New Books...

New Books...

Portrayal of Women in Media and Literature

Pages xxiii+ 542, ISBN 978-93-82647-01-1

Worldwide Circulation through Authorspress Global Network. The book is also available online on flipkart, infibeam, alibris,  amazon, snapdeal,  ebay, Southasiabooks and so on

First Published  in 2013 by ACCESS, New Delhi

Though the 21^st-century has often been referred to as the age of women-empowerment when every crusader against patriarchal norms is applauded, representation of female emancipation, be it in films and serials or in literature, often assume distorted forms.  The depiction of women in media and literature seems to be aimed more at satisfying the subconscious male voyeuristic desires than at how the females have become modernised enough to take on the world. Importantly, this is not a novel phenomenon. Since the time of The Ramayana or The Mahabharata, women have been constantly relegated to peripheries vis-à-vis the usual male assumption of centrality, with the powerful men looking down upon their female counterparts merely as submissive sexual objects. Women have been consistently stereotyped as unintelligent human beings who are expected to serve in kitchens, follow the directions of their male and female in-laws, act as caring mothers to children, and ensure, on the peril of unpopularity, that servants did their tasks ‘correctly’. Even in Europe, which seemed to have had been modernised by the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, women were not allowed proper education or encouraged to write. Only as late as in 19^th-century did some sensitive intellectuals, starting with John Stuart Mill, and involving personalities like Frances Cobbe, Harriet Martineau, and Josephine Butler among others, began clamouring for equal rights for women.

20^th-century critics like Kate Millett, Simone de Beauvoir, Elaine Showalter, and Judith Fetterley have, in various publications, cautioned their female readers about the ‘traditional male hypocrisies’ which seek to dismiss the importance of females even while clamouring for their developments. Fetterley, especially, speaks for the necessity of ‘resisting readers’ who would identify the specific areas in male-constructed literature which offer demeaning portrayal of women and conspire to keep them submissive. However, as far as casual re-readings of post-modern literature reveal or cursory glances at films and television serials notice, women are directly or unwillingly participating in their own commodification, and allowing themselves to be sexualised on screen or in print. Rather than becoming a century for women’s liberation, the 21^st-centutry has become a period of gross female sexualisation. In such an age of artistic and aesthetic decadence, it has become necessary to identify the specific areas where women are being, on daily basis, distortedly depicted, patronised, or dominated. Even if such identifications and relevant publications would not normally stop violent attacks on young women, they would at least make maturing readers aware of the deplorable ground-realities for women in India and on international arena, and make them stake  and encouraging views of the female efforts for liberation.

Was it necessary to publish this compilation of essays on portrayal of women in media and literature? The answer is: yes. Numerous crimes against women, as social scientists have pointed out, are taking place on a daily-basis particularly because of ignorance and lack of compassion for femininity. The variety of issues explored in this critical anthology would make some epistemic contributions to the fields of feminism and pro-women-activism, with cautious approaches adopted towards the depreciations of females in different fields. If the role of humanities is to make individuals more humane, such a compilation is expected to further advance humaneness and humanity.  

In recent years, the Government of India and all the Indian states are taking stringent measures against female harassments and anti-women violence. Academic activism has also been making its contribution. In the field of written literature, the femininity-indicating ‘actress’ and ‘authoress’ have been diligently replaced with ‘actor’ and ‘author’, respectively. But, interestingly, while such academic ‘measures’ perceptively try to abolish the discriminating female-signs and signifiers, the males have not been motivated into becoming ‘authoresses’, ‘actresses’, or ‘poetesses’. The males have been traditionally granted superior places; even while indicating unisexuality, male signifiers have been adopted! If Spivak’s strategic essentialism is to be taken into account, abolishment of the ‘-esses’ might interpreted as offering scopes for re-examination. Nevertheless, this compilation of critical essays is expected to be referred to by teachers and students alike who want to further their studies and activism regarding female empowerment and dignities. 

Autobiographies, Boigraphies and Memoirs: Prestine Waves

Pages xxii + 473, ISBN 978-93-81030-48-6

Worldwide Circulation through Authorspress Global Network. The book is also available online on flipkart, infibeam, alibris,  amazon, snapdeal,  ebay, Southasiabooks and so on

First Published in 2013 by GNOSIS, New Delhi-110  016

About Book

Autobiographies, Biographies and Memoirs occupy an important place in Literature for various reasons. Authors used this genre to communicate their worldviews to people. Gandhi’s The Story of My Experiments with Truth is an excellent example. My Truth by Indira Gandhi is yet another example of communicating the message of an individual to a larger world. Jivansmriti (Reminiscences) of Rabindranath Tagore narrates his early years of life, while in Toward Freedom: the Autobiography of Jawaharlal Nehru, conveys Nehru’s own views  to his “own countrymen and women.” Nirad C. Chaudhuri’s The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, published in 1951, stands apart as a great master-piece, combining personal life experiences with a strong motivated worldview (“the conditions in which an Indian grew to manhood in the early decades of this century”).

 Talking about non-Indian writers A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard is one such autobiography where everyone's heart goes out to this girl who was kidnapped and imprisoned at the tender age of 11. Another autobiography that took away the hearts of readers is Sliding into Home by Kendra Wilkinson; a former resident of the Playboy mansion and star of The Girls Next Door. She manages to tell a lot more about her life than most people would be willing to. War by Sebastian Junger takes us inside an Afghanistan war zone to learn what it is like to be in combat. Similarly the renowned Biography Jonathan Edwards by George Marsden where the author brings to life the great preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards is praise worthy. Another truly portrayed biography that we came across is Love Queen of Malabar: Memories of Friendship with Kamala Das by Merrily Weisbord where she wanders into the restricted zones of Kamala Das’s life.

