Hybridity and Colonial Desire: A Postcolonial Perspective on Translations by Brian Friel (Published)
In the postmodern world there is a need to address how European nations managed to subdue and reign over the cultures, also the consequences of colonialism on cultures and societies. So this paper will analyze Brian Friel’s Translations through a postcolonial outlook. The present study posits postcolonial perspective on Translations through characters and