- Kolkata
Kaustav Bakshi
Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India, Department of English, Faculty Member
- English Literature, Popular Culture, Queer Theory, History of English Literature, Diaspora, Indian Writing in English, Post colonial Theory, Sri Lankan Literature in English, and 31 morePostcolonial City, Sexuality and Identity, Intersectionality, South Asian Literature, Postcolonial Studies, Bollywood films, Globalization, History of English Language, Literature, Film Studies, Migration, Sexuality, Postcolonial Theory, Latin American literature, Postcolonial Literature, Latin American History, Subaltern Studies, South Asian History, Colonial Discourse, Indian Writing in English, Neocolonialism, Indian English Poetry, Cultural Studies, Bollywood (Anthropology), Postmodern, Queer Studies, Poststructuralist Theory, Gender Studies, Gender and Sexuality, Orientalism, and Indian Cinemaedit
- Dr. Kaustav Bakshi is Assistant Professor, Department of English, Jadavpur University, Kolkata. A Charles Wallace Ind... moreDr. Kaustav Bakshi is Assistant Professor, Department of English, Jadavpur University, Kolkata. A Charles Wallace India Trust Fellow, his doctoral thesis, written with partial funding from the Trust, is entitled ‘Family, Sexualities and Ageing in Sri Lankan Expatriate Fiction: Kinship, Power Relations and the State’. He has presented his research work both internationally (in Birbeck, University of London and University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA) and locally (at international conferences held in India). He has published parts of his work in South Asian Review (2012) and Postcolonial Text (2015). A member of the editorial advisory board of Queer Studies in Media and Popular Culture (Intellect Bks.), he writes regularly on queer cultures of South Asia; and, one of his recent publications include an anthology on the cinema of Rituparno Ghosh, a queer Bengali filmmaker. The volume entitled, Rituparno Ghosh: Cinema, Gender and Art, was published by Routledge in 2015 is the first book length auteur study of Ghosh. Another article on contemporary Indian cinema’s engagement with queer politics has been published in New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film (2013). His most recent publication ‘In the Exigency of a National Cause: Bollywood’s Response to the Kargil War’ is included in the Wiley- Blackwell Companion to the War Film (2016). He is currently working on three projects: the first is a book on Queer Studies with Orient Blackswan slated for publication in January 2018; the second, commissioned by Edinburgh University Press, is a monograph on Aparna Sen, a feminist Bengali filmmaker of repute; and the third, commissioned by Taylor and Francis, is a special issue of South Asian History and Culture, titled, Popular Cinema in Bengal: Stardom, Genre, Public Cultures. He recently convened an international symposium ‘Sexuality, Health and Cultural Narratives’ in association with Wellcome Trust, London, the proceedings of which are to be published by Jadavpur University Press in 2017. Another national conference, ‘Ageing, Ageism and Cultures’, organised with the sponsorship of UGC in September 2017, will soon have a conference proceedings volume published. His other published books include two co-edited anthologies, Anxieties, Influences and After: Critical Responses to Postcolonialism and Neocolonialism (2009) and Studies in Indian English Poetry (2008; rev. ed., 2012). He teaches postcolonial and diasporic literatures, gender and sexuality studies, literary theory, and popular culture at Jadavpur University.edit
- Dr. Nilanjana Debedit
Rituparno Ghosh: Cinema, Gender and Art is the first critical anthology on the works of Bengali filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh. The book, apart from delineating his status as a cultural icon, looks at some of his important films from novel... more
Rituparno Ghosh: Cinema, Gender and Art is the first critical anthology on the works of Bengali filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh. The book, apart from delineating his status as a cultural icon, looks at some of his important films from novel critical perspectives. The book seeks to establish Ghosh not just as a filmmaker to reckon with, but also as a star in his own right, a game-changer, who effectuated through his films remarkable transitions in Tollywood, the Bengali film industry. The anthology also lends considerable space to analysing Ghosh’s disposition as a self-proclaimed queer filmmaker, and his contribution to discourses of sexual identity politics in Bengal and India at large, through his films and his writings. The volume also includes two very intimate conversations with the filmmaker that reveal multiple facets of his works, his ideas on gender and sexuality, and his personal life. These interviews are followed by illuminating pieces by actors and technicians who have worked with Ghosh in several films or have been close friends for years. These write-ups throw light on Ghosh as a person and his working techniques, while disclosing some interesting anecdotes.
Please not a redacted/shorter version of the introduction is available as a journal article in a special section of the journal SAHC. Available here: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19472498.2014.999441
Please not a redacted/shorter version of the introduction is available as a journal article in a special section of the journal SAHC. Available here: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19472498.2014.999441
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A collection of essays on Postcolonialism and Neocolonialism with a critical introduction.
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This anthology addresses the works of eleven major Indian English Poets, from Derozio to Vikram Seth. The book consists of eleven analytical essays on the general contribution of the poets followed by critical studies of two select poems... more
This anthology addresses the works of eleven major Indian English Poets, from Derozio to Vikram Seth. The book consists of eleven analytical essays on the general contribution of the poets followed by critical studies of two select poems of each writer. The book is introduced by the Indian poet Niranjan Mohanty.
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This anthology is a collection of essays related to cultural texts (literary, cinematic and theatrical) from former colonies of Europe. The book argues that decolonisation is after all a myth, and how new mechanisms of colonisation have... more
This anthology is a collection of essays related to cultural texts (literary, cinematic and theatrical) from former colonies of Europe. The book argues that decolonisation is after all a myth, and how new mechanisms of colonisation have replaced older ones. Apart from the essays, there are two very thought-provoking conversations: Bill Ashcroft, one of the pioneer theorists of postcolonialism, has reviewed his own works through an engaging conversation with an Indian academic. Similarly, Mahesh Dattani, the well-known Indian playwright, has reflected on the label "postcolonial" attached to South Asian writers who happen to write in English.
Research Interests: Globalization, Postcolonial Studies, Migration, South Asian History, Latin American literature, and 10 morePostcolonial Theory, Latin American History, Postcolonial Literature, South Asian Literature, Subaltern Studies, Colonial Discourse, Neocolonialism, Post colonialism and Bill Ashcroft, Plays of Mahesh Dattani, and Mahesh Dattani's Plays
Roland Barthes in ‘Myth Today’ defines ‘myth’ as ‘a system of communication’, ‘a mode of signification’. He emphasises that this ‘mode of signification’ is not fixed –‘they can come into being, alter, disintegrate, disappear completely’.... more
Roland Barthes in ‘Myth Today’ defines ‘myth’ as ‘a system of communication’, ‘a mode of signification’. He emphasises that this ‘mode of signification’ is not fixed –‘they can come into being, alter, disintegrate, disappear completely’. Myths do not convey meaning directly but in covert ways, and the process of signification in myths takes the meaning of symbols to the realm of association, and not denotation. Most importantly, myths naturalise, de-historicise and de-politicise all that is profoundly historical and political. But, by naturalising, myths often become comforting narratives of truth that sanctify that which is labelled or dismissed or criminalised as ‘unnatural’ in the modern world. One of the most intriguing mythological symbols in the Puranic-Agamic tradition in India is that of the Ardhanarishwara which has expanded in meaning when located in the realm of association with sex and sexuality in India. It is interesting to note how this fascinating image of Shiva and Shakti in fusion has found its way into political discourses of sex and sexuality, inaugurating a new mode of signification. The image, having found place within Kolkata’s Sharadotsav (another name for Durga Puja) has garnered newer meanings. Ardhanarishawara, (literally a deity who is half-man, half-woman) a divine image of androgyny, has transited through a changing realm of significations, whereby its fluidity and ambivalence as regards to gender and sexuality emerged as a powerful symbol which could be subscribed to in order to legitimise tritiya prakriti or ‘third gender’in India.