Jawaharlal Nehru writes in his autobiography Toward Freedom,  “… this account is wholly one-sided and, inevitably, egotistical; many important happenings have been completely ignored and many important persons, who shaped events, have hardly been mentioned. In a real survey of past events this would have been inexcusable, but a personal account can claim this indulgence.” Gandhi justified writing an autobiography with these words:

“But a God-fearing friend had his doubts, which he shared with me on my day of silence. 'What has set you on this adventure? He asked. 'Writing an autobiography is a practice peculiar to the West. I know of nobody in the East having written one, except amongst those who have come under Western influence. And what will you write? Supposing you reject tomorrow the things you hold as principles today, or supposing you revise in the future your plans of today, is it not likely that the men who shape their conduct on the authority of your word, spoken or written, may be misled. Don't you think it would be better not to write anything like an autobiography, at any rate just yet?”

Indira Gandhi’s work is a compilation of her writings in a manner that the book has an autobiographical format. Nehru wrote his autobiography in English. Gandhi and Tagore wrote their autobiographies first in their mother tongues (Gujarati and Bengali respectively) and then they get it translated or recreated their works into English. Nirad Chaudhuri wrote his celebrated work in English.

Autobiographies, Biographies and Memoirs may raise controversies of various types: political, social, familial, regional, religious, etc. A recent biography-like book on Muhammad Ali Jinnah by Jaswant Singh Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence raised a hue and cry among Jaswant Singh’s own party members.  Earlier in recent times, actor Om Puri’s biography Unusual Hero by his wife created strong and deep controversies. Such controversies arise out of revelations in public of private personal acts and thoughts that may involve others and thus hurt the feelings, careers and interests of people referred to. It looks like that the autobiographer or biographer never asks the permission of others to narrate the incidents which engross them! But due to such pristine waves of unfold truth, Autobiographies, Biographies and Memoirs became most popular forms of literature.

However, autobiographies and biographies have their own aspects difficult to master. Even the authors of these works are burdened with the responsibility of ensuring that the readers are with them and are comfortable with the journey they choose to undertake with the authors. The goal of this special volume Autobiographies, Biographies and Memoirs in English: Pristine Waves is to make a survey of some of the major autobiographies and biographies written in English. It is assumed that work should try to bring put some pristine waves of unfold truth, hidden fact or incident of the life of the person studied in present book.

We are hopeful that this critical anthology would prove to be a very valuable companion to different teachers, postgraduate and undergraduate students, and doctoral research scholars who are intent on acquainting themselves with different aspects of Autobiographies, Biographies and Memoirs in English.

Dynamics of Diasporic Identity in Commonwealth Literature

Pages xxi + 327, ISBN 978-81-7273-726-9

Worldwide Circulation through Authorspress Global Network

First Published in 2013 by, Authorspress, New Delhi-110  016

About Book

Diaspora studies, through years, have depicted an organic development maturing over years of cultural segregation to ultimate acculturation in the wake of globalisation. In its phase of inception, diasporic studies depicted certain general features: dispersal from original “centre” to the periphery of the foreign land; sense of alienation, retainment of community memory, a painful “rebirth” in an antagonistic society and hence the yearning to return back “home”. These varied and yet generalised concept have been highlighted in Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return where William Safran speaks of the nostalgic yearning of the early immigrants and how “their ethnocommunical conciousness and solidarity are importantly defined by the existence of such a relationship” (84). However, such feelings of nostalgia were found only in the early immigrants but their children or the second generation immigrants are free of such “looking back” emotions. Fredrick Buell in his book National Culture and the New Global System calls these immigrants “Global Cosmopolitans” who have established a new identity in the foreign nation.

The etymological origin of Diaspora can be traced to ancient Greek where it meant scattering as a result of migration or geographical upheaval and was related to the dispersal of the Jews. In the post-biblical phase, the term came to be related to human scattering because of slave trading and transfer of labourers. Diasporic communities grew up in distant lands of Jamaica, Trinidad, West Indies, United States, Australia etc. and there they created a space for themselves where they could preserve their individual identities and their racial origin. Obviously, this endeavour to preserve identity in a distant land was far from easy and it resulted in concepts like self, cultural memory, rootlessness, linearity and continuity, alienation and belonging.

Though no country has really been able to escape the effects of migration or dislocation, yet in the post colonial scenario the questions and issues are being re-evaluated. One wonders whether dislocation has to be really traumatic and if the new entrant can not rally get assimilated with the new culture. History and memory are two separators but in the global scenario all concepts require to be re-visited. Multiculturalism is an attempted reality and it works at multiple levels. The word is in vogue and this has imparted different connotations to it and which is a definite reason for caution. It must be remembered that it is not a mere coexistence of multiple cultures or ethnicities – rather it works towards a separation which is essential for maintaining “difference” and working towards individual recognition. Its popularity is not in “coercive assimilation” but rather in the resonance of the term “culture” and a positive connotation.

Two other important terms which have come to be associated with the search for diasporic identity are “hybridity” and “third space”. Robert Young points out that the term “hybrid(ity)” was first used with respect to humans in 1813 and it implied “the crossing of people of different races” (6). Bhabha, later in the location of culture uses the term in a less palpable context of “mutual contamination of imaginary purity” and it led to the concept of the “third space” of the colonizer and the colonized that effects the hybridization of both parties. It is this “third space” which has become an important zone of interaction between the diasporic community and the original master class. This spatial turn has resulted in the intermingling of cultures, what Bhabha calls, “hibridity”, thereby producing “thirding as othering”. It causes “in-between-ness” which has been supported also by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Edward Said.  Bhabha challenges the hegemonic historiography in “The Third Space” and writes:

All forms of culture are continually in a process of hybridity. But for me the importance of hybridity is not to be able to trace two original moments from which the third emerges, rather hybridity to me is the ‘third space’ which enables other positions to emerge. This third space displaces the histories that constitute it, and sets up new structures of authority, new political initiatives, which are inadequately understood through received wisdom...the process of cultural hybridity gives rise to something different, something new and unrecognisable, a new area of negotiation of meaning and representation (Bhabha 211).

The present volume discusses these varied aspects of diasporic identity in varied avtars. The editors of the present critical anthology have taken an all-inclusive approach on diasporic identity in Commonwealth Literature. Their principal insistence is on acquainting teachers, researchers, and post- and undergraduate students with different dynamics of diasporic identity in Commonwealth Literature.

