a determining role in South-Asian history. This paper aims to delineate the impact of war on the collective memory of the native Bangladeshi people with reference to Yasmin Saikia’s essay “Lost in Violence: History, Memory and Humanity in 1971, East Pakistan”. Women and children are the most affected by the war. The paper will draw critical insights from cultural studies, memory studies, and trauma theory. It will also look at instances in the literature that portrays affected women. This paper will outline the influence of memory on the culture and practices of Bangladeshis.
40. Muhsina Najeeb, PhD Scholar, Department of English and Comparative Literature, Central University of Kerala. muhsinajeeb@gmail.com
Remembering
The Prince of Wales Riots (1921): Parsi Cultural History and Memory in Sujata
Massey’s The Bombay Prince (2021)
The
Prince of Wales’ four-month tour of India in 1921 was supported by majority of
the Parsi community of Bombay as majority of them were working closely with
British officers. The visit was to ensure the loyalty of the subjects to the
Crown. However, it resulted in violent riots with hundreds of injuries, loss of
life and vandalism, especially towards the Parsi community as they welcomed the
Prince. This particular incident underwent selective forgetting by neglecting
the trauma of Parsis and sometimes, manipulated remembering in history.
Perveen
Mistry is a Parsi female sleuth of the historical crime novel The Bombay Prince (2021) written by the
renowned American writer Sujata Massey. She is in a quest to capture the real
culprits of the murder of a Parsi student named Freny Cuttingmaster during the
riots. When the unrest breaks out, Perveen and her community got threatened as
they were considered as traitors who support the British rule.
The relevance of remembering and forgetting in cultural narratives is decisive in the production of history and memory. This paper tries to trace the textualization of the Prince of Wales Riots and the politicization of Parsi cultural history, memory and trauma by analyzing the historical crime novel The Bombay Prince (2021). The paper argues that this novel narrates the cultural trauma of the community by actively remembering the historical past of Parsi community in Bombay.
41. Thulasi Das B, Assistant Professor of English, CKGM Govt. College, Perambra, University of Calicut teddas0987@gmail.com
Transubstantiated
Memory: Lacan, Zizek, Doyle and the Art of Detective Fiction
Slavoj
Žižek, the Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic, has addressed the concept
of transubstantiation in his writings. Žižek draws on a Lacanian psychoanalytic
perspective to explore the symbolic dimensions of transubstantiation, and to
highlight its significance for contemporary culture and politics. From the
critical vantage point of Zizekian oeuvre, the process of transubstantiation
involves a radical transformation of the symbolic order. The bread and wine,
which represent ordinary material substances in the everyday world, are
transformed into the body and blood of Christ, which have a symbolic
significance that goes beyond their materiality. This transformation represents
a symbolic reordering of reality, in which the everyday world is transcended
and replaced by a higher order of meaning.The process of transubstantiation,
with its emphasis on the transformation of material substances, also represents
a challenge to the prevailing capitalist order, which places a high value on
material possessions and consumption. Žižek’s analysis of transubstantiation emphasises
its symbolic and political dimensions, and its potential to challenge established orders of meaning and
value. His work highlights the continuing relevance of this concept for
contemporary culture and politics, and underscores its significance as a site
of ongoing theological and philosophical debate.
Lacan’s
concept of memory emphasises its dynamic and complex nature, and the ways in
which it is shaped by cultural, linguistic, and social factors. Understanding
the role of memory in the formation of identity and the construction of
narratives is crucial for understanding the human psyche and for developing effective
therapeutic approaches. According to Lacan, memory is not a direct recording of
past experiences, but is rather mediated by the Symbolic Order, which consists
of language, culture, and social norms. In this way, our memories are shaped by
our cultural and linguistic contexts, and are subject to constant
reinterpretation and revision. Lacan also emphasized the role of memory in the
formation of identity. He argued that our sense of self is not simply a product
of our individual experiences, but is rather shaped by the way in which we
relate to the Symbolic Order. Our memories are crucial in constructing a narrative
of our identity, and are subject to constant revision as we navigate the
complex web of social and cultural norms.
It is at this critical juncture, the present paper attempts to unravel the subtle nuances and the functional minutiae of memory, as transubstantiated into various forms such as, fantasy, ideology and the politics of language, as embedded in the art of detective fiction writing. To satisfy the proposed postulation, the paper intends to analyse the four major novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that belong to the Sherlock Holmes saga, namely, A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Hound of Baskervilles, and The Valley of Fear . It is ostensible to note that memory serves as a critical tool for the detective in his investigation and problem-solving activities. Holmes’ extraordinary memory and attention to detail allow him to recall seemingly insignificant details from past cases, which he can then apply to current investigations. Furthermore, memory plays a crucial role in the development of the characters and plot. Many of the cases that Holmes investigates involve individuals who are trying to escape their past or hide their true identities.
42. Saweini S. Laloo, Research Scholar, Department of English, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong. saweinilaloo94@gmail.com
Reclaiming Indigenous Identity: Khasi Folklore
through the Poetry of Esther Syiem
Although
Gayatri Spivak’s concept of the “subaltern” is a contested one in indigenous
studies, most indigenous thinkers have recognised its applicability in the
study of how such communities continue to be subjects of oppression. Robert
Warrior, for instance, comments on the fact that subalternity “…has gained a
foothold in Native studies not because theory has proven so effective at addressing
the Native world, but instead because there’s just so much subalternity in the
native world that needs somehow to be addressed” (“The Subaltern can Dance”,
90). Similarly, other indigenous thinkers like Māori writer, Linda Tuhiwai
Smith argue on the importance of indigenous communities in narrating their
histories as a means of reclaiming their identities. For Spivak as for Smith,
the answer to “Can the Subaltern Speak?” seems to lie in the idea that they can
only do so when they begin to speak for themselves.
Esther
Syiem, an indigenous writer from the Khasi Hills of Meghalaya, India,
represents a generation of Khasi writers who bore witness to the impact of
post-independence on the tribal communities of the North-Eastern region of
India. Syiem uses her poetry as a powerful tool to retell her people’s folk
stories and present indigenous concept of time as cyclical instead of linear.