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Research Interests: Gender Studies, Queer Studies, Southeast Asian Studies, Feminist Theory, Queer Theory, and 13 moreGender and Sexuality, Sri Lanka, South Asian Diaspora Literature, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Diaspora Studies, South Asian Literature, Sexuality And Culture, Sri Lankan Literature in English, Migrant and Diasporic Literature, Asian American Literature, Feminist Literary Theory and Gender Studies, Displacement, and Women and Nationalism
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Queer Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Queer Theory, Sexuality, and 20 moreGender and Sexuality, Gay And Lesbian Studies, LGBT Issues, Post-Colonialism, Sri Lanka, Queer Theory (Literature), LGBT Literature, Postcolonial Theory, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Postcolonial Literature, Sri Lankan Literature in English, Feminist and LGBT Cultural History, LGBT Studies, Postcolonialism and indian english fictions, Commonwealth and Postcolonial Literature, LGBT rights, Lgbtq, Shyam Selvadurai, Postcolonialism, and Shyam Selvaduray
Research Interests: Queer Studies, Transgender Studies, Queer Theory, Literature and cinema, Gender and Sexuality, and 12 moreLGBT Issues, Theories of Gender and Transgender, Bengali Literature, Cinema, Bengali Cinema, Indian Cinema, New Queer Cinema, LGBT Studies, Rabindranath Tagore, Indian punjab popular culture gender, race class sexuality ethnography lgbt queer adolescence, Rituparno Ghosh, and chitrangana
In 1972, Syed Mustafa Siraj (1930-2012) published Māyā Mridanga, a novel which has attained an iconic status in recent years[1], with the advent of queer studies and a proliferation of queer texts in South Asia. Since its first... more
In 1972, Syed Mustafa Siraj (1930-2012) published Māyā Mridanga, a novel which has attained an iconic status in recent years[1], with the advent of queer studies and a proliferation of queer texts in South Asia. Since its first appearance, the novel, set within an almost extinct itinerant folk theatre group, Alkaap, drew the attention of scholars working on aboriginal and folk cultures of Bengal; but, they have largely ignored Siraj’s declaration in the 1972 preface that the novel primarily deals with the cross-dressing male actors (p.5), the chhokras–jara purush tobu purush noy, nari – tobu nari o noy (Men, who are not men, but women – yet, not quite women either, p. 12). Siraj’s novel is a rare modern Bengali text to address deep philosophical questions of sexual subject formation, of essence and existence, of being and becoming.
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Queer Studies, Sex and Gender, Transgender Studies, Postcolonial Studies, and 11 moreQueer Theory, Folk Theatre, Gender and Sexuality, Theories of Gender and Transgender, Bengali Literature, Theories Of The Other/Postcolonialism, Theatre and Gender, Female Impersonation, Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Studies, Queer India, and Bengali Novel
This photo essay argues that Rituparno Ghosh’s phenomenal stardom as a queer icon in Bengal can be appreciated by analysing his influence on the Bengali stage in terms of queering it. It examines a few plays produced in the years... more
This photo essay argues that Rituparno Ghosh’s phenomenal stardom as a queer icon in Bengal can be appreciated by analysing his influence on the Bengali stage in terms of queering it. It examines a few plays produced in the years following Ghosh’s sudden demise in May 2013 and tries to trace in them Ghosh’s politics and aesthetics, particularly the influence of two of his celebrated queer films, Arekti Premer Golpo (2010) and Chitrangada: a crowning wish (2012). Both these films had extensively deployed theatrical techniques and tropes, which, as I argue, in turn inspired several plays that followed, underlining an exchange between two popular art forms and their engagement with same-sex desires and divergent sexual identities. Based on interviews with playwrights, actors, filmmakers, theatre critics, and images, sourced from persons and organizations who had been associated with the filmmaker, the article seeks to establish the uniqueness of Ghosh’s iconism which has shaped and inspired queer lives and art in Bengal.
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Queer Studies, Performing Arts, Sex and Gender, Performance Studies, and 16 moreTransgender Studies, Popular Culture, Sexuality, Gender and Sexuality, Gender, Gender Equality, Theories of Gender and Transgender, Bengali Cinema, Indian Cinema, New Queer Cinema, Queer Activism, Rituparno Ghosh, Female Impersonation, Tollywood, cross-dressing in Theatre, and Bengali drama
This paper makes an attempt to understand the stardom of the Bengali film-maker and actor Aparna Sen, who has been associated with the industry for 55 years. We argue that Sen's star persona is based on a 10 polysemic structure, to borrow... more
This paper makes an attempt to understand the stardom of the Bengali film-maker and actor Aparna Sen, who has been associated with the industry for 55 years. We argue that Sen's star persona is based on a 10 polysemic structure, to borrow Richard Dyer's term, which comes from the multiple roles she has played in her career. Achieving a local stardom through her work as an actor in Bengali popular cinema, she went on to acquire international fame through the films she made. Besides, as the editor of an immensely popular Bengali women's magazine, Sen became 15 a cultural commentator through her columns and also played an active part, through the magazine, in entering into dialogue with her readers on diverse issues such as communalism and sexuality rights. As a socially conscientious critic who has participated in several humanitarian and political causes, Sen emerged as a figure of trust and reliance for her fans 20 and even her staunchest critics. The paper analyses the construction of her stardom, based on a series of interviews that both authors conducted with Aparna Sen over a period of time, interviews with a cross section of her fans, alongside an analysis of her media presence and finally the films she made and acted in.
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After India's victory in the 1999 Kargil War, a blatant anti-Pakistan rhetoric started to infiltrate Bollywood dramas. The two films set directly against the backdrop of the Kargil War, J. P. Dutta's LOC: Kargil and Farhan Akhtar's... more
After India's victory in the 1999 Kargil War, a blatant anti-Pakistan rhetoric started to infiltrate Bollywood dramas. The two films set directly against the backdrop of the Kargil War, J. P. Dutta's LOC: Kargil and Farhan Akhtar's Lakshya, both of which are analyzed here, were released in a climate of profound nationalistic fervor. Notwithstanding its strict adherence to realism, LOC: Kargil makes a serious compromise with reality at the very outset by eliding the cause of the Pakistani infiltration of Indian-controlled territories, which took the Indian Army by surprise. Unlike LOC: Kargil, which purports to be a commemorative homage to the war martyrs, Lakshya is a bildungsroman chronicling the transformation of the male protagonist from a meandering youth into an exemplary national subject through his heroic participation in the Kargil War.
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This paper focusing on the fifth of the six stories, “The Best School of All,” that constitute Funny Boy, explores sexual identity politics on the school campus, by analysing how Selvadurai’s appropriation of the generic English school... more
This paper focusing on the fifth of the six stories, “The Best School of All,” that constitute Funny Boy, explores sexual identity politics on the school campus, by analysing how Selvadurai’s appropriation of the generic English school story, invests the popular genre with a disruptive potential, unknown to its original form, thereby generating immense pleasure in the reader. The paper argues that the pleasure in reading “The Best School” independent of the novel is to discover in it the familiarity of the school story, and also how it is constantly de-familiarised. By relating theories of genre, gender, nation and the diaspora, the paper attempts to show that “The Best School,” not only subverts generic rules by transfiguring an overtly masculinist genre to accommodate queer desires; it also opens up a dialogic space by confronting authoritative discourses on the colonial system of values perpetuated through the educational institutions, compulsory heterosexuality and ethno-centric nationalism of the postcolonial nation-state. In effect, “The Best School” becomes an important node in the dialogic network of queer narratives produced across the globe, qualifying as a “cause” novel: it advocates recognition of non-heteronormative identities and desires in a postcolonial nation, which is politically and morally opposed to legalising homosexuality, still criminalised under a Draconian colonial law.