Emerging Issues in ELT

Pages xviii + 420, ISBN 978-93-81030-46-2
Worldwide Circulation through Authorspress Global Network. The book is also available online on flipkart, infibeam, alibris,  amazon, snapdeal,  ebay, Southasiabooks and so on

First Published in 2013 by GNOSIS, New Delhi

About Book

The growing popularity of English language instruction has led to more professionalism within the ranks of English teachers. Today’s classrooms reflect a wide range of individual student differences in experience, aptitude, motivation, interest, gender, race and ethnicity. Teacher must develop the knowledge and skills to teach diverse group of students with emerging trends. In addition to this, to keep place in an ever-changing society, teacher and students must be prepared to expand their teaching repertoires throughout their careers as educators. Teachers in the 21^st century must be thoughtful, reflective practitioners prepared to teach and learn within a changing environment, including the social, economic, technological and professional contexts.

The world keeps changing with every rotation it makes round the sun. Just a decade ago, students were taught with pens, pencils, black boards and chalks. But today, all that have become history which no one wishes to remember. Light pens and boards, PDF notes, CD ROMs have replaced all those. And even as you are reading this, the world is advancing rapidly with respect to ICT technology as even computers and laptops are gradually leaving the scene for Net-books, Net-Pads, Tablet PCs, i-Pods and magic handsets.

There is need to study these new trends with its all critical fairness.  So this anthology aims to help teachers by providing detail study of modern techniques to teach English effectively. This anthology strives to provide clear, comprehensive, and objective advice to anyone interested in teaching English. It presents empirical studies on the various factors that influence English language learning and teaching. Technology has changed the way we access information and the way we teach and learn. New technologies have contributed to the proliferation of information and resources. Such technologies may include internet, audio-visual aids, MALL, CALL, multimedia, distance learning and digital technologies that help to enrich ELT.

Nevertheless, this compilation of critical essays is expected to be referred to by teachers and students alike who want to further their studies and activism regarding ICT enabled English Language Teaching and Learning. We are thrilled and honoured in editing present this volume to the vast local and global readership. We sincerely hope that this effort will be appreciated.

Role of ICT in English Language Teaching and Learning

Pages xvii + 335, ISBN 978-93-82647-00-3

Worldwide Circulation through Authorspress Global Network. The book is also available online on flipkart, infibeam, alibris,  amazon, snapdeal,  ebay, Southasiabooks and so on

First Published  in 2013 by ACCESS, New Delhi

English is a West Germanic language linked to Dutch, Frisian and German with a significant amount of terminology from French, Latin, Greek and few others. Historically, English language had so modest foundation that at first it would hardly worth the honor of being the literature language of even a renowned Englishman. Shakespeare wrote for a speech community of about six million peoples, that it was not thought to be of much account by the rest of Europe, and that it was entirely unknown to the rest of the world. John Locke, the celebrated English philosopher once said that ‘English was the language of the illiterate vulgar’. But today the situation has been exclusively changed and the English language dominated over almost all rest languages. Today, English is truly an official or co-official language of over 45 countries and is the mostly preferable medium of international communication. We see wide-ranging use of English in the field of science, aviation, computing, diplomacy, and tourism all over the world.

English, today, has the widest circulation, spoken and used as official language by men and women round the world, especially in the countries which were British colonies. The earlier teaching of English was characterized largely by a type of instruction which is a type of a lecture method in teaching language or literature. But, presently, universalisation of education technology is a matter of great prosperity for the teaching dogma. Particularly Information Technology achieves a wide possible reach for the students. We see a sea change in the teaching of English language in the schools and colleges by the introduction of ICT equipments. The use of ICT can succeed in achieving language proficiency and will fosters an all-round development of the mind of students. 

The present anthology Role of ICT in English Language Teaching and Learning: Observations and Ruminations is our humble attempt to bring different scholarly views, opinions and investigations under one umbrella in form of this book. We requested many scholars of India and aboard to ruminate and write on this topic and we are overwhelmed by their response. 

The overall aim of this anthology is to highlight difference facets of the application of ICT in teaching English language and investigate and explore various  experimentation and innovation in this area in order to find out the goals of ICT enabled teaching for creating environmental consciousness and related behavioural practices among students and we are sure that we succeed in bringing together all angled deliberations,  observations and ruminations on role of ICT in English Language teaching and learning. Nevertheless, this compilation of critical essays is expected to be referred to by teachers and students alike who want to further their studies and activism regarding ICT enabled English Language Teaching and Learning. We are thrilled and honoured in editing this volume to the vast local and global readership.


                                   Twentieth Century British Literature

Twentieth century British literature marks the advent of new ways of looking at the world with comprehending, interacting and reconstructing literary sensibility.  Modernistic point of view along with elements like experimentation and individualism were introduced in it.  Focus on pluralism, quest for the self, lack of faith, fragmentation, alienation and much more found its reconstructed ways into its gamut.

            It is also called as modern literature and is reflective of the political upheavals, social unrest, and domestic crisis in addition to racial discrimination, political protests, the Gay Rights movement, the Feminist movement and so on. Significant contribution has been made in the field of novel, drama and poetry.  A lot of scope is given to man’s psychological problems and the concept of consciousness in relation to time. The approach that the modern literature adopts is realistic as opposed to the idealistic.  Almost everything from within the human nature is embraced within its vast confines. There is also a faithful rendering of the modern society devoid of common values and virtues, and gripped by elements of disappointment, dejection, depression, disillusionment, disease and death. The writers of this period revolted against the existing order and reacted against existing pretentions.  They opted for a more intense, more democratic and pluralistic mode of expression.

This anthology contains such approaches and critical investigation of renowned Twentieth century British literary texts through multiple aspects.

We are sure that these scholarly articles will definitely provide a deeper insight and help readers and researchers voyage into the realms of the 20^th century British literature with its different facets. Research scholars who wish to undertake research in the same can truly be benefited.