Syiem tries to convey through her poems how for indigenous communities, the
past continues to impose itself on the present. Another notable feature in
Syiem’s poetry is the insertion of indigenous Khasi words as seen in poems like
“U Lymboit U Lymbiang” and “Mawbynna”, thereby demonstrating her resistance to
dominant Western ideas of expression as well as her choice of words like
“Bordar”, which represents what Edward Said points out in the Empire Writes
Back, the use of a vernacularised “english” instead of Received Standard
“English”.
The use of the English language by indigenous writers is a double-edged sword because while on the one hand, it opens up such writings to a wider audience, on the other hand, it is accompanied by the constant realisation of the shortcomings of expression in an alien language. The challenge for indigenous writers lies in the fact that they bear the responsibility of being cultural historians of their communities. Thus, in order to speak the truth about their communities they face the challenge of first undoing years of conditioned Western learning.
43. Manisha Madhu, Research Scholar, Department of English Studies, Kannur University, manishamadhu7@gmail.com
Resurfacing:
The Politics of Erasure and Acts of Remembrances in Deep Halder’s Blood Island: An Oral History of the
Marichjhapi Massacre”
The paper aims to re-investigate the Marichjhapi Massacre in the light of the emergent modalities of ‘re-membering'; and erasing erasures. Walter Benjamin’s famous formulation that “there is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism” rings true in the context of the Morichjhapi Massacre, a lesser known Dalit Genocide, which occurred in the fateful year of 1979 in Marichjhapi, one of the marshy islands of the Sundarbans in West Bengal, killing more than 10,000 people with official records documenting only 10. Commissioned by the government, these barbaric acts were guised under their well-intended motive to conserve forests. Carefully and strategically swept under the rugs with a calculated scheme to erase the memory of the Marichjhapi Massacre from the history of West Bengal, the government was, to a great extent, successful in its endeavour to confine the hapless victims to where it believed they belonged—in the margins, forgotten forever. However, with the advent of innovative frameworks of historical analysis like Memory Studies, the idea of 'resurfacing' and ‘remembering’ has become inevitable. Re-membering something over and over again through “acts of remembrances” makes it repetitive and this repetition, when practised with forgotten histories that had been subject to politically motivated erasure, triggers their resurfacing. These are processes by which official history or the "grand narrative" can be re-written or countered through all the “little narratives”;. This paper seeks to unearth one such “little narrative”, Deep Halder’s Blood Island: An Oral History of the Marichjhapi Massacre, a work of nonfiction that could be considered a milestone in the development of historical consciousness about Marichjhapi, an otherwise forgotten chapter in the history of Bengal. The paper undertakes an analysis of the first-hand accounts of witnesses of the pogrom provided by Deep Halder and explores how recounting the horrors of their experience in the oral tradition exposes acts of erasure and activates acts of remembrances.
44. Sehajdeep Kaur, MA English, Department of English, Delhi University. kaursehaj2002@gmail.com
Cultures
and Literatures in Dialogue: Narrative Construction of Punjabi Cultural Memory in
Context of Partition, Farmer’s Protest and Migration crisis.
Memory,
images and text are closely related. They form the fundamentals of individual
and communal identities and expressions. This paper intends to explore various
literary pieces and artworks to investigate the relations between history,
memory, and expression, especially in the context of post-partition Punjab.
Looking at
various war or holocaust literatures, this essay begins by exploring the use of
language and memory as literary tools. Using Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of reterritorialization in sense, it delves
into how in Minor Literatures, the cultural symbols and historicities can
become visual narratives located not just in the text but in the physical
sensory experience of communal memories.
This is
analyzed using various artworks, photographs, and the oral-folk narratives
along with the Punjabi partition literature to thus probe into the collective
consciousness of post-partition Punjab. Further the politics of memory is
traced in the Farmers' Protest, in its slogans and literature, and its effects
on the Punjabi pool of memory thereafter. Then through Prabhsharandeep Singh’s
recent collection of poetry - “Des Nikala", the general experience of migration
that stands on piles of cultural transitions, identity crises and diasporic
experiences is explored.
All these
fragments of memories attached to three main events of Partition, Protests, and
Migration come to dilute in the collective pool of trauma, 'past glory' and
identity crisis. This played by politics of memory, creates various narratives
and discourses that have come to shape not only the image of Punjab, or its
oral-folk traditions but in end, the very pool of collective memory itself.
This paper thus concludingly taps into how literature becomes more than a shadow of truth as it mediates between memory and history, reconciling lost or constructed narratives.
45. Mr. Nohin Cherian Binu, II MA, Department of English, CMS College (Autonomous), Kottayam, Kerala, nohinbinu@gmail.com ; Ms. Sravya S R, II MA, Department of English, Christ Nagar College, Trivandrum, Kerala, 2000sravya@gmail.com
From Tears o Triumph: Anatomizing Mahasweta
Devi’s Rudali - An Incarnation of Caste, Class, and Gender Subalternity
Women have
come a long way from their position of subordination to carving a niche for themselves.
There are hopes resting in the new generation that they will be able to take up
the challenges of the day and take this movement forward. (Alma Kabutri,
Appendix)
Literature
mirrors life. It takes place amidst the web of socio-cultural relationships. It
takes its birth amidst society. Both men and women have contributed to the
field of creative writing and literature. Over the years, women have made
stupendous strides in umpteen areas with conspicuous headway in reducing some
gender gaps. Women have made a remarkable contribution to fiction in Indian
English Literature. Among the innumerable new entrants to the world of Indian
English Women writing, Mahasweta Devi belongs to the post-colonial literary world
of India and is famous for the work Rudali.
The aim of the author through the novel Rudali
is to show a powerful indictment of the socio-economic system in India. The novel
itself is an attack on the vestiges of feudalism in rural India. She has
adopted various techniques like the use of black humour to show the position of
subalterns. Rudali is a touching tale
of a woman whose life is fraught with poverty of many kinds. The women suffer
whether as a mother, wives, grandmothers,
or friends. The landlords of the upper class wait for the deaths of their
families in order to celebrate their funerals in a grand way. Humanity loses
here itself. Mahasweta Devi has dealt here with great achievement in showing
the fake nature of society. She has exercised all her potential to connect with
the surroundings to the mainstream.