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Queer Studies, Education, Sex and Gender, Genre studies, and 37 morePostcolonial Studies, Queer Theory, Genre, Reproduction, Sexuality, Gender and Sexuality, Gay And Lesbian Studies, LGBT Issues, LGBT Youth, Feminism, Queer Theory (Literature), LGBT Literature, Postcolonial Theory, Postcolonial Literature, Genre Theory, Sri Lankan Literature in English, Gay and Lesbian History, Abortion, LGBTQ psychology, Sexuality Studies, Feminist and LGBT Cultural History, Maternity, LGBT Studies, Queer, LGBT, Twentieth-Century Australian History, Gender and Genre, Critical Race and Whiteness Studies, LGBTQ studies, Colonial Education, educational history of the Colonial Inidia, Shyam Selvadurai, Postcolonailism, Postcolonialism, Lesbian and Gay History, Citrizenship, and Sexualtiy Gender and National Identity
The paper traces Bombay Cinema's engagement with same-sex love and queer identities since its inception to the current moment, and locates Tarun Mansukhani's 2008 film Dostana within that historical trajectory. While locating sexualities,... more
The paper traces Bombay Cinema's engagement with same-sex love and queer identities since its inception to the current moment, and locates Tarun Mansukhani's 2008 film Dostana within that historical trajectory. While locating sexualities, which are still looked upon as "alternative" to the "approved mainstream", within disaporic Indian families in Miami, the paper engages with the film's experimentation with the female or same-sex desiring gaze, which, tellingly opens up ambiguous sites of scopophilic pleasures that blur gender distinctions, when the sexual preference of the target audience is rendered suspect.
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, Film Studies, Queer Theory, Gender and Sexuality, and 10 moreGay And Lesbian Studies, LGBT Issues, Cinema, Indian Cinema, New Queer Cinema, Queer Cinema, Male body image, Indian Cinema, Bollywood, Film Studies, South Asia, Media, Bombay Cinema, and Queer Theory and Queer Studies
In this article we introduce the queer Bengali auteur Rituparno Ghosh (1961–2013),who had a significant role in reviving the Bengali film industry that was going through a dark phase for a little more than a decade. As an iconic feminist... more
In this article we introduce the queer Bengali auteur Rituparno Ghosh (1961–2013),who had a significant role in reviving the Bengali film industry that was going through a dark phase for a little more than a decade. As an iconic feminist film-maker and
queer cultural figure, Ghosh has been an influential icon within Bengal and more widely in India and the diasporas. In seeking to examine his vast oeuvre of work we focus on its various elements. First, we examine Ghosh’s feminist position, and how he shocked his middle-class audience through his transgressive discourses. Second, we investigate the influence and inspiration he received from figures such as Satyajit Ray and Rabindranath Tagore. We argue that Tagore’s sensibility and philosophy imbued all his films. In doing this he was also uncritically referencing the other great Bengali film-maker Satyajit Ray. Third, an examination of Ghosh is incomplete without referencing his uninhibited performance of queerness both in his films and in the public domain. Over here we look at his final queer film trilogy but also the impact he left on Calcutta’s LGBT community. Finally, this article ends by focusing on Ghosh’s legacy on other Bengali film-makers.
queer cultural figure, Ghosh has been an influential icon within Bengal and more widely in India and the diasporas. In seeking to examine his vast oeuvre of work we focus on its various elements. First, we examine Ghosh’s feminist position, and how he shocked his middle-class audience through his transgressive discourses. Second, we investigate the influence and inspiration he received from figures such as Satyajit Ray and Rabindranath Tagore. We argue that Tagore’s sensibility and philosophy imbued all his films. In doing this he was also uncritically referencing the other great Bengali film-maker Satyajit Ray. Third, an examination of Ghosh is incomplete without referencing his uninhibited performance of queerness both in his films and in the public domain. Over here we look at his final queer film trilogy but also the impact he left on Calcutta’s LGBT community. Finally, this article ends by focusing on Ghosh’s legacy on other Bengali film-makers.
Research Interests:
This paper focuses on the first queer film from Tollywood, featuring Rituparno Ghosh as a transvestite filmmaker, who had by that time emerged as a cultural icon in Bengal. The paper deals with the politics of representation of the... more
This paper focuses on the first queer film from Tollywood, featuring Rituparno Ghosh as a transvestite filmmaker, who had by that time emerged as a cultural icon in Bengal.
The paper deals with the politics of representation of the 'queer' vis-a-vis class and access to consumerist lifestyle. The paper pits the modern day transvestite filmmaker against the yesteryear female impersonator of Bengali folk theatre, Chapal Rani (who plays himself in the film), to delineate the trajectory of sexual identity politics in Bengal, and how it has been largely hegemonized by city-centric neo-liberal discourses of sexual identities, which have, unwittingly, established a power hierarchy within the LGBTQ community: the neo-liberal gay man and his local counterpart, who might not even identify with imported terms labeling sexually deviant individuals.
The last segment of the paper turns its attention to the social and political implications of casting Rituparno Ghosh as protagonist. While it was indeed iconoclastic on part of Ghosh to agree to essay the role, it is undeniable that this casting ended up generating a "queer" stereotype in the Bengali middle-class cultural domain. Because of the absence of any other queer icon, Rituparno Ghosh and parallel sexual identities have almost become synonymous within the consciousness of the less-informed middle class Bengalis. This has led to an extremely essentialized notions of queerness, which is hard to dispel.
The paper deals with the politics of representation of the 'queer' vis-a-vis class and access to consumerist lifestyle. The paper pits the modern day transvestite filmmaker against the yesteryear female impersonator of Bengali folk theatre, Chapal Rani (who plays himself in the film), to delineate the trajectory of sexual identity politics in Bengal, and how it has been largely hegemonized by city-centric neo-liberal discourses of sexual identities, which have, unwittingly, established a power hierarchy within the LGBTQ community: the neo-liberal gay man and his local counterpart, who might not even identify with imported terms labeling sexually deviant individuals.
The last segment of the paper turns its attention to the social and political implications of casting Rituparno Ghosh as protagonist. While it was indeed iconoclastic on part of Ghosh to agree to essay the role, it is undeniable that this casting ended up generating a "queer" stereotype in the Bengali middle-class cultural domain. Because of the absence of any other queer icon, Rituparno Ghosh and parallel sexual identities have almost become synonymous within the consciousness of the less-informed middle class Bengalis. This has led to an extremely essentialized notions of queerness, which is hard to dispel.
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Queer Studies, Film Studies, Queer Theory, Reproduction, and 36 moreSexuality, Gender and Sexuality, Gay And Lesbian Studies, Class, LGBT Issues, Gender, Gender Equality, Feminism, Theories of Gender and Transgender, Queer Theory (Literature), Bengali Cinema, New Queer Cinema, Gay and Lesbian History, Trans, Queer, Third-Sex, Abortion, LGBTQ psychology, Sexuality Studies, Queer spaces, Queer Cinema, Queer/Gay film, Maternity, Bollywood, intersections between gender, race & class. Issues of power and subjectivity. LGBTI issues, Queer, Gay, Twentieth-Century Australian History, Critical Race and Whiteness Studies, Indian Cinema, Bollywood Costumes, Indian Cinema, Bollywood, Film Studies, South Asia, Media, Literatura Gay, Interview of Rituparno Ghosh, Rituparno Ghosh, Queer Theory and Queer Studies, Lesbian and Gay History, Citrizenship, and Sexualtiy Gender and National Identity
This article explores how a reading down of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code and the emergence of identitarian discourses have variously effectuated the representation of queer characters in Bombay cinema. It offers close analysis of... more
This article explores how a reading down of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code
and the emergence of identitarian discourses have variously effectuated the representation
of queer characters in Bombay cinema. It offers close analysis of film texts,
both prior to as well as after the reading down of Article 377, in order to map a
larger network of change towards a neo-liberal inclusion of the ‘gay’ citizen subject.
A study of representation of queer characters in these films points towards how the
‘queer’ becomes a discursive category, open to appropriation, and also shows how
earlier traditions/tropes of representation are either reworked or subverted to fit into
a globalized discourse of identity politics.
and the emergence of identitarian discourses have variously effectuated the representation
of queer characters in Bombay cinema. It offers close analysis of film texts,
both prior to as well as after the reading down of Article 377, in order to map a
larger network of change towards a neo-liberal inclusion of the ‘gay’ citizen subject.
A study of representation of queer characters in these films points towards how the
‘queer’ becomes a discursive category, open to appropriation, and also shows how
earlier traditions/tropes of representation are either reworked or subverted to fit into
a globalized discourse of identity politics.