‘Alumni Meet’, held at our Alma Mater Dayanand Arts College, Latur on 25/05/2013

Our ‘Alumni Meet’, held at our Alma Mater Dayanand Arts College, Latur on 25/05/2013, made me  nostalgic. The days we had spent together in the campus were recollected. The meet was a blend of meeting old batch-mates, recollecting memories and enjoying speeches and cultural treat followed by dinner. All the batches of alumni have been invited to share/mark their journey on occasion of Golden Jubilee Celebration of our Alma Mater to be held on 1 June 2013 in special presence of His Highness the President of India Shree. Pranab Mukherjee. There were about 500 alumni who made this meet a huge success. A huge chunk of them, of course, were from M.A. (English, Marathi, Hindi and Pub.Adm.) batches. Felt very happy to meet and share with my friends and classmates Dr. Anand Kulkarni, (BoS member, Pune University), Dr Dhananjay Deolalkar, (Elphinstone College, Mumbai), Principal Dr. Anita Mudkanna (Andur), Dr. Chaya dapake (Osmanabad), Urmila Dharashive, Dr. Pandurang Shitole, Dr. Balasaheb Bhosale (Latur),. Also met to Suryakant Kapase, Lahu Shewale, Dr. Sunil Salunke, Dr. Shahuraj Mule, Dr. Srikant Andhare (Dy Registrar), Dr. Pradeep Suryawanshi and other friends and batch mates. I wish a grand success to Golden Jubilee Celebration of my Alma Mater.

Release of My Books

Official Release of My Books

 Held in Inaugural Function of Jointly Organized Two National Conferences on Agro Tourism and Naxalism In Shivaji Mahavidyalaya Udgir on 23/03/2013

Published by Authors Press, Gnosis and Access, New Delhi

And officially released at the auspicious hands of

Hon’ble Vijaysinha Mohite Patil

(Ex Deputy Chief Minister, Maharashtra State),
&

Hon’ble Ashokrao Patil Ekambekar

Hon’ble Adv.C.P. Patil 

Hon’ble R.A.Pawar

Hon’ble Vikram Kale

Hon’ble Babasaheb Patil

Hon’ble Principal Dr.S.T. Patil

and others

At our Shivaji Mahavidyalaya, Udgir on 23/03/2013

NEW BOOKS OF 2013

Pages xix + 326
ISBN 9788172737061

The politics of gender which determines everything, including language and literature and the recent trends in feminist criticism has moved towards gender studies. Elizabeth Abel argues, “Sexuality and textuality both depend on difference”  and realizing the fact that the entire consequence of female oppression is caused by female “difference” these critics have decided to move beyond “difference” itself.  So now the politics of gender identity has come into the scenario, replacing the entirely female perspective and it serves as an umbrella term providing coverage to other areas too. Now male critics who desire to pursue feminist criticism and even the “Queer Study” group comes under this broader concept.

Julia Kristeva has provided an adequate analysis of how feminism has progressed through stages to finally reach the fluidity of gender identity. She states that feminism began with liberalism when women demanded equality; then came the radical feminists who rejected patriarchy and called for separatist matriarchy and finally they rejected both concepts and was asking for “gender identity”. Thus, feminism starting in true sense with Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, proceeded through varied phases to reach the phase of Judith Butler (Gender Trouble, 1990).

The Present book desires to address the politics of gender identity from the authentically Indian perspective, and that too in the arena of English theatre.  Indian drama and theatre has always exhibited a close symbiotic relation between genre and gender though literary feminism was quite late in evolving. The reason obviously was that theatre was a more public arena and hence a restricted medium for the females. The males of course, took up the cudgel on behalf of the females, and we have early playwrights like Krishna Mohan Banerji (The Persecuted), Michael Madhusudhan Dutt (Ratnavali, Sermistha, Is This Called Civilization?) who presented women as iconic images of perfection and subjugation. They were followed by Tagore and Sri Aurobindo who in the truest sense propagated the cause of women. Bharati Sarabhai and Swarnakumari Devi were the earliest of female dramatists though their voices remained muffled.

But female centred issues began to occupy the stage with the development of the IPTA (Indian Peoples Theatre Movement) which became operative since 1943 and it preceded an era of theatre festivals and workshops committed to the cause of women. Few examples are Yavintika, a women’s theatre festival organized by a Hyderabad based group, “Voicing Silence”, Gendered Theatre by M.S. Research Foundation,  Akka, the National Women’s theatre festival held in Mysore and so on. All this interest focussed upon the feminist cause resulted in a plethora of plays being written with women at the centre. Vijay Tendulkar and Mahesh Dattani are two great names in this perspective. They wrote and are still writing plays which expose the hypocrisy and mistreatment meted out to the female population through generations.

Female directors, once a rarity, now occupied the forefront and names like Ipsita Chandra, Chama Ahuja, Usha Ganguli, Sheila Bhatia, B. Jayashree, Arundhuti Raje, Nadira Babbar, Anuradha Kapur, Amal Allana became household names. They were supplied with regular plays by another female brigade comprising of names like Polie Sengupta, Dina Mehta, tripurari Sharma, Uma Parameswaran, Manjula Padmanabhan, Zahida Zaidi etc. Thus Indian Theatre and Literary Feminism both became the demand of the hour and it all propagated the “politics of gender identity”.

The essays in this book address these multiple aspects of gender identity and feminism and open up doors for varied speculations. The dramatists considered are from Kalidasa to Dattani and provide as broad a spectrum as possible.

True to the process, the pattern of evolution from ancient times to the post-modern period is studied in depth and it proves Indian English thetre to be a powerful aspect of literary feminism. The politics of gender and identity is the mantra of modern India and its authenticity is the gospel of this book.

It is our firm and ardent belief that the readers of this book will enjoy and benefit from these essays, and the book itself will prove to be a substantial contribution to the study of politics of gender, identity and authenticity of feminism and Indian theatre in English.  

Pages xxiv + 390

WORLD ENGLISH LITERATURE: BRIDGING ONENESS 

(2013) ISBN 978-81-7273-705-4 

Literature, as Jean-Paul Sartre writes in his famous essay “What is Literature?” (1949), is a phenomenon that is extremely difficult to define, and he cautions the critics neither to read quickly nor pass judgements on any publication before they have first had understood the concept of ‘literature’. In simple terms, however, the English word ‘literature’, derived from the Latin ‘litterae’ denoting ‘letter’, can be understood to indicate ‘the art of written work’, and is often not confined to published sources. The four major classifications of literature are poetry, prose, fiction, and non-fiction.