The aim of this paper critically examines Mahasweta Devi’s novel Rudali, dismantling Spivak’s idea of subalternity. Robert Young’s idea of subalternity has been applied that is more suitable to justify the argument that subalterns can speak if they are given a conducive environment to flourish economically and socially. This novel is about the journey of two low-caste women, Sanichri and Bikhni from non-agency to agents who are the crystal clear example of the invincibility of the human spirit that never adopts escapist tendencies even in trying circumstances. The main focus of the article is to show the transformation that takes place in the lives of Sanichri and Bikhni after they have adopted the profession of wailers for funeral processions. The text in this respect shall be analyzed to show how the gendered subaltern hopes against hope in the undemocratic social and economic set-up.
46. Sreenidhi P, PhD research scholar and Dr. B. Padmanabhan, Assistant Professor, Department of English and Foreign Languages, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. sreenidhips@gmail.com
Understanding the Liminalities of Dysfunctional Community:
Collective Trauma in Herta Müller’s The
Land of Green Plums and The Fox was
Ever the Hunter
A community struck by collective trauma undergoes fundamental changes, often having to redefine itself incorporating multifarious effects that trauma has had on social, cultural, moral, and psychological levels. Characteristics of collective trauma often manifested in various contexts such as media representations, national narratives, literature, repressed histories, and resistance movements, and are similarly dealt with in such diverse contexts. Contrary to much of victim narratives, Herta Müller’s fiction offers an intimate portrayal of the deformed community and its dysfunctionality. The novels The Land of Green Plums and The Fox was Ever the Hunter, set in Romania during the 1980s, give an intimate account of the pervasive effect of trauma induced by the dictatorship on the daily lives of individuals. This includes a deep distrust for each other drilled into them by constant surveillance, transforming them into beings incapable of connecting with the community. Müller modelled a character in each of the two novels after her friend Jinny who turned out to be a spy of the securitate. Drawing on Kai T Erikson’s concept of collective trauma, this paper attempts to contextualise the recurring themes of loneliness and betrayal in Müller ’s works. This article examines textual evidence of homogeneity imposed by the communist dictatorship while contrasting it with the overarching theme of the inability of the individuals to unite as a community. Müller ’s narrative, noted for her distinct use of language that exploits the ambiguity offered by metaphors and fragmented images, provides ample space for exploring psychological trauma. From the vantage point of an individual struggling with dictatorship, Müller offers glimpses of how collective trauma distorts the idea of community as well as how the narrator perceives ‘people’ and the inability of the self to connect with it. The paper would also venture into the qualities of Müller ’s prose that makes plausible the seamless incorporation of her perception of collective trauma into the narrative.
47. Matti Bakor, research scholar, in the Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. mattibakor25@gmail.com
Politics of memory: Terror lore
Since its formation, India’s Northeast has had a long
overlooked and wholly unacknowledged history of conflict – inter-ethnic
conflicts, conflict over natural resources, native-migrant conflicts and border
conflicts, etc. There is a legacy of civil unrest, insurgency and resistance
against real or perceived threats from foreigners or outsiders that have become
entwined with normalcy, an acknowledged but unspoken undercurrent of tension
present in day-to-day life.
Apart from constant references to this history of violence in literature and/or media that comes from this region, the experiences faced by the people also exist as stories and urban legends that harken back to the dark times of violence and fear that they faced. Coined together by Dr Desmond Kharmawphlang and expanded upon by Dr Cherrie L. Chhangte, terror lore encapsulates “all kinds of shared traumatic experiences… that people of this region collectively share and which are coterminous to peace and all progressive outlooks”. This paper will attempt to utilize the idea of terror lore, to study how lived traumatic experiences further shape a region and its people psychologically through testimonials and oral recounting. Apart from being academically inspired, this paper also intends to capture the experiences and perspectives of survivors of troubled times and to redirect popular discourse to the importance of memory and remembrance. Lastly, the end goal of the paper is to be a way to honour the familiar remembrance of those experiences and the survivors who have lived through it all.
48. Aribam Siddharth Sharma, PhD scholar from the Department of English, University of Delhi and Assistant Professor (Adhoc) in Ramjas College, University of Delhi. aribam.siddharth@gmail.com
Trauma, Memory and Identity in Intizar Husain’s The Sea Lies
Ahead and Siddhartha Deb’s The Point of Return
My paper will look at two partition novels: one written by a Pakistani author of Indian origin, which is Intizar Husain’s The Sea Lies Ahead, and another by a Bengali author who grew up in the north-eastern state of Meghalaya in India, which is Siddhartha Deb’s The Point of Return. Drawing from Derrida, I will focus on testimonial function of both these narratives and the politics of memory that inform them. Both novels are poignant testimonies to the continuing, lingering legacies of the Partition of India. The former deals with post- partition conditions in Karachi (in Pakistan) in the 1980s through to the 1990s and the marginalization of muhajirs (a term with changing connotations referring to Muslim migrants to Pakistan from India) whereas the latter deals with the socio-political conditions that lead to the marginalization of Bengalis in the state of Meghalaya as dkhars (a pejorative term meaning ‘outsider’). The protagonists of both novels are haunted by memories triggered by traumatic incidents in their contemporary socio-political milieu. Jawad, the protagonist of The Sea Lies Ahead calls himself “a carder of memories” whereas Babu, the protagonist of The Point of Return calls himself “the inept archaeologist of memories”. In both novels memory features as a way of coming to terms with the crisis of identity generated by the lingering impact of the Partition. By using a post-colonial trauma studies framework, I will attempt at a close reading of both the form and content of these novels to argue that the novels use memory and testimony in order to present a critique of the nation-state and its production of the category of the ‘stranger’. Such a critique is essential to the project of peaceful cohabitation and geopolitical harmony in the subcontinent.
49. Zafar Iqbal, Central University of Kerala zaffariqbal010@gmail.com
Preservation of Folk Memory of Gujjar and Bakarwal in Jammu
and Kashmir.
Folk memory also known as folklore and myths refers to the
past events that have been passed orally from one generation to another
generation. “Memory is the faculty that enable us to form an awareness of
selfhood both on the personal and collective level” (Assmann 2008). The events
described by the memories date back hundreds of years back and these memories
transferred through oral stories and have a local significance in folklore.
Folklore can be a part of memory and that memory actually is a form of folklore.
Both folklore and memory maybe unreliable but they are powerful form of
history. Memory plays a significant role in unfolding and revealing the tribal
literature and looking back at the memory is the source to resolve the
differences while interpreting the stories. Due to the non-availability of printed
texts the memory is preserved in the form of oral stories, songs etc.