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Queer Studies, Queer Theory, Indian studies, Reproduction, and 28 moreGay And Lesbian Studies, Feminism, Bollywood (Anthropology), Homosociality, 'Third Cinema' Theory and Third World Radical Films, Indian Cinema, New Queer Cinema, Trans, Queer, Third-Sex, Abortion, Queer Theory, Queer Rights Movement, Sexuality Studies, Homosexuality, Queer/Gay film, Maternity, Bollywood, Queer, Twentieth-Century Australian History, Critical Race and Whiteness Studies, Bollywood cinema, Literature and homoeroticism, Indian Cinema, Bollywood Costumes, Indian Cinema, Bollywood, Film Studies, South Asia, Media, Male friendships, Bombay Cinema, Article 377 of the Indian Constitution, Lesbian and Gay History, Citrizenship, and Sexualtiy Gender and National Identity
Academic interest in the Gothic or horror tales was largely propelled by Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic examination (in a 1919 essay) of a German Gothic tale, ‘The Sandman’ (1817) by E. T. A. Hoffman, where he identifies strange... more
Academic interest in the Gothic or horror tales was largely propelled by Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic examination (in a 1919 essay) of a German Gothic tale, ‘The Sandman’ (1817) by E. T. A. Hoffman, where he identifies strange apparitions as repellant incarnations of the ‘uncanny’, the most infantile of our desires and fears, which are, however, internally familiar to us. Taking her cue from Freud, in Powers of Horror (1980), Julia Kristeva explains ghosts or grotesques as instances of what she calls the ‘abject’ or products of ‘abjection’ (derived from the literal meaning of ab-ject, i.e. ‘throwing off’). What we tend to throw off is something that is in-between or ambiguous. The most primeval version of this ‘in-between’ is the memory of the moment of birth when the individual is both inside and outside the mother, alive yet not in existence. While this moment continuously calls the individual back, the desire to abject the mother, in order to be a separated definable person is also paramount. This ‘immemorial violence’, Kristeva argues, lies at the basis of our beings. The return of the repressed familiar in the ‘uncanny’ which is basic to horror tales has its roots in this very fundamental human impulse. Apart from Freud and Kristeva, Karl Marx also provided an important critical tool to explain the abiding popularity of horror narratives. Marx’s Capital abundantly employs images of vampires and monsters to delineate the operation of capitalism. For instance, his statement ‘Capital is dead labour which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour’ (qtd. in McNally 13) has acquired an aphoristic status in post-industrial society. Marx’s writings which cast capitalism as both a horror story and a mystery tale, prompt Fred Botting to observe:
The vampire becomes a metaphor of current associations between machines, bodies, and patterns of consumption. In itself, it exists on the borders between life and death, between human, animal, and supernatural identities: she/he is a figure of transgression disturbing boundaries between inside and outside, home and foreignness. But what the vampire does is also crucial: consuming bodies, it transforms beings, contaminating them with its own appetites and desire. (2002: 288)
Of late, these vampires seem to have conquered the popular imagination of the Americans like never before. Following the peremptory rule of neo-imperialism, they have traveled to the other parts of the world as well, and have become a global phenomenon. Even if some American television series are not available everywhere, the internet access to the same is however unrestricted. While Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight novels flew off bookshelves swiftly, Hollywood cashed in on its immense mass appeal and in no time adapted the novels for the celluloid, which proved to be a judicious investment. The Twilight films were a runaway hit across the globe, drawing the teens in huge numbers. Kristen and Robert Pattison cast as Bela and Edward respectively became household names overnight. Simultaneously, the literary world intervened with rather ruthless criticism of the novels as badly written, and as poor appropriations of classical horror/gothic narratives. The novels have none of the complexities of Walpole or Radcliffe, and not even Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera or the more recent vampire series by Anne Price. Yet, none could deny their unprecedented popularity. While the Twilight sagas were creating a stir globally, another American soap, The Vampire Diaries, based on L. J. Smith’s novels (the first of the series was published in 1991), premiered on The CW Television Network on 10 September 2009 amid much hype and hoopla, and have successfully run into the fourth season this year. In fact, the Twilight series may be seen as putting to good commercial use the tremendous success of The Interview with the Vampire: the Vampire Chronicles (1994, based on Price’s 1976 novel) featuring a galaxy of Hollywood superstars and of course Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Price’s book became a bestseller, subsequent to the film’s box-office triumph. True Blood based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries (2001-2012, with the promise another novel in 2013) by Charlaine Harris, which have won a Golden Globe and an Emmy is still running successfully into its fifth season on HBO. This particular series created a sensation when the writer declared she conceived of her vampires as, ‘a minority that was trying to get equal rights’. In fact, it is not hard to recognize the novels’ debt to the rhetoric of the LGBT rights movement in America, and True Blood is often read as an allegory of queer desires, anxieties and politics. Interestingly enough, the success of this queer thread, perhaps, led Kevin Williamson, the producer of The Vampire Diaries to introduce a queer character recently. However, this again is not very new in American television history: The Lair, an explicitly queer vampire tale, had earned enviable viewership from the day it premiered on Here TV in 2007, but could not really sustain itself like True Blood. The critical response to The Lair has been largely negative, and Here TV has not announced a fourth season yet. While vampires monopolize cinema and television like never before, a large number of computer games, namely, Silent Hill and Doom, which are currently a rage amongst children as well as adults, are designed in a way that is reminiscent of horror films: the simulated labyrinths, murky settings, blood-curdling monsters and ghostly figures evoke in the player primal fears and anxieties, and her score depends upon how quickly she can eliminate them, and preserve herself. Again, notably, the paraphernalia conterminous with the celebration of Halloween is becoming increasingly ostentatious by the year in the United States. Indeed, horror, as history would evidence, has never really gone out of fashion. No matter how profound or flippant they may have been horror or gothic tales or anything even remotely associated with horror/terror have always been intriguing. In this paper, I would like to investigate this recent vampire boom in the American entertainment world and its success.
The vampire becomes a metaphor of current associations between machines, bodies, and patterns of consumption. In itself, it exists on the borders between life and death, between human, animal, and supernatural identities: she/he is a figure of transgression disturbing boundaries between inside and outside, home and foreignness. But what the vampire does is also crucial: consuming bodies, it transforms beings, contaminating them with its own appetites and desire. (2002: 288)
Of late, these vampires seem to have conquered the popular imagination of the Americans like never before. Following the peremptory rule of neo-imperialism, they have traveled to the other parts of the world as well, and have become a global phenomenon. Even if some American television series are not available everywhere, the internet access to the same is however unrestricted. While Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight novels flew off bookshelves swiftly, Hollywood cashed in on its immense mass appeal and in no time adapted the novels for the celluloid, which proved to be a judicious investment. The Twilight films were a runaway hit across the globe, drawing the teens in huge numbers. Kristen and Robert Pattison cast as Bela and Edward respectively became household names overnight. Simultaneously, the literary world intervened with rather ruthless criticism of the novels as badly written, and as poor appropriations of classical horror/gothic narratives. The novels have none of the complexities of Walpole or Radcliffe, and not even Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera or the more recent vampire series by Anne Price. Yet, none could deny their unprecedented popularity. While the Twilight sagas were creating a stir globally, another American soap, The Vampire Diaries, based on L. J. Smith’s novels (the first of the series was published in 1991), premiered on The CW Television Network on 10 September 2009 amid much hype and hoopla, and have successfully run into the fourth season this year. In fact, the Twilight series may be seen as putting to good commercial use the tremendous success of The Interview with the Vampire: the Vampire Chronicles (1994, based on Price’s 1976 novel) featuring a galaxy of Hollywood superstars and of course Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Price’s book became a bestseller, subsequent to the film’s box-office triumph. True Blood based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries (2001-2012, with the promise another novel in 2013) by Charlaine Harris, which have won a Golden Globe and an Emmy is still running successfully into its fifth season on HBO. This particular series created a sensation when the writer declared she conceived of her vampires as, ‘a minority that was trying to get equal rights’. In fact, it is not hard to recognize the novels’ debt to the rhetoric of the LGBT rights movement in America, and True Blood is often read as an allegory of queer desires, anxieties and politics. Interestingly enough, the success of this queer thread, perhaps, led Kevin Williamson, the producer of The Vampire Diaries to introduce a queer character recently. However, this again is not very new in American television history: The Lair, an explicitly queer vampire tale, had earned enviable viewership from the day it premiered on Here TV in 2007, but could not really sustain itself like True Blood. The critical response to The Lair has been largely negative, and Here TV has not announced a fourth season yet. While vampires monopolize cinema and television like never before, a large number of computer games, namely, Silent Hill and Doom, which are currently a rage amongst children as well as adults, are designed in a way that is reminiscent of horror films: the simulated labyrinths, murky settings, blood-curdling monsters and ghostly figures evoke in the player primal fears and anxieties, and her score depends upon how quickly she can eliminate them, and preserve herself. Again, notably, the paraphernalia conterminous with the celebration of Halloween is becoming increasingly ostentatious by the year in the United States. Indeed, horror, as history would evidence, has never really gone out of fashion. No matter how profound or flippant they may have been horror or gothic tales or anything even remotely associated with horror/terror have always been intriguing. In this paper, I would like to investigate this recent vampire boom in the American entertainment world and its success.