This critical anthology has been titled World English Literature: Bridging Oneness. The scopes of the entire title are numerous, and hence deserve a very brief clarification. The conglomeration of three words ‘World’, ‘English’, and ‘Literature’ may result in a term that is quite complex for suitable elucidation. After the Western imperialistic ventures against the African, Asian, and South American countries especially between the 16th and 19th centuries A.D., the connotations of the apparently-simple word ‘world’ have increased multifariously. Following the 1952 classifications by Alfred Sauvy, numerous nations are presently being confronted with four ‘world’ divisions:  the ‘first world’ – a term of privilege indicating the capitalistic European and North American nations; the ‘second world’, indicating the communist and socialist including Russia and some nations of South America; the ‘third world’ usually used derisively to indicate the economically-underprivileged and apparently-unaligned Asian and African nations almost all of which are former colonies of European powers; and, the ‘fourth world’, which, according to George Manuel, should be effectively used to denote comparatively unexplored nations of indigenous people. Therefore, the signifier ‘World English’, even in the second half of the 20th century, might have produced multiple signified – ‘collections of English publications from the first world’, ‘leftist English writings by authors of the so-called second world’, ‘postcolonial writings by litterateurs of the third world’, or ‘the foruth-world writings’. The subtitle ‘Bridging Oneness’ may come as a relief for the perplexed readers and critics: it suggests that the principal aim of the present anthology is to attempt the establishment of a literary union between the writings from these different ‘worlds’.

With the rapid proliferation in the socio-cultural and economic powers of principally Asian nations – especially those of China and India – in the last two decades of the 20th and first decade of 21st centuries A.D., implication of the term ‘world’ has undergone a change once again. Presently, there is no longer any perceptible polarisation. Not only have the former colonising nations like England, France, Belgium, Portugal, and Spain, have become economically weaker, their military strength, and hence the strength to alter histories of nations, have dwindled to a considerable level. The communist nations have ceased to be a major alternative bloc. Countries with indigenous people – especially Australia and Peru – have been steadily advancing efficient litterateurs, some of whom have received several international awards. The People’s Liberation Army of China is now the world’s largest military force, while the Indian Army is presently the world’s largest standing volunteer army. The demarcations between the first, second, third, and fourth worlds have been demolished. So have been the segregations in their respective literatures, and hence the necessity of ‘bridging’ respective literatures from these countries.

In the 21st century, the deciders of world fate even in early 20th century, especially England and France, have identifiably lost their power to influence global culture. On the other hand, numerous Third World inhabitants – especially Indians – have successfully permeated the Western segregatory socio-cultural curtains, compelling the English Office for National Statistics to predict in October 2005 that by A.D. 2031, England is scheduled to become a cultural colony of India. Interestingly, and paradoxically, in such changed circumstances, the term ‘world’ has re-begun to indicate the multicultural union of nations all throughout the globe, and ‘World English Literature’ now indicates those publications and literary works that are popular in both the West and the East – the Euro-American and the Afro-Asian nations. ‘English’, in the middle of the title, may simply be interpreted as a medium to ensure that the published literary works reached as many readers as possible.

It may also be asked here that why English is still relevant as a literary language, and why this critical anthology should deal with ‘world literature’ written only in ‘English’. The language of mainly the inhabitants of imperialist Britain, English became the most popular language of the world – though not with the largest number of speakers – by 1922 when the British Empire, as Angus Maddison and Niall Ferguson note, was spread approximately over thirty-three and a half million square kilometres – a quarter of earth’s total land area – and dominated around four hundred and fifty eight million people, one-fifth of world’s total population in the decade of the 1920s. Even in the early-21st century, English, in its different forms and intonations, is spoken by approximately two billion people worldwide. In India, from where the present critical anthology is being published, approximately one hundred and thirty million people speak English. There are different official languages of India, but the most infallible medium for communication between people of different states is undeniably English. Throughout the world, English is spoken in one hundred and twenty six countries. As briefly mentioned earlier, English is among the ‘safer’ language options for attracting wide readership, and even in the 21st century, English is one of the more preferred languages for literary exercises.

The English imperial domination of India for over three hundred years had galvanised its populace to learn, speak, and use English abundantly. In the 19th century, especially, the English colonisers had began to train Indians in English so that they could be deputed to draft or complete imperialism-related administrative paper-works, leading to the proliferation of the usage of the diminutive ‘writers’: the English-educated and British-collaborating Indian clerks. However, with such socio-political and intellectual movements like the Bengal Renaissance, the First Indian War of Independence, and armed anti-imperial struggles especially in Bengal, Maharastra, and Punjab, these very English-educated Indians became potential sources of threat to English imperialists. It was also during this period that the transformation of the English language from a colonisers’ tongue to a medium of effective communication across the linguistically-diverse Indian regions began. Nationalists could register their anti-English sentiments in the imperial tongue so that the inhabitants of Kerala or Andhra Pradesh, for example, could effectively understand what an anti-imperial intellectual from Maharastra or Bengal was trying to protest. Numerous regional works, some of them anti-imperialist and most of them critiques of the English rule, came to be translated into English and strengthened the Indians’ opinion against their colonisers. Even efficient and popular literary works from around the world – especially Germany, Russia, and France – were translated, and the Indian commoners could understand the anti-domination sentiments of the 18th-century enlightened Germans, anti-Tsarist Russians, or the indignant third-estate-communities of France. These entire intellectual strengthening of opinion would culminate in the Indian independence of 1947. Even after Independence, Indians, deeply read in famous literary works of different countries of the world in original or translated forms, have continued to contribute quality literature in English, and terms like ‘Indian Writing in English’, ‘Indo-Anglian Literature’ or ‘Indian English Writings’ suggest an alternative form of the usage of the English language where the so-called ‘pure’ or ‘traditional’ English words are replaced by different Indian phrases or terms, especially from Hindi, Bengali, and Tamil. In a fast-changing cultural and intellectual scenario in India, one can only comprehend the importance, relevance, and necessity of studying world literatures in English.