The Gujjar Bakarwal is a marginal tribe of Jammu and Kashmir which is the third largest tribe of Jammu and Kashmir. Gujjar Desh trust plays a very vital role in the preservation of folk memory of Gujjar and Bakarwal. It was established in 1992 by Dr Masood Choudhary. It has documented various cultural practices such as folk songs, dances, rituals, and customs of the Gujjar and Bakarwal tribes. The trust also helped to preserve artefacts and objects important to the Gujjar tribe's culture and traditions, such as musical instruments, costumes, and handicrafts. It has conducted research and promoted academic research on the cultural practices and traditions of the Gujjar and Bakarwal tribes. The Gujjar Desh Trust building and walls are covered in pictures depicting the cultural heritage of the Gujjar and Bakarwal communities. Some historical images are depicted as paintings. These photographs not only depict cultural aspects, but also the community's historical perspective. Overall, the Gujjar Desh trust has played an important role in preserving Gujjar and Bakarwal folk memory and cultural heritage. Its initiatives have aided in raising awareness about the traditions and preserving them for future generations. This paper will discuss the role of trust in preserving the folk memories and folklore of the Gujjar and Bakarwal communities.
50. Dr. Asma Melinamani, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Government First Grade College Holehonnur, Shivamogga Dist-577227, Karnataka asma2286@gmail.com
Politics of Remembrance
and Re-memorizing the Reform Movement of 12 th century in Kannada Literary
Texts
Human beings are disposed to remember their past deeds. The often heard statement history never dies makes one to think and reanalyze the olden days. The past occurs in present. The man has been abetted with remembrance. But this memory seems beyond an individual phenomenon or constructed by an individual mechanism. It is rather seen in terms of interactive, channelizing societal and collective performativity, social frameworks, constructing and disseminating collective memories about the set of practices of cultural beliefs. Kannada literature is rich with historical narratives where history was relocated and remembered. One such event from the history was documented in various texts about the rise of the radical protest and reform movement that took place in Karnataka in the 12th century. The above mentioned reform movement of 12 th century was led by Basaveshwar during the reign of Bijjal king of Kalachuri dynasty. He was a statesman, poet, philosopher who spread social awareness through his poetry, popularly known as Vachanaas. He rejected gender or social discrimination, superstitions and rituals. Though Basaveshwara was not successful in his mission as he did not have the backing of the royalty and the masses. This event was rewritten, re-memorized by different Kannada writers beginning from Harihar to modern and progressive writers. P Lankesh’s Sankranthi, H S Shivaprakash’ Maha Chaitra, Kalbugi’s Kettittu Kalyan and Girish Karnad’s Taledanda are some of the literary texts that deals with the same subject. The present paper looks at how these texts reframe and re-memories the socio- religious, historical event and cultural memory at the same time especially focusing on Karnad’s Taledanda. The paper outlines the symbolic significance of this historical event and how these texts contest the existing memory around the event.
51. Vishal Ghosh, MPhil Scholar, Delhi University, vishalghosh2604@gmail.com
Precarious Home(s): The Generational Reconstruction of
‘Home’ through memory in Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘The Namesake’
Among other modalities, contemporary diasporic studies focus
on the role generation has to play in the relation between diasporic identity
and the construction of ‘home’ as a critical category. It tells about the
spatial and temporal proximity (and also distance) of the diasporic self to not
only the ancestral home of their antecedent generation but also to their
present residence. In the context of diaspora, ‘home’ in its linguistic and
psychic registers simultaneously refers to a traumatic absence and an
imaginative excess. It is an absence as it evokes memories of a lost past, a
sense of longing for a lost homeland that can now only be reconstructed through
mournful, nostalgic recollections. At the centre of this nostalgia and longing
is the desire to belong. But the awareness of this inherent void and its
irrevocability configures the diasporic mind to reclaim homeland in the
imaginary. Therefore, the category of 'home' concomitantly carries within it
the imaginative excess through which it is constantly constructed and
reconstructed.
Thus, ‘Home’ for a diasporic self, is a constant process of
formation. Combining the two aspects of home and belonging, Avtar Brah (1996)
proposes that diasporic identities are guided by a “homing desire which is not
the same thing as the desire for a ‘homeland’.” (p. 177). Brah’s
conceptualization is more psychic than spatial. She disassociates from the
spatially singular and diachronic understanding of ‘homeland’ and suggests a
more pluralistic and synchronic approach to the category of ‘home’.
Placing together Brah’s theorization and Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, “The Namesake”, the present proposal tries to explore as to how the category of ‘home’ is problematic for both the first and second-generation immigrants because of an incomplete transformation in a different country and how the diffracted image of a ‘home’ of the first-generation immigrants further magnifies/distorts for their second-generation children.
52. Shirin Kunnummal Madathodi and Tariq Mehmood, Research Scholar, Department of English and Comparative Literature, Central University of Kerala kmshirin@gmail.com
Reclaiming Memories from Margins: A Study of Select South
Asian Literature
South
Asia as a geo-political entity has cross-border ethnicities and shared collective
memories, especially that of colonisation and postcolonial violence.
The
partition generated long-lasting conflict in Jammu and Kashmir. The traumatic
memories of the violence of partition still trigger the collective psyche of
the region. Here, memory is a dissociated and fragmented cognitive process,
sometimes in stark contrast to the dominant commemorative culture of
postcolonial nation-building. Agha Shahid Ali’s works gain significance as a
prominent diasporic intervention on the partition. Through his poems, he brings
to the fore his heritage of the Urdu-speaking community, which has been
side-lined in the dominant cultural memory.
In Sri Lanka, the three-decades-long civil war
shaped a collective memory of the war that revolved around the Sinhala and the
Tamil communities. Muslims reside in the domain of the forgotten. Poetry as a
medium became a testimony of the war, but Muslim poets are little canonised,
anthologised or translated. Poets like Oddamavati Arafath attempts to bring
forth experiences of Muslim trauma and suffering, excluded to the margins. In
doing so, he resists the effacement of Muslims from collective memories of the
civil war and claims a niche for Muslim testimonies of war.