Research Interests: American Literature, Gothic Literature, The American Gothic Novel, Vampire Literature, Horror Literature, and 3 moreVampires in Film and Literature, Twilight Saga, and Gothic, female Gothic, Gothic in literature, the Gothic as a subculture, the fantastic, horror, the vampire figure in literature and film, the femme fatale, feminist readings of vampire narratives
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In this paper I make an attempt to examine how, despite all her good intentions, the black man in Lee’s novel eventually remains the Other. For the post Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon generation of readers, it’s not very difficult to... more
In this paper I make an attempt to examine how, despite all her good intentions, the black man in Lee’s novel eventually remains the Other. For the post Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon generation of readers, it’s not very difficult to identify the fissures in Harper Lee’s apparently sympathetic vision. Writing in the rather well-established tradition of the Southern novel, Lee ends up reinstating the white man’s hegemony which she ostensibly challenges all through. This is quite evident in the Tom Robinson tale that forms the core of the narrative; but, a closer look at the black housekeeper Calpurnia, a stereotypical Mammy figure, exposes the lapse alarmingly. In this Lee falls into the same trap as Conrad, for instance, whose sympathetic delineation of the victims of European imperialism in Heart of Darkness was seriously undercut by his innate racism.
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In Shyam Selvadurai’s fiction, family is a contested site. In all three novels, 'Cinnamon Gardens', 'Funny Boy' and 'Swimming in the Monsoon Sea', Selvadurai’s protagonists find it difficult to accommodate their desires within the... more
In Shyam Selvadurai’s fiction, family is a contested site. In all three novels, 'Cinnamon Gardens', 'Funny Boy' and 'Swimming in the Monsoon Sea', Selvadurai’s protagonists find it difficult to accommodate their desires within the heteronormative structure of the family. Yet, the family cannot be done away with. This paper focuses on Selvadurai’s Swimming in the Monsoon Sea, in which the protagonist Amrith de Alwis, who has lost his parents, is literally an outsider in the Manuel-Pillai family. This paper explores the politico-cultural co-ordinates of family and sexuality in late capitalist Sri Lanka, where alternative sexual desires still fall under the purview of criminal law.
Research Interests: Queer Studies, Southeast Asian Studies, Queer Theory, Gay And Lesbian Studies, South Asia, and 17 moreFamily, LGBT Issues, Sri Lanka, LGBT Youth, LGBT Literature, Diaspora Studies, Postcolonial Literature, South Asian Literature, Sri Lankan Literature in English, Gay and Lesbian History, LGBTQ psychology, Othering Process, LGBTQ studies, Shyam Selvadurai, Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Studies, Shyam Selvaduray, and Queer novels
In order to re-read Pride and Prejudice as a novel that engages with macrocosmic power structures and hegemonic discourses, I propose to re-look at Fitzwilliam Darcy, who "provokes, offsets, spurs and finally succeeds in conquering"... more
In order to re-read Pride and Prejudice as a novel that engages with macrocosmic power structures and hegemonic discourses, I propose to re-look at Fitzwilliam Darcy, who "provokes, offsets, spurs and finally succeeds in conquering" Elizabeth Bennet, and who is eventually instrumental in securing the happiness the novel celebrates. I propose to present Darcy as the patriarchal colonizer in relation to whom Elizabeth and even Wickham are the quintessential Other!
Research Interests: English Literature, Postcolonial Studies, Literary Criticism, Jane Austen, English Novel, and 12 morePostcolonial Theory, British Imperial and Colonial History (1600 - ), Postcolonial Literature, Edward Said, 19th and 20th century English Literature, Orientalism, Colonial Discourse, Contrapuntal reading, Pride and Prejudice, Gender roles in Pride and Prejudice, Nineteenth Century English Novel, and Postcolonialism
In academic discussions, every time we talk of the adoption of the American Dream, we mostly assume a tone of disapproval and contempt, for, theoretically such a practice or rather phenomenon further strengthens and remarkably stabilizes... more
In academic discussions, every time we talk of the adoption of the American Dream, we mostly assume a tone of disapproval and contempt, for, theoretically such a practice or rather phenomenon further strengthens and remarkably stabilizes the hegemonic control of the United States. Even if we begrudge globalization and censoriously name it neoimperialism, the common people are hardly critical of such a project. There’s no denial of the fact that subsequent to the economic liberalization, the standards of living have been raised. The common people, observes Gurcharan Das, “will any day put up with Coca-Cola and KFC if it means two square meals, a decent home and a job.” Cinema and television serials have since then acted as powerful stimulus to act accordingly, and have successfully created for Indians a new set of values, a new cultural icon in the clean-shaven, metrosexual hero in branded clothes, riding expensive cars and motorbikes, yet firmly rooted in traditions. Shah Rukh Khan or King Khan as he is nowadays widely known has had a significant contribution to the construction of this new image. Young India has extensively identified with or coveted to identify with this image, the emergence and concretization of which seemed increasingly commensurate with the changing nature of Indian economy and culture. An examination of some of Khan’s cult films, say from Darr to Rab Ne Banadi Jodi, would uncover a trajectory the dreams of young India has taken over a decade and a half. In doing so, the paper would also trace the gradual decline of this cultural icon perhaps best realized in the termination of his contract with Pepsi a few months back, and his dire need at this flagging point of his career, to simultaneously deconstruct (Rab Ne Banadi Jodi) and reconstruct (Billu) his image in the popular imagination. A later segment of the paper would focus primarily on Rab Ne Banadi Jodi, its subversion of the image of Shah Rukh Khan, the hero, the new concept of romantic love, and its relation to the schizophrenic middle class and its crazy quest of the hidden God of (late) capitalism, better known as ‘good life’ in everyday parlance.
Research Interests: Film Studies, Neoliberal Economies in the Postcolony, Social Movements, Political Ecology, Indigeneity, Cultures of Disposession, Urban Form in Asia, Non-Linear Systems, Fieldwork and Disruptive Epistemologies, Biopolitics, India, Bollywood (Anthropology), Indian Cinema, Star, and 2 moreIndian Cinema, Bollywood Costumes and Indian Cinema, Bollywood, Film Studies, South Asia, Media
The title of my paper underlines an apparently structuralist approach: the very mention of the genres ‘political satire’, ‘detective novel’ or ‘historiographic novel’ underscores the fact that I intend to show how certain set generic... more
The title of my paper underlines an apparently structuralist approach: the very mention of the genres ‘political satire’, ‘detective novel’ or ‘historiographic novel’ underscores the fact that I intend to show how certain set generic rules are sustained or broken in Such a Long Journey. The approach is to read the novel as a contesting site of conflation of generic codes; but, what is interesting is that the very transgressive nature of genre itself becomes much too evident; neither the label ‘political satire’ nor ‘detective fiction’ nor ‘historiographic novel’ can adequately help us arrive at a possible meaning. The play in which the writer engages throws into relief the very indeterminacy of generic categorization. Perhaps this is why post-structuralist theorists find genres restrictive; yet, the irony is it is impossible to do away with the concept of genres altogether, for seasoned readers derive immense pleasure on discovering the interplay of generic codes.