The editors of the present critical anthology have taken an all-inclusive approach – at achieving ‘oneness’ – to ‘world literature in English’ – written in or translated into the former imperial tongue. Their principal insistence is on acquainting teachers, researchers, and post- and undergraduate students with different aspects of literary works written in English in its different ‘regional’ forms as well as in the ‘traditional’, or, if we are allowed to use the term ‘original’ avatar. This anthology contains critical approaches to works by writers from as diversified nations as England (Edward Morgan Forster, David Herbert Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, Leopold Hamilton Myers, Graham Greene, and William Golding) – for no critical anthology of English writings would be successfully completed without incorporation of literary works by the inventors and popularisers of the language itself, Ireland (George Bernard Shaw), India (Mulk Raj Anand, Kamala Markandaya, Mohan Rakesh, Udupi Rajagopalacharya Ananthamurthy, Jayanti M. Dalal, Anita Desai, Arun Joshi, Chitrita Banerji, Rohinton Mistry, Amitav Ghosh, Sharankumar Limbale, and Kiran Desai), Australia (Jack Davis), Nigeria (Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe and Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka), the United States of America (Arthur Miller, Edward Franklin Albee III, Philip Roth, and Kenneth Elton Kesey), Canada (Margaret Atwood), Kenya (Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o), and South Africa (Nadine Gordimer), among others. As far as the Indian writers included in this anthology are concerned, Banerji, Mistry, Ghosh, and Kiran Desai – presently the permanent residents respectively of the U.S.A., Canada, the U.S.A., and the U.S.A. – can no longer be called ‘Indian writers’ in strictest sense of the term. They have become world-citizens – endeared to the reading public by both their artistic excellence and description of poignant reality. However, all these writers – with the exception of those belonging to the United States of America (itself an English colony until the 1780s) – are symbolically united by their belonging to countries collectively known as the ‘Commonwealth of Nations’. And, in a sense, World Literature in English: Bridging Oneness is a collection of critical approaches to different superior specimens of American and Commonwealth writings.

The term ‘Commonwealth of Nations’ has an imperialistic connotation: it indicates a congregation of England and its former colonies. However, in the postcolonial literary milieu of the 21st century, the phrase itself has become an anti-imperialistic term: it indicates the common strength of the erstwhile colonised-nations which have congregated themselves to posit socio-economic and artistic challenges against their former imperial centre – England – which finds itself surrounded by its rapidly-developing former colonies. The Commonwealth is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four countries, and is a forum for a number of non-governmental organisations, which strengthen the shared culture of the Commonwealth that extends through common sports, literary heritage, and political and legal practices. Due to this, Commonwealth countries are not considered to be ‘foreign’ to one another, and neither are their litterateurs who are bound together by common colonial, social, educational, and cultural experiences. It is therefore possible that several common aspects might be traced in publications, for example, by Forster, Achebe, Markandaya, Atwood, and Thiong’o. Such possibilities of commonality weave together the diverse critical essays included in the present anthology.

At Dr. B. A. M. University, Aurangabad… for a Ph. D. Viva voce in English

Just came back from Dr. B. A. M. University, Aurangabad after conducting a Ph. D. Viva-voce as an external referee. Enjoyed a very healthy and scholarly discussion generated during Viva. Prof. Dr. S.B. Deshpande (Chair), Prof. Dr. K.G.Ranveer, my friends Dr. Mustajib Khan, Mrs. Mehrunnisa Pathan, Mr. Anand Ubale, Balali Navale actively participated in discussion. Researcher Mr. Rajpankhe’s defense was wonderful. Mr. Rajpankhe (Now Dr. Mukund Rajpankhe) and Principal Dr. Samad Shaikh (Research supervisor) deserve a big congratulation. Felt very happy to meet and interact with Prof. Dr. Deshpande, Prof. Dr. Ranveer, Dr. Bharat Handibag (Dean, Arts Faculty), Principal Dr. F. A. Siddiqui, Dr. Mustajib, Mrs. Mehrunnisa and my student Vishnu Patil and few more friends and students. 

(These snaps are taken by my friend Mr. Jogdand and my student Vishnu Patil)

Inaugural Function of English Literary Association-2012-13 held on 9th October, 2012

Snaps of Inaugural Function of English Literary Association-2012-13

Held on 9th October, 2012 at Auditorium of Shivaji Mahavidyalaya, Udgir

Chairperson

Dr. S. T. Patil

(Principal, Shivaji Mahavidyalaya, Udgir)

Inaugurator

Dr. L.S. Deshpande

(Former Head, Department of English

P.N College, Nanded)

Chief Guest

Dr. Shailaja Wadikar

(Faculty, Department of English,

School of Language, Litrature & Cultural Studies

S.R.T.M.University , Nanded

Invitee

Dr. Arvind Nawale, Head,  Department of English & Faculty   

Release of my 3 more books at Solapur university.

Photos of official  release of my 3  books i) Nation with Discrimination: Literary Voices from the Subalterns ii) Rhyming with Reasons and iii) Global Responses to Literature in English published by Authorspress and ACCESS,  New Delhi  at the auspicious hands of  Hon'ble  Vice-Chancellor Dr. Babasaheb Bandagar, Hon'ble Registrar Capt.,Dr. Nitin Sonje, Hon'ble Director, BCUD, Dr. R. N. Shendage, and in presence of Dr. T.N. Kolekar, Dr. Smt. Annie John, Dr. Deepak Nanaware & Dr. S. V. Shinde of Solapur university.

My New Critical Book is released....