Much about collective memory formation can be garnered from narrative processes. Literature is a significant medium through which these narratives can be investigated. This paper attempts to reclaim memories from margins, from sites of conflict and violence in South Asia. Specifically, we explore the poems of Agha Shahid Ali and Oddamavati Arafath, a Kashmiri and Sri Lankan writer and poet, respectively. We closely read these poems to understand the liminal spaces between memory and forgetting, and the manipulative processes thereof. By analysing the works of the two poets in tandem, we aim to shed light on the intricate ways in which memory constructs and reconstructs structures of power in South Asia.
53 Chandan Kumar, Central University of Kerala. chandankumarsahu264@gmail.com
Impact of modernization on the Saama Chakeva folk tradition
Abstract:
Saama Chakeva is one of the most well-known festivals in the Mithila region of Bihar.
Saama (sister) and Chakeva (brother) are the symbols of ideal siblings in the
story, where the brother tries very hard to save his sister. This
festival's mythical and theological roots can be found in Lord Krishna
and his family. The Sama Chakeva celebration honours the bond between a brother
and a sister.
Saama Chakeva is an essential folklore festival celebrated by the Maithili community in Bihar. The festival's significance lies in its cultural, religious, and ecological importance, which promotes love of brotherhood and bird conservation, showcases the rich cultural heritage of the Maithili community, and reinforces the need to preserve our natural environment and cultural heritage. Regarding the festival, there are so many questions. How can we keep this folk custom alive in the modern era? Who determines a girl’s moral purity: the girl or society? Has patriarchy given her any power to defend herself? In addition to exploring the story and ritual of Saama Chakeva, I have tried to analyse this story from a modernist perspective.
54. Harinisri V (Research Scholar) harinisri.v2021@vitstudent.ac.in and Dr. Vineeth Radhakrishnan (Research Supervisor) vineeth.r@vit.ac.in , School of Social Sciences and Languages School of Social Sciences and Languages, Vellore Institute of Technology Chennai Vellore Institute of Technology Chennai
Investigating
The Philosophy of Lying through the Distorted Memory in A Book of Untruths: A Memoir by Miranda Doyle
Memory has been viewed as an integral element in the genre of memoir. It enables the writer to restructure or represent the established form of one’s identity. The authenticity of the narrative enumerations in the memoir enhances the space for the readers to distinguish between the fact and the fiction. Miranda Doyle, in her debut novel, “A Book of Untruths: A Memoir” has vividly encapsulated the author’s art of experimenting with the readers’ conscience of comprehending the truthfulness of acquired knowledge. In a way, she has attempted a reverse strategy of structuring memoir using the phenomenon of ‘lying’ in compliance with the distorted style of narration. It also analyses the triangulation of memory, identity and the self, in terms of interrogating the emotive sensibilities of an individual. This paper attempts to envision the episteme of lying as a philosophical take to challenge the prerequisites of the memoir in actuality. In addition to that, it also provides a hypothetical stance on the inherent relationship that this memoir shares with the discursive post-truth norms.
55. Kavya Prasad S., Research Scholar, Department of English, Central University of Karnataka, Kalaburagi. kavyaprasad.512@gmail.com
Corporeal Politics of Memory: Defining the Body in the
Postcolonial Era
This paper entails the idea of the body as a fundamental aspect in postcolonial narratives. It focuses on an egalitarian approach to the body-mind concept or more likely supremacy of the body or the corporeal. The study of memory has emerged as hegemonic in circumventing the physical sense of being as insignificant or secondary. But the mind and its functionality are rudimentarily based on the corporeal understanding of the self and as stated by Nietzsche “philosophy has been no more than an interpretation of the body and a misunderstanding of the body.” The invisibility of the body in the mainstream is questioned through this research. The paper deals with the means of the utilization of the body in understanding memory politics at a social and collective level. How the body is a power structure and an embodiment of differentiality, a locus of both division and unification, of acceptance and resistance, of power and vulnerability, of the self and the other, forms the substance of this study. In postcolonial narratives, the body can be inferred through various intersectional aspects like gender, race, and nationalism that regulate a collective understanding of the milieu. Apart from relating the body to social apparatus, the researcher has also tried to understand the body in its corporeal sense, the body as a perception. The paper thereby looks at Merleau Ponty’s aspect of embodiment to analyze the relevance of the body as an immediate visual archive of memories, that perceives through flesh and blood and assimilates culture.
56. Carol Rebello, carolrebello777@gmail.com
Cultural Memory And Historical Consciousness; A Post- Colonial
Reading Of E.M. Forster’s A Passage to
India
This paper predominantly attempts to analyse the memoir text A Passage To India by E.M. Forster. An effort is made to introduce the field of postcolonial studies and shed light on its particularities concerning the cultures of both the coloniser and the colonized. It is also a great representation of individuals caught in their age’s great political and cultural conflicts. The novel socially and psychologically explores the unhealthy dimensions of colonizer-colonized relationships. The disgusting attitudes of the English expatriates as well as the hatred of the Indians, is the primary foundation of the racial tension between the two races. The antagonistic relationships between the two extreme communities made social life in India unbearable and miserable.
57. Azhar Uddin Sahaji , PhD Research Scholar, Department of
English, Jamia Millia Islamia , New Delhi. info.azharsahaji@gmail.com
Memory and a
Humorized History: A Study of Tapan Roychudhuri’s Romanthan Othoba Bhimrotipraptor Porochorcha
Since the beginning of the postcolonial times, personal
memories in numerous literary narratives
across South Asia questioned and tried to deconstruct the predominant historiography on the partition and the
events that led to the partition of India. Personal memories are no longer dismissed and rejected
in the academic discourse as ‘baseless’ or ‘too
personal’ rather, they are incorporated as counter-narratives coming from
various marginalized and otherwise
unheard voices. But at times, there are some exceptions where the text not only problematizes the relation
between history and memory in a curious way but
also resists any attempt at an alternative (or mainstream) historiography
and Tapan Raychaudhuri’s Bengali fiction
“রোমন্থন অথবা ভীমরতিপ্রাপ্তর পরচরিতচর্চা”
(Romanthan Othoba Bhimrotiprapter Porochoritchorcha) (1992)
“Ruminations or Gossips of a Crazy Old Man” is
considered as a remarkable text for such a phenomenon. Here, the author
uses the trope of romanthan’ or the very
culturally and linguistically exclusive method of ‘brooding into the past’ and recalling (or ‘ruminating’) them in
humorized yet fragmented versions and most
often with a touch of satire.