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In this interview Rituparno Ghosh, the renowned filmmaker from Kolkata, candidly talks about his films, techniques of film-making and sexual identity politics.
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, Queer Studies, Feminist Theory, Film Studies, and 20 moreLiterature, Popular Culture, Queer Theory, Literature and cinema, Sexuality, Media, Bengali Cinema, Indian Cinema, Poststructuralist Theory, Film, Queer/Gay film, Cinema Studies, Interviews, World Cinema, Films, Indian Cinema, Bollywood, Film Studies, South Asia, Media, Interview of Rituparno Ghosh, Rituparno Ghosh, Filmmakers, and Classic Movies
In this paper, the patriarchal politics involved in remarrying the widow in colonial Bengal is delved into with special reference to Rituparno Ghosh's highly successful cinematic adaptation of Rabindranath Tagore's novel 'Chokher Bali'.... more
In this paper, the patriarchal politics involved in remarrying the widow in colonial Bengal is delved into with special reference to Rituparno Ghosh's highly successful cinematic adaptation of Rabindranath Tagore's novel 'Chokher Bali'. The paper then shifts to the filmmaker's attempt at reversing the 'gaze' of popular cinema, and examines how successfully or not so successfully he could address the issue. Is a 'female' or 'queer' gaze at all possible? Is it possible not to subscribe to the patriarchal language of cinema?
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, Feminist Theory, Film Studies, Film Theory, and 23 moreLiterature, Popular Culture, Queer Theory, Film Analysis, Sexuality, Colonialism, Feminism, Postcolonial Feminism, Media, Bengali Literature, Bengali Cinema, Indian Cinema, Poststructuralist Theory, Film, Female Gaze, Rabindranath Tagore, Male and Female Gaze, The Role of the Widow in Literature, The Male Gaze, Widows and Widowhood, Female body, Rituparno Ghosh, and Colonial Bengal
The very prestigious BFI film magazine Sight and Sound gives a very positive review of "Rituparno Ghosh: Cinema, Gender and Art" in 2016.
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The reviewer Somdatta Mondal writes: Most of the articles and interviews in the book point to the fact that Rituparno Ghosh cannot be seen simply as a filmmaker. He must be seen in totality - as a conglomerate of his films, his... more
The reviewer Somdatta Mondal writes:
Most of the articles and interviews in the book point to the fact that Rituparno Ghosh cannot be seen simply as a filmmaker. He must be seen in totality - as a conglomerate of his films, his writing, his considerable scholarship, his eccentric lifestyle and his sexuality. Whether we like him or not, one thing is certain that it will take a long time to get used to the absence of this extraordinary person called Rituparno Ghosh. For most Rituparno aficionados, this volume, along with an earlier one entitled Reading Rituparno by Shoma A Chatterjee, will keep his legacy somewhat alive. Apart from his films he will also be remembered for his sartorial style, his idiosyncrasies and his overall contribution to the cultural sphere.
Most of the articles and interviews in the book point to the fact that Rituparno Ghosh cannot be seen simply as a filmmaker. He must be seen in totality - as a conglomerate of his films, his writing, his considerable scholarship, his eccentric lifestyle and his sexuality. Whether we like him or not, one thing is certain that it will take a long time to get used to the absence of this extraordinary person called Rituparno Ghosh. For most Rituparno aficionados, this volume, along with an earlier one entitled Reading Rituparno by Shoma A Chatterjee, will keep his legacy somewhat alive. Apart from his films he will also be remembered for his sartorial style, his idiosyncrasies and his overall contribution to the cultural sphere.
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The reviewer Ratnabir Guha writes: For the life of Rituparno Ghosh, this sartorial analogy must have had special relevance. In his final years, he appeared on the public stage in colourful dresses, complete with makeup and jewellery, as... more
The reviewer Ratnabir Guha writes:
For the life of Rituparno Ghosh, this sartorial analogy must have had special relevance. In his final years, he appeared on the public stage in colourful dresses, complete with makeup and jewellery, as a conscious attempt to celebrate gender fluidity. However, if some of the contributors of this volume are to be believed, Ghosh's temerity in challenging the Bengali bhadralok's gender conformity was offset by his unwillingness to offend his class sensibilities. Therefore, he was never able to explore the truly subversive side of contemporary queer politics. Limitations such as these are explored with great insight in the remarkable anthology, Rituparno Ghosh: Cinema, Gender and Art, edited by Sangeeta Datta, Kaustav Bakshi and Rohit K. Dasgupta. The fact that the editors and the contributors are self-proclaimed aficionados of Ghosh's oeuvre does not come in their way of critically analysing aspects of his craft, his stardom and his contribution to the politics of sexual identity.
Here is the link:
https://www.telegraphindia.com/1160304/jsp/opinion/story_72622.jsp#.WLJlR9KGPIU
For the life of Rituparno Ghosh, this sartorial analogy must have had special relevance. In his final years, he appeared on the public stage in colourful dresses, complete with makeup and jewellery, as a conscious attempt to celebrate gender fluidity. However, if some of the contributors of this volume are to be believed, Ghosh's temerity in challenging the Bengali bhadralok's gender conformity was offset by his unwillingness to offend his class sensibilities. Therefore, he was never able to explore the truly subversive side of contemporary queer politics. Limitations such as these are explored with great insight in the remarkable anthology, Rituparno Ghosh: Cinema, Gender and Art, edited by Sangeeta Datta, Kaustav Bakshi and Rohit K. Dasgupta. The fact that the editors and the contributors are self-proclaimed aficionados of Ghosh's oeuvre does not come in their way of critically analysing aspects of his craft, his stardom and his contribution to the politics of sexual identity.
Here is the link:
https://www.telegraphindia.com/1160304/jsp/opinion/story_72622.jsp#.WLJlR9KGPIU
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Devapriya Sanyal reviews the book for South Asian History and Culture, Vol. 7: 1 (2016), Taylor & Francis.
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Rituparno Ghosh: Cinema, Gender and Art is the first scholarly study undertaken on Bengali filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh. Editors Sangeeta Datta, Kaustav Bakshi and Rohit K. Dasgupta seek to explore Ghosh’s work within the dynamics of a... more
Rituparno Ghosh: Cinema, Gender and Art is the first scholarly study undertaken on Bengali filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh. Editors Sangeeta Datta, Kaustav Bakshi and Rohit K. Dasgupta seek to explore Ghosh’s work within the dynamics of a rapidly evolving film industry in Bengal and, more broadly, the cinematic landscape of India. Alison Macdonald finds the book a timely intervention which opens up the complexities of Indian art house cinema via Ghosh’s unique style, and writes that it would appeal to students and academics with a strong interest in cinematography, the politics of gender and queer theory.