Nation with Discriminations: Literary Voices from the Subalterns

ISBN 978-81-921254-5-9

 Worldwide Circulation through Authorspress Global Network. The book is also available online on flipkart, infibeam, alibris,  amazon, snapdeal,  ebay, Southasiabooks and so on

First Published in 2013 by GNOSIS, New Delhi-110  016

ABOUT BOOK

Exploitation and subordination are innate human tendencies. From times immemorial, there has been hegemony of power, culture and gender in the universe. Discriminatory treatment of a vast global population has been justified on the basis of caste and colour. In most parts of Asia and Africa, this is the root for discrimination. According to UNICEF and Human Rights Watch, caste discrimination affects an estimated 250 million people worldwide. Discrimination is the detrimental treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors toward groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. They have been treated just like third-grade citizens. This bias and discriminatory treatments towards Marginal and subaltern groups affect growth of individuals, society and Nation as well.

The term ‘subaltern’ is used in postcolonial theory. Some thinkers use it in a general sense, to refer to marginalized groups and the lower classes, a person rendered without agency by his or her social status. Others, such as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak use it in a more specific sense. She argues that:

“….subaltern is not just a classy word for oppressed, for Other, for somebody who's not getting a piece of the pie....In postcolonial terms, everything that has limited or no access to the cultural imperialism is subaltern- a space of difference. Now who would say that's just the oppressed? The working class is oppressed. It's not subaltern....Many people want to claim subalternity. They are the least interesting and the most dangerous. I mean, just by being a discriminated-against minority on the university campus, they don't need the word 'subaltern'...They should see what the mechanics of the discrimination are. They're within the hegemonic discourse wanting a piece of the pie and not being allowed, so let them speak, use the hegemonic discourse. They should not call themselves subaltern” (Spivak.1994).

Dalit Literature, Subaltern Literature or Marginal Literature are complex and controversial terms to explain. But commonly it may be called as ‘Literature of Oppressed’ as it is a literature of pain, suffering, agony and protest.  It has emerged as a thought provoking, ever widening branch of literature in recent days. It deals with the oppression, suffering, psychological turmoil, ambers to overcome the indignities, shed off the backwardness, encompassing the world canvass comprising of the human values of love, aspirations, fulfillment of human needs and appeal to be treated as human being.

The words dalit, subaltern and marginal though complex and different terms refer commonly to the people who are oppressed and discriminated  because of their caste, creed, culture, race, colour, gender or religion. So the literature dealing with such oppressed people should not be categorized as literature produced by those who belong to such category. It is not ‘castiest’ literature but human literature. It can be produced by anyone who believes in human values and dignities. This ‘Literature of Oppressed’ reflected the striving of such people to gain their self-respect, dignity as a human being. Even today in the 21st century they encounter the twin tragedy of social exclusion and violence. Even the most educated emit the venom of untouchability and treat them in a prejudiced way.

The question of subalterns made a host of literary scholars restless and compelled them to ponder over this. Many writers and scholars postulated their views in their own retrospective and tried to unearth the latent concept. This anthology Nation with Discrimination: Literary Voices from the Subalterns echoes this world ridden hegemony through the diverse intellectual and analytical studies of literature across the nation at the hands of multifaceted voices from the various colleges and universities.

The volume is an endeavour to bring before its readers the vast area that Dalit, Subaltern and Marginal Literature has traveled in its journey since beginning. The contributors seriously contemplated on the problems of the outcaste, downtrodden, enslaved and untouchables and urged to make them suitable equivalent with others so that they can join in mainstream of the socio-economic, cultural, modern and civilized society. The shackles of the social evils even in 21st century have not been broken. On paper we can remove untouchablity but the centuries old disgust is still practiced in the society. In order to remove all these shackles, the present intellectual and analytical studies of this literature across the nation at the hands of various colleges and universities scholars will surely help.

New Book...

The present Anthology contains thirty critical papers and one interview dealing with the poems of Toru Dutt, Sarojini Naidu, Nissim Ezekiel, Kamala Das, A.K.Ramanujan, K.N.Daruwala, R.Parthasarthy , Jayant Mahapatra, Chitra Divakaruni, Sanjukta Dasgupta, Mamta Kalia, Eunice de Souza, Agha Shahid Ali,  D.C. Chambial, Syed Ameeruddin, Rajbanshi, lmtiaz Dharker, Dr. A.P. J Abdul Kalam and Dr. A. Padmanaban, Chitra Banerjee   Divakaruni, Shiv K. Kumar, Vikram Seth   and a few others, names both familiar and unfamiliar, writings both explored and unexplored, and in all fairness these papers reflect the perceptions, preferences, prejudices and evaluations of the respective scholars. A proper reading of these critical presentations makes this amply clear that the topics are quite diverse and comprehensive and the manner in which they have been considered brings out the authors’ point of view with dexterity and conviction. It is indeed highly pertinent to discuss contemporary Indo-English Poetry in terms of Ethics and Identity, for this kind of approach does bring out new areas of thought and exploration.

The problem of ‘identity’ in relation to the Indian writing in English has been debated upon for quite a long time now, and yet all this debate leaves something palpably wanting, for the concept of identity takes us straightway to our understanding of Indian Sensibility and of Indianness in Indo-English literature. It is true that this problem springs basically from the use of the so-called ‘alien’ language that is English, in Indian Literature. However, the matter is not as simple as it looks. We may dismiss the flippant charge that English is an ‘alien’ language by stating with due firmness that the erstwhile Colonial or Imperial language is by now one of the accepted Indian languages. Nevertheless, we have to probe deeper and discover the implications of Indian sensibility or Indianness as it finds expression in Indian writing in English. ‘identity’ ‘sensibility’ and ‘Indianness’ are very subtle ,elusive and comprehensive terms,   for they partake not merely of the vehicle of expression  but also of Ethnicity and community, culture, religion, philosophy, history , sociology and anthropology. It is in the light of these vast- ranging disciplines that we may at best try to understand and explain the connotative value of these terms, concepts or ideas. Along with the Indian identity and ethos reflected in Indo-English poetry,  few scholars responded to theme of identity crisis, alienation, rootlessness, existential longing of poets and so on. Such papers are also considered in present anthology.