The proposed research paper plans to critically examine the concept of ‘romanthan’ in Bengali and tries to interrogates how this act of ‘romanthan’ negotiates with the history of the landed gentry of East Bengal, communal dis/harmony before the partition of India and distinct dialect and culture of Barisal district through a very personalized yet evoking chain of memory. The paper also proposes to understand how Raychaudhuri, who is a professional historian and extensively wrote on the economic history of India and the history of Bengal, playfully crafts a narrative that challenges the very attempt at the canonization of historiography, be it mainstream or from the margin.
58. Juveria Asif, II MA English, Aligarh Muslim University. juveriasiff@gmail.com
Cultural
Translations: Oblivion, Memory, and the Realisation of Self in Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s
The Shadow of the Wind
The role of translation in the preservation of memory across
generations and, hence, of the creation
of a kind of meta-self – a self that, unlike the individual self, exists
throughout an expanse of time, played
out within a specific culture – is a relatively newer concept in the field of translation studies, which earlier was
limited to a purely linguistic enterprise. Translation is not just mere conversion or transmission, it
is a process in which our entire relationship with the Other is played out. It is, in essence, a
creative process: creative not just in the conventional way but also in the way of describing an act of
creation. Translation, then, becomes a formative activity, in the sense that it creates a
subjective cultural experience that is at once both at par with and hyper-aware of the existence of the Other
in relation to itself. This theory of the formation of self, and, hence, of the wider culture in
which that self operates, as subject, forms the backbone of my interrogation of Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s
The Shadow of the Wind, a novel that is as rich
in imagination as it is in critical reflection.
Ruiz Zafón masterfully weaves a world in which the relationship between an author and a reader is elevated, and one that can be read as an allegory of the association between any two points of cultural exchange. The author makes the reader, and, in reading the text, the reader remakes the author. Both of them are intertwined in a kind of strange celestial dance, dependent on each other for their own survival. Juxtaposing this concept of transmission-as-survival onto the world of cultural dialogue, I refer to acts of both intercultural as well as interlingual translation to flesh out my hypothesis of how these acts of transmission transmit meaning from one cultural space to another. Furthermore, I examine how these acts of translation form what is called “memory,” and what connects and divides two cultures and their respective narratives, where the text stops and the life begins, and, most importantly, how do processes of translation perform, as well as disrupt, the work of cultural memory.
59. Dipank dipank93@gmail.com
A Close Study of
Zakes Mda’s “The Heart of Redness”
The aim of this paper is to focus on Zakes Mda's
venture on significant issues pointing toward
South Africa, in particular. It attempts to examine the position of the
text, The Heart of Redness, as a post-colonial
historical narrative. The Heart of Redness appreciates historian Jeff Peires’ The Dead Will Rise as ‘illuminating’ the
novel's historical events, which are fixated on the Xhosa Cows Killing Movement of the 1850s.
This paper also aims to address the utilization of historical
materials in The Heart of Redness by studying the past synthesis of history and
literature in works on the Xhosa
movement and by investigating issues of intertextuality in African literature. Regarding the analysis, The Heart of Redness
ought to be perceived as a novel that investigates binary themes as
subsidiaries of intertextuality. This
paper examines the performative aspects of the text that are equivalent to
African narration owing to its rich virtual registry of Xhosa culture. Ranging
from issues such as the revival of ancient names, recording of social customs,
and intense insight into the native flora and fauna, a diligent archiving of ethnography. In this
direction, we can look into Mda’s temporal composition, which emphasizes
various themes incorporating the central conflict between the two periods of history within Xhosa society:
‘believers and unbelievers’ in the former generation and conflict over progress and development
among the contemporary generation living in a
globalized world, marked by capital.
The non-linear narrative structure within The Heart of Redness emphasizes the conflict between the conventional and the modern in colonial and post-apartheid Africa. Mda’s temporal narrative emphasizes growing hybrid identities due to the rise in intercultural exchanges that emphasize transnational and globalized concerns. The refusal to adhere to the linear progression of time is a significant feature of post-colonial writing. It allows an escape from the Eurocentric narrative style and creates new domains for approaching the text. Such narratives demand a suspension of dominant Western narrative styles in favour of a nuanced understanding of the past. Using varied symbology, the text attempts to challenge the concept of noble-savage while foregrounding a historical insight into the past rites, rituals, and customs of Xhosa people incorporated as the creative building blocks of the narrative. Thus, it strives to produce significant knowledge of the relationship shared by natives with their space and the shift in concerns over time.
60. Mohamed Ilyas R, PhD Research Scholar from the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, IIT Madras. hs22d009@smail.iitm.ac.in
A Semiotic Study of
Commemoration Symbols on Marina Beach, Chennai
Despite its name from colonial origins, Marina Beach has remained one of urban Chennai’s most important public civic spaces. It is an important site of resistance during the colonial period and recently the Jallikattu protests in 2017, named the Tamil Spring, among others. Further, it houses the memorials of four of Tamil Nadu's former Chief Ministers, who enjoyed popular support from the people. Additionally, ceremonial parades are held on days of national importance on Kamarajar Salai (Kamaraj Road), the esplanade to Marina beach. The beachfront is erected with commemorative sculptures across the promenade that stretches from the Anna Samadhi (C.N. Annadurai Memorial) at the northern end to the Lighthouse at the southern end. These sculptures are based on the social and cultural history of Tamil Nadu. While the administration uses the symbolism of commemoration sites in the public space of Marina beach to construct Tamil identity, a counter-monument in its vicinity offers a different narrative. This paper analyses the role of collective memory through these commemoration symbols and the counter-monument in the Chennai urban civic space with the help of multimodal discourse analysis and social semiotics. It also aims to understand the cultural history and the construction of the Modern Tamil identity through memorials and sculptures.