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This paper proposes to look at two Bengali films, Aparna Sen’s Sati (1989) and Goutam Ghose’s Antarjali Jatra/The Last Journey (1987), both set in colonial India, and released during a perceptible rise of the conservative Hindu Right.... more
This paper proposes to look at two Bengali films, Aparna Sen’s Sati (1989) and Goutam Ghose’s Antarjali Jatra/The Last Journey (1987), both set in colonial India, and released during a perceptible rise of the conservative Hindu Right. Both Sen and Ghose have made significant contributions to the Indian New Wave, and have been acerbic critics of Hindu right wing politics, communalism, bigotry, hetero-patriarchal subjugation of women, and the oppressive Hindu caste system. The protagonist of Sati is a mute woman married to a banyan tree in order to eliminate a curse which could presumably cause the death of her first husband; Antarjali Jatra dramatises the fate of a woman, falling in love with an untouchable low-caste chandal, while awaiting the death of her much older husband and immolate herself on his funeral pyre. Borrowing the melodramatic trope of muteness as symbolic of one’s repression, Aparna Sen reviews conservative Hinduism’s unspeakable violence against women – a violence which is perpetrated by priests, family members and opportunist men. Goutam Ghose unravels the hypocrisy of the upper caste Hindus, who, in order to preserve their hegemony, continue to tyrannize women and members of the lower castes. These two films make an attempt to historicise the oppression of women and Dalits in India which is still an everyday reality. The two films, released in an interval of two years, came at a time when political parties backed by the Hindu Right were having a resurgence, only to rise in power unprecedentedly, since then. When seen in hindsight, the films seem to anticipate this rise, forewarning further marginalisation of women and caste minorities. They uphold and question some unresolved issues of modernity, relating to women, caste and religious beliefs – an “incomplete project” as modernity has been in India. Both the films, emerging from the stable of art-house cinema, as I shall show, could be also read as critiques of mainstream Indian cinema and television, which to a great extent, have endorsed Hindu Right discourses.
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This talk addressed the representation of beach boys in Ceylon/Sri Lanka in colonial and postcolonial literatures in the English language; the paper located the lives of beach boys within contested discourses of nationhood, belonging,... more
This talk addressed the representation of beach boys in Ceylon/Sri Lanka in colonial and postcolonial literatures in the English language; the paper located the lives of beach boys within contested discourses of nationhood, belonging, sexuality and questions of economic sustenance. A part of a one day conference on "Sex, Nation and Terror", the talk tried to engage with the questions of bourgeois queer identities, the current status of the LGBT movement, and the precarious yet visible life of the beach boys who are often a primary attraction for gay tourists. The talk focused briefly on two novels of Shyam Selvadurai - Funny Boy and The Hungry Ghosts in which beach boys appear marginally, but, speak volumes about the hypocrisy of the upper and upper middle class metropolitan population as regard to their take on sexuality, the body and prostitution.
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Queer Studies, Sex and Gender, Postcolonial Studies, Queer Theory, and 14 moreSouth Asian Studies, Sexuality, Sexual Violence, Gender and Sexuality, Nationalism, LGBT Issues, Postcolonial Theory, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Diaspora Studies, Postcolonial Literature, Sri Lankan Literature in English, LGBT Studies, Sex Trafficking, and Shyam Selvadurai
The Sri Lankan English novels, Shyam Selvadurai’s Cinnamon Gardens and V V Ganeshananthan’s Love Marriage, I focus on in this chapter, provide interesting insight into Sri Lanka’s arrival as a modern nation and the difficulty of bearing... more
The Sri Lankan English novels, Shyam Selvadurai’s Cinnamon Gardens and V V Ganeshananthan’s Love Marriage, I focus on in this chapter, provide interesting insight into Sri Lanka’s arrival as a modern nation and the difficulty of bearing the burden of that modernity after independence. I make an attempt to show, how this modernity is arrived at, through embracing certain discourses of imperial masculinity as sacrosanct, and, how postcolonial Sri Lanka continues to justify, as Roper and Tosh argue, that masculinity ‘is never fully possessed, but must be perpetually achieved, asserted and renegotiated.’ Cinnamon Gardens and Love Marriage respectively decry terrorising and terrorist masculinities that perceive femininity, to quote Jasbir K Puar, ‘as their reference point of malfunction;’ femininity, in this context, may allude to anything that threatens the heterosexual foundation of the nation-state, or anything that tends to dilute aggressive, hypermasculinist militarism that vehemently promotes ethno-nationalist homogeneity.
Research Interests: Queer Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Masculinity Studies, Diasporas, Queer Theory, and 13 moreSouth Asian Studies, Masculinity, Modernity, Masculinities, Postcolonial Theory, Diaspora Studies, Postcolonial Literature, Studies On Men And Masculinity, South Asian Literature, Sri Lankan Literature in English, Constructions of masculinity, Masculinity and Gender Studies, and Hegemonic Masculinity
The trope of the disintegrated family is central to contemporary Sri Lankan fiction, particularly to its diasporic English writings. My paper would cite as reference two novels: Chandani Lokugé’s If the Moon Smiled (2000), and Shyam... more
The trope of the disintegrated family is central to contemporary Sri Lankan fiction, particularly to its diasporic English writings. My paper would cite as reference two novels: Chandani Lokugé’s If the Moon Smiled (2000), and Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy (1995). On the one hand, the family is critiqued for breeding the most bankable consumers of a late capitalist economy or for replicating the coercive force of the nation-state and reproducing its gender hierarchy, power dynamics and politics of discrimination, on the other the family is often missed for its affective function – for providing emotional security and resisting the nation-state’s exclusionary tendencies. In Sri Lankan diasporic novels informed by the nation-state’s civil unrest caused by opposing but equally jingoistic and territorialist ethnonationalist ideologies that refuse to acknowledge heterogeneity, the cohesive force of family ties often appear indispensable. Yet, an unsettling awareness of the family’s hegemonic dominance of women, queer people, children and the old undercuts the celebration of its affective function. This paper examines how expatriate Sri Lankan fiction problematizes the relationship of the woman and the queer individual with the hetero-patriarchal neo-liberal middleclass family.
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Queer Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Queer Theory, South Asian Studies, and 11 moreGender and Sexuality, Canadian Literature, Gender, South Asian Diaspora Literature, Postcolonial Theory, Diaspora Studies, Postcolonial Literature, South Asian Literature, Australian History, Sri Lankan Literature in English, and Queer
British-Sri Lankan author, Ambalavaner Sivanandan’s epic novel When Memory Dies (1998) offers a complex perspective on how masculinities have been understood over a long swath of history, beginning from the late colonial period till very... more
British-Sri Lankan author, Ambalavaner Sivanandan’s epic novel When Memory Dies (1998) offers a complex perspective on how masculinities have been understood over a long swath of history, beginning from the late colonial period till very recently with the LTTE coming to power in war torn Sri Lanka, by locating the main action of the narrative within underprivileged classes.
Sivanandan’s saga spans three generations of a poor peasant Tamil family based in the politically turbulent regions of Jaffna, in northern Sri Lanka. The novel is a product of the experience of forced displacement of the Sri Lankan author, who is now a leading social activist and writer based in London. The director of the Institute of Race Relations and the founding editor of their journal Race and Class, Sivanandan describes the conditions under which he was forced to migrate to England: “My parents’ house was attacked by a Sinhalese mob, my nephew had petrol thrown on him and burnt alive, and friends and relatives disappeared into refugee camps. I was a Tamil married to a Sinhalese with three children, and I could only see a future of hate stretching out before them.”
It is interesting to note that the novel, with its socialist leanings, seems to advance a notion of underclass masculinity, which is posited vis-à-vis a critique of bourgeois masculinity. Masculinity, especially among the bourgeoisie and aspirant social climbers, is often associated with material success, of having attained a certain class status and power. Sivanandan, in my reading, privileges a form of masculinity devoted to socialist ideologies, the discursive reach of which also includes women. The novel is populated with such male characters, and each of them is given sufficient narrative time; but none of them are viewed as gendered subjects. In this article, I shall focus on Rajan, a member of the Jaffna peasant family, who narrates the first two books of the novel to highlight Sivanandan’s notions of masculinity: Rajan, torn between strong left-leaning friends who think nothing less than a revolution could bring about change and his filial duties as the eldest son of a poor family, in my opinion, offers an excellent example of how men too feel helpless in the compulsion to preserve what is perceived as manly at a certain moment in history. Although Sivanandan does not reflect on this helplessness as a crisis of masculinity as such, it comes out in Rajan’s story, more so because it is narrated in the first person. At the same time, through Rajan’s story, Sivanandan also reaffirms certain hegemonic forms of masculinity.