The term ‘ethics’, as we find it in the title of the book, does have its own significance and meaningfulness. A casual or perfunctory approach to the problem of ethics would not serve our purpose. In a changed and changing world and society, ethics, like tradition, can never remain a static proposition, and naturally so it has to undergo suitable modifications or transformations from time to time. Once again, at this point we come to a continuum of historicity with alterations. What was ethical earlier is not so in the contemporary times and likewise what was unethical in the past has come to acquire new dimensions and perspectives. In the present age of globalization which may be defined also as a living manifestation of East-West encounter, ethical values and standards cannot and should not remain fixed. In the world of literature, whether in Indian writing in English or in regional literatures, these problems are bound to have their necessary impact on the literary creation of our authors, be they poets, novelists, playwrights, or the tellers of short stories. Contemporary Indo-English poetry, luckily enough, is a living and vibrant phenomenon, and an equally living and dynamic assessment of this particular kind of literary creation has been tried to be made in the papers collected, with due and prolonged consideration, in the present anthology.

Present book covers several writers and involves several minds. It is our firm and ardent belief that the readers of this book will enjoy and benefit from these essays, and the book itself will prove to be a substantial contribution to the study of contemporary Indian Poetry in English.   

On the Fringes: Marginalised Voices in English Literature

On the Fringes:

Marginalised Voices in English Literature

ISBN 978-81-7273-657-6

AuthorsPress, New Delhi

 Worldwide Circulation through Authorspress Global Network. The book is also available online on flipkart, infibeam, alibris,  amazon, snapdeal,  ebay, Southasiabooks and so on
First Published in 2012 by Authorspress, New Delhi-110  016

As stated in the Post-Colonial Studies Reader, “Literary Resistance (LR) . . . can be seen as a form of contractual understanding between the text and the reader . . . buttressed by a political and cultural aesthetic at work in the culture. And Resistance Literature (RL) . . . can be seen as that category of literary writing which emerges as an integral part of an organised struggle or resistance for national liberation.”

With both the categories of LR and RL as the backbone of the Postcolonial theory, we know that domination is the mother of resistance and the forces of power-play. Resistance is very much conditioned by those very socio-political forces that it seeks to challenge. The birth of the Post-Colonial theory, underlines two important points:

1) Domination and resistance are mutually interdependent;

2) The Will to Power is central to both.

The difference between LR and RL is subtle and important.  If Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak explores the issue of the “subaltern voice” in one of the foundational texts of Postcolonial Studies: “Can the Subaltern Speak?” and notes that any attempt to recover the voices, perspectives and subjectivities of the socially outcaste is heavily compromised. We also have Frantz Fanon and of course, Homi Bhabha who argue in favour of the pathos of ‘cultural confusion’ so that it can be used as a strategy of political subversion. Notions of the orient “Other” and European “Self” throughout the world- and questions of identity back home and the world over have been effectively tackled by writers like Bhisham Sahni, Shashi Tharoor, Amrinder Kaur, Taslima Nasreen, Manjushree Thapa, Mahasweta Devi and of course, writers of the Dalit literature in India.  Whether it be an analysis of Tawfiq Awwad or Mongane Serote, or our very own Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao, their writing put forth the marginalised subjectivity in literature. How far have the marginalised voices reached? Can they still not speak? Do other social/cultural theories offer a way out of this silence/confusion? How have the marginalised been portrayed in Literature? The present anthology On the Fringes: Marginalised Voices in English Literature attempts to explore such marginalize voices and the problem involved in crushing or establishing the “oppressive power structures”.  

From Bondages to Emancipation: Women in English Literature

From Bondages to Emancipation:

Women in English Literature

ISBN 978-81-7273-656-9

 Worldwide Circulation through Authorspress Global Network. The book is also available online on flipkart, infibeam, alibris,  amazon, snapdeal,  ebay, Southasiabooks and so on

First Published in 2012 by AUTHORSPRESS, New Delhi-110  016



ABOUT BOOK

For all we know, we inhabit the ‘postmodern’ society, where voices clash, react and converge only to split into a cacophonic harmony of new and emerging trends that influence lives as well as cultures. Yet, when it comes to the audibility of women’s voices in the amalgam of sounds, the volume is rather low---is it that they still do not have a voice?...or is it that they speak and we fail to hear them?

Working for women through various platforms gave us both these experiences and it was while ruminating on such issues, the idea of this book From Bondages to Emancipation: Women in English Literature germinated. The experiences of women reflected in literature and the myriad interpretations of those reflections by both men and women readers, seemed to be an interesting opening towards the unlocking of their urges and longings for emancipation through the media of pen and paper. Whether it be the discussion of literary theories or an analysis of literary characters, this book has made an effort to catalogue the power of women’s expressions---both reading and writing. This analysis purports to break the stereotypical belief systems that convince us that the burdens of power are too great to seek and the happiness of powerlessness is too great to leave. The prisons of predictions are broken through efforts that seek to enhance and glorify the individual destinies of women through literature.

If writing in one’s mothertongue can be alternatively deciphered as the continuatin of the idea of a female linguistic/literary heritage; a discussion of alternate models of sexuality seems to openly threaten the ideal of heteronormativism (the idea/belief that heterosexuality is the norm from which any sexual behaviour deviant is condemned as un-natural, immoral and “queer”.) In all forms there registers a strong sense of what Adrienne Rich called the “Lesbian Continuum”, which is nothing but an all-encompassing space wherein all relationships between women, sexual and non-sexual, find articulation and strength. Well, at all levels (and dealing with all forms of feminist articulations) the one thing that perpetually haunted our minds was the defining of women’s creativity as resistance and art...defining it so that the “newly found feminist” thinker in our women readers ( and to quiet an extent in the males as well) would not feel guilty...guilty of being a bad cook, guilty of being a bad mother...or the guilt of being a writer in the first place...when the vegetables were waiting to be washed in the kitchen! Writing is therapeutic, for the researcher as well as the author...and this volume aims to present in a coherent form the pressures of both various bondages  and resistance, both through a reading of the presented texts and their analysis...so that we might once again be able to possibly find a way to women’s voices...women’s emancipation! This was our attempt and we hope this volume turns out to be as such!!

Dr. Arvind M. Nawale

                                              -Dr. Sheeba Rakesh