61. Shashi Shekhar, shekhar.shashi777@gmail.com
Hansda Sovwendra
Shekhar’s The Adivasi Will Not Dance:
A Crucial Intervention in Subaltern Studies
This paper will focus on the construction of the collective identity via through memory which is discernible in subaltern narratives dealing with Santhal identity specifically Hansda Sovwendra Shekhar’s compilation of short stories The Adivasi Will Not Dance (2015). Increasing focus on contemporary restructuration of power rather than a preoccupation with the past over present realities has brought the practice of capitalism and the role of nation- state under heavy scrutiny. In order to understand the contemporary realities and everyday struggles of subaltern identities in the Indian context, this paper attempts to map the internal differences existing within the socio-political and economic structure of the country along with various forms of struggle encountered by Santhals in Hansda Sovwendra Shekhar’s compilation of short stories The Adivasi Will Not Dance. There is a need to think beyond a mere emphasis on experience and embodied consciousness in examining the structures of geopolitical inequality along with the shifting of the attention towards unjust plundering of natural resources by transnational corporations sanctioned by the state. The contemporary postcolonial studies should enable a robust critique of global inequalities while embracing new paradigms to address issues like migration, displacement, unemployment and infrastructural development. Through his short stories, Hansda critiques the notion of progress modelled on Eurocentric and capitalist modernity rather than simply fostering respect for cultural differences. The text focus on the cultural as well as material concerns of the Adivasis within the neo-liberal framework of governance and an alternate historiography. It also helps us to bring out the fissures in the theoretical understanding of the binary of subaltern versus dominant as foregrounded in western academia.
62.
Memories of 1947
Massacre among the Tribals of Jammu Region
Following the Partition of India, in the Jammu area of the
princely state during October and November 1947, many tribals (Gujar’s and
Bakarwals) were slaughtered, and others were forced to Pakistan. Various
Radical groups from one faith, supported and encouraged by the authorities, committed
the genocide. This study reviews the history of genocide from the lens of
collective cultural memory. The tribal society is permeated with diaries, truly
horrific oral narratives regarding the implications of violent childhoods and
elderhood. Isolated victims of genocide cannot avoid horrible experiences; for
community, genocide has enormous impacts that are instantly felt and which
people are urged never to forget. This paper is a debate describes the correlation
between massacre and memories, both on the level of individual pain and on the
level of collective preconceptions and bias. Despite the danger of continuing
old divides or exposing unhealed wounds, it is necessary to face memory in a
way that reminds the victims that they are not the worthless or subhuman
individuals that their oppressors have portrayed them to be. This study will
explore Kashmir conflict and Muslims of Jammu (which address the critical gaps
of partition.
63. Lekshmi Mohan, Assistant Professor, Department of English, NSS College, Pandalam. lekshmikoickal@gmail.com
Reconstructing the
Lost Spaces: Reminiscences of Nanjil Nadu in Pa. Visalam’s Fading Dreams, Old Tales and B. Jeyamohan’s Uravidangal
The centristic claims of main-stream historical writings have been disapproved since the arrival of various postmodern-post structuralist discourses, and many grand narratives have been countered by micro histories delineated by marginalized communities and from “peripheral” spaces. When the Eurocentric and nation-centric narratives gave way to regional, local voices, episodes from the past that are hitherto unrecorded began to unfurl, offering alternate histories of nations and its people. Memoirs can be regarded as one such sources of past where through personal reminiscences the past of an era or a geographic space can be reconstructed. The present paper attempts to unearth the social, political and cultural history of “Nanjil Nadu” as narrated in fictional memoirs of Pa. Visalam’s Fading Dreams, Old Tales and B. Jeyamohan’s Uravidangal. Nanjil Nadu, a historical region of yesteryear Travancore and presently encompassing the current Agastheeswaram and Thovalai taluks of the Kanyakumari district is situated in the deep south of Tamil Nadu. The region which became part of Tamil Nadu after the state reorganization of 1956 exhibits a collage of Kerala and Tamil identities. Though the separation politically cut off the region from Kerala, the cultural ties linger. The memories of Pa. Visalam and Jeyamohan throw light into the social space of Nanjil Nadu which is not recorded in the main stream histories of both Kerala and Tamil Nadu. These memoirs thus offer a narrative reconstruction of history which can fill the lacunae in the written histories of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
64. Reem.S, Assistant Professor, Department Of English, Maharajas College Ernakulam. reemshamsudeen@gmail.com
Writing In Resistance: Memory, Past and Identity
The displaced communities who are ripped off from their land
and lively-hood depend intensely on their memories to establish their existence
and identity. In the context of internal displacements in post independence
India, revitalizing the memories of the displaced persons, especially of
Adivasis has become highly essential. Though, unwritten, poems, songs, slogans
of resistance evoke the past that cannot be refused or negated by any form of
establishment. The paper seeks to analyze songs and poems circulated during
various protests in resistance against the coercive displacement programmes
implemented by the governments in India, not only to register the wrath of the communities
but to understand the ways in which various discursive practices legitimize
their existence by evoking the memories. Resisting cultural displacements and
alienation, the poems and songs strongly affirm the past of the communities as
inevitable for their survival. The poems are collected from various protest
sites, and resistance writings practiced by the displaced communities.
The paper attempts to decipher the aesthetics of the writings in resistance as they evoke past, memory, history and identity. The problem raised by the paper is to understand an alternate style of writing emerges in sabotaging the canonized one in the discourse of resistance writing.
65. Shahla Basheer & Sreelakshmi M., Research Scholars, Dept. of English and Comparative Literature, Central University of Kerala
Questioning the
Relevance of Memory Studies in the Post-truth Era
The discourse of Memory Studies is considered as the product of recent times not only because of its interdisciplinary nature—due to its associations with history, anthropology, education, philosophy, sociology, literature, psychology etc.—but also it's potential to subvert dominant narratives or modes of thought. This paper tries to trace the rise and alleged fall of Memory Studies in the Post-Truth Era. This paper follows the methodology of historical analysis to trace the roots of Memory Studies that go further—before the establishment of Trauma Studies as a discourse that has its ties with Memory Studies—into literature to locate its influence on Memory Studies to organically trace the ontology of Memory Studies in general. The anachronistic method of Memory Studies has given concretisation to the concept of temporal non-linearity without subscribing to dematerialization. Like intergenerational trauma, memory can be passed down to a particular collective or a community—that forms a part of their consciousness—with whom the people of the contemporary period can interact and form a new narrative. Though the representation of memory was acquired with rise of the discourse of Memory Studies, its incorporation of other theories to substantiate its representation does open doors to question its relevance and its mode of subjectivity. Post-truth and its politics possess the power to question the foundations of Memory Studies. This paper tries to question the authenticity of memory studies, where memory is a matter which deals with subjectivity that can easily be manipulated with the politics and principles of post-truth. This paper also tries to investigate the influence of post-truth and its politics, where the subjects use emotions and subjectivity as an agent for stating the apparent truth, thereby displacing, or worse, eliminating, the objective reality.