Drawing my theoretical framework from the works of a wide range of cultural theorists − R W Connell (1987, 1993, 1996, 2005) , Judith Butler (1999), John Benyon (2002), George Mosse (1996), Michael Kimmel (1994, 2004, 2006), Caroline Ossella, Filippo Ossella and Radhika Chopra (2004, 2006), Pradeep Jeganathan (2000), Sanjay Srivastava (2014), and Jani de Silva (2009, 2015) − I shall locate When Memory Dies in the discourses of a perceived ‘crisis of masculinity’ in contemporary times, and examine how displacement from one’s own culture, can be more constricting than liberating in terms of seeing oneself as a having failed the test of manliness.
Sivanandan’s saga spans three generations of a poor peasant Tamil family based in the politically turbulent regions of Jaffna, in northern Sri Lanka. The novel is a product of the experience of forced displacement of the Sri Lankan author, who is now a leading social activist and writer based in London. The director of the Institute of Race Relations and the founding editor of their journal Race and Class, Sivanandan describes the conditions under which he was forced to migrate to England: “My parents’ house was attacked by a Sinhalese mob, my nephew had petrol thrown on him and burnt alive, and friends and relatives disappeared into refugee camps. I was a Tamil married to a Sinhalese with three children, and I could only see a future of hate stretching out before them.”
It is interesting to note that the novel, with its socialist leanings, seems to advance a notion of underclass masculinity, which is posited vis-à-vis a critique of bourgeois masculinity. Masculinity, especially among the bourgeoisie and aspirant social climbers, is often associated with material success, of having attained a certain class status and power. Sivanandan, in my reading, privileges a form of masculinity devoted to socialist ideologies, the discursive reach of which also includes women. The novel is populated with such male characters, and each of them is given sufficient narrative time; but none of them are viewed as gendered subjects. In this article, I shall focus on Rajan, a member of the Jaffna peasant family, who narrates the first two books of the novel to highlight Sivanandan’s notions of masculinity: Rajan, torn between strong left-leaning friends who think nothing less than a revolution could bring about change and his filial duties as the eldest son of a poor family, in my opinion, offers an excellent example of how men too feel helpless in the compulsion to preserve what is perceived as manly at a certain moment in history. Although Sivanandan does not reflect on this helplessness as a crisis of masculinity as such, it comes out in Rajan’s story, more so because it is narrated in the first person. At the same time, through Rajan’s story, Sivanandan also reaffirms certain hegemonic forms of masculinity.
Drawing my theoretical framework from the works of a wide range of cultural theorists − R W Connell (1987, 1993, 1996, 2005) , Judith Butler (1999), John Benyon (2002), George Mosse (1996), Michael Kimmel (1994, 2004, 2006), Caroline Ossella, Filippo Ossella and Radhika Chopra (2004, 2006), Pradeep Jeganathan (2000), Sanjay Srivastava (2014), and Jani de Silva (2009, 2015) − I shall locate When Memory Dies in the discourses of a perceived ‘crisis of masculinity’ in contemporary times, and examine how displacement from one’s own culture, can be more constricting than liberating in terms of seeing oneself as a having failed the test of manliness.
Research Interests:
The conference, held at the Dept of English, Jadavpur University, addressed discourses of ageing and ageism, taking off from the definition of the term ‘ageism’ inaugurated by Robert N. Butler’s pioneering works on the subject. It delved... more
The conference, held at the Dept of English, Jadavpur University, addressed discourses of ageing and ageism, taking off from the definition of the term ‘ageism’ inaugurated by Robert N. Butler’s pioneering works on the subject. It delved deep into the problem of ageism, highlighting on how ageing bodies are perceived as non-normative, vis-à-vis youth, since society is largely structured on the assumption that the majority is not old. The conference also discussed how ageing people and discourses of ageism have gained a tremendous economic currency as the market has come to identify ageing, diseased and frail people as potential consumers. It took recourse to gerontology and its perception of ageing as chronological, biological, psychological and social. The last, the conference identified, is the most indeterminate and the most complex, for the idea of social ageing varies from one place to another, and is conditioned by class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, physical fitness, cognitive capabilities and even marital or relationship status – single, married, partnered or widowed. Again, ageing and the discourses of ageism vary from one culture to another. This conference while addressing these different dimensions of ageing and ageism, and their representational politics in cultural texts – literary, cinematic, theatrical, or in the media in general, made an attempt to look into the sociology of ageing. Currently, the coordinators are editing an anthology based on the conference which is going to be published by an international publishing house by next year.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
CONCEPT NOTE The production and reception of texts are historically and politically contingent, and cultural hegemonies shape canons in the academy and beyond. The publishing, marketing and circulation of texts are also instrumental in... more
CONCEPT NOTE
The production and reception of texts are historically and politically contingent, and cultural hegemonies shape canons in the academy and beyond. The publishing, marketing and circulation of texts are also instrumental in influencing their reception. Several authors have not found acceptance in the publishing industry for a long time; and several texts have been relegated to obscurity, having acquired labels such as ‘immoral’, ‘obscene’, ‘reactionary’ or ‘regressive’, owing to moral policing or censorship. Many of these texts which were marginalised have been revived in recent times, and the canon has been expanded to include voices less heard. Certain authors, however, continue to exist in a problematic relationship with the dominant canon, on account of their identity, writing style and ideology. Likewise, certain clusters of texts have formed parallel canons of ‘minor’ literatures, independent of or in an uneasy relationship with the dominant canon. As literary and cultural studies have become more democratized to include a range of texts which were not considered worthy of serious academic attention, multiple canons have emerged. These new canons have de-centred established ones. Changing reading practices have (re)turned attention to texts and genres once passed by, whereas canonical texts have been subjected to new contrapuntal readings. The very notion of the canon seems to have broken down, and ‘minor’ literatures have become the new focus of attention. However, texts from the margins (spheres outside the more established literature of the ‘mainstream’) still lack visibility and rarely find access to the publishing industry. This conference seeks to map the networks of power that exclude or include texts through canon formation from the nineteenth century to the present day and invites papers focusing on, but not limited to, the following areas:
a) Revival of forgotten or marginalised texts
b) Literature, censorship, and the publishing industry
c) Revisiting existing canons
d) Emergence of hierarchies within new canons of ‘minor’ literatures
e) Construction of centres and margins and the politics of canon formation, etc.
f) Reading practices, reinterpretations and transformation of the canon
g) Marginal identities and rejection of the canon
h) Dismissive critics and disgruntled authors
i) University syllabi, pedagogy and the canon
The production and reception of texts are historically and politically contingent, and cultural hegemonies shape canons in the academy and beyond. The publishing, marketing and circulation of texts are also instrumental in influencing their reception. Several authors have not found acceptance in the publishing industry for a long time; and several texts have been relegated to obscurity, having acquired labels such as ‘immoral’, ‘obscene’, ‘reactionary’ or ‘regressive’, owing to moral policing or censorship. Many of these texts which were marginalised have been revived in recent times, and the canon has been expanded to include voices less heard. Certain authors, however, continue to exist in a problematic relationship with the dominant canon, on account of their identity, writing style and ideology. Likewise, certain clusters of texts have formed parallel canons of ‘minor’ literatures, independent of or in an uneasy relationship with the dominant canon. As literary and cultural studies have become more democratized to include a range of texts which were not considered worthy of serious academic attention, multiple canons have emerged. These new canons have de-centred established ones. Changing reading practices have (re)turned attention to texts and genres once passed by, whereas canonical texts have been subjected to new contrapuntal readings. The very notion of the canon seems to have broken down, and ‘minor’ literatures have become the new focus of attention. However, texts from the margins (spheres outside the more established literature of the ‘mainstream’) still lack visibility and rarely find access to the publishing industry. This conference seeks to map the networks of power that exclude or include texts through canon formation from the nineteenth century to the present day and invites papers focusing on, but not limited to, the following areas:
a) Revival of forgotten or marginalised texts
b) Literature, censorship, and the publishing industry
c) Revisiting existing canons
d) Emergence of hierarchies within new canons of ‘minor’ literatures
e) Construction of centres and margins and the politics of canon formation, etc.
f) Reading practices, reinterpretations and transformation of the canon
g) Marginal identities and rejection of the canon
h) Dismissive critics and disgruntled authors
i) University syllabi, pedagogy and the canon