66. Sreedevi S, research scholar, Department of Studies in English Kannur University. sreedevis242@gmail.com
History of
the one who walked Singing
“There is no written history for the Pulayars and Parayars. They always had only dependent history. They were the slaves and servants of Native Kings who lived and died in fields” said the well-known Malayalam writer Pradeepan Pambirikunu in his novel Eri. In contrast to this, we could see that the the same history which erased the presence of the lower castes Pulayars and Parayars being led by another lower caste Panan. The one and only group that became prominent among the ones who were set aside. This paper would analyse the Socio-Cultural and linguistic distinctions of the community known as Panan or Malayan of Kerala which belongs to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes which are enshrined in article 341 and 342 of the Indian Constitution in the special schedule of India and other Union Territory. Myths reveal that the Panas of Kerala are the descendants of the Pakkanars of the Parayipetta Pantheerukulam of Kerala. Panan means one who walks singing. Panan is an inevitable part in the Vadakkan songs of North Malabar. It was Panan who used to spread the news of the society through their songs and thus they acted as a medium of communication. At the same time, In Southern Malabar they used to sing Thuyilunarthu Pattu, a wake-up song which had awakened Lord Vishnu from years of slumber for the welfare of the world. They also practice medicine, , witchcraft and also performs theyyam as their means of livelihood. Even in the era of untouchability, Panan still received the utmost position among the upper castes. Their knowledge in Sanskrit language might be one of the reasons behind it. The proposed paper would trace the elements that led this particular community into such prominent status and thereby would trace the history of Panas, the one who walked singing.
67. Aswin Deth S, PG II, Department of English and Comparative Literature,, Central University of Kerala. aswindeth@gmail.com
History
of Buddhism in Kerala: Forgotten History and Transient Memories
According to Ashoka’s inscriptions, Buddhism arrived in Kerala during 2 nd Century BCE. And it was practiced widely until the latter part of 10th Century CE. All major forms of Buddhism including Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana showed its presence in Kerala. One of the most prominent Buddhists in India Amarasimhan, who was a member of King Vikramaditya’s Navaratnas was a native of Kerala. But in spite of this long period of presence and influence it had over the land, Kerala unlike other Indian states lacks cultural and religious artefacts or texts associated with the faith. A very serious matter of concern is that the history of the faith and its practice are really hard to trace considering its widespread practice in Kerala. This shows a lacuna in the collective understanding of the cultural history of Kerala by its own people as if something is working against the evocation of memories of Buddhism in particular. This paper attempts to trace back the transient history of Buddhism in Kerala and give a brief account of its rise and downfall. This paper also tries to figure the forces at work for this eventual eradication of Buddhism from collective memory of Kerala. And this paper also observes how Buddhism and was systematically removed from the annals of Kerala history by these hegemonic forces.
68. Dr. Saveen Souda, Associate Professor & Head, Department of English, University College of Engineering, Osmania University, Telangana, Mobile no:9989565645, savisou@gmail.com
Reading Akkineni Kutumbha Rao’s novel Sorejjam from Dalit perspective
The novel Sorrejam was published in 1981 in Telugu by Akkineni Kutumbha Rao. It was translated into English by Alladi Uma and Sridhar in 2016. this novel talks about the very survival and life struggles of a Mala community (dalit) from coastal Andhra. The time span of this novel is pre and post Independent India. The title itself signifies the meaning of Independence (Swarajam in Telugu). Unfortunately, there is no freedom for these people in any respect, they were treated lesser than the animals by the fellow human beings i.e. the oppressors (Kamma), a land owning community in coastal Andhra region. The beginning of the novel was Yenkadu was away from the village and his wife Paddakka had labour pains, after knowing this he ran towards his hut. It was on August 15, 1947 the baby girl was born she was named as Sorajjem by a landlord to reflect India’s Independence.
“what does independence mean? ... The Malas were embarrassed to reply
to him what independence meant. ...
Narayan Rao said ‘independence means complete independence. The white man’s rule has ended. Its now our rule. ....’ ” (P10)
Sorejjam was the main character in this novel, but not the entire story revolves around her. The author has focused mainly on the depiction of realistic picture of physical extraction of the Mala dalit communities’ blood and sweat- their life, problems, consequences, deep sorrows, agony, their perfectness in agriculture, labour, obedience towards masters, sincerity in work and searching for self-respect in one of the villages of Andhra. Such situations were similar in almost all the villages of Coastal Andhra Pradesh. Malas were denied their self-respect, dignity, education, rights which are enshrined in Indian Constitution and no access to water even though their colony was surrounded by two lakes. “there were two big lakes in the village. One was the other the west lake. Both the lakes had Mala shores. The s could not take water from any other source other than these two lakes.” (p5) This denial of water clearly shows the attitude of the dominant castes towards Malas and others, and moreover the dominant castes made their lifestyle easy at the cost of Malas without any proper pay to them.
69. Asish Martin Tom, Assistant Professor, Department of English, DB College Thalayolaparambu. omasish@gmail.com
An Unusual Memoir of Loss and Inheritance: Recollecting Memory in Anees Salim’s The Odd Book of Baby Names
This paper contends that Memory, both personal and cultural, acts as a dominant ingredient in The Odd Book of Baby Names by Anees Salim as it subverts history by tracing its discontinuities with memory. The story circles around an unusual memoire of baby names by a King to remember his more than hundred children begotten in and out wedlock. Located in post independent India, this novel navigates through religious, social, and generational class conflicts delimited by history and culture. Located in 1960’s in a fictitious but well-defined city that struggles to come in terms with annexations by Independent India, this novel becomes satire as well as history regulated and configured by memory. “Remembering needs occasion” says Siegfried J Schmidt. The events in the backdrop act as occasions for Salim’s characters to remember who they are and as they speak absences and omissions resurface. The characters in search of connection revisit their pasts to find a language for their loss, to forget and to deny. Their individual identities are percolated by memories that (dis)connect them to other people.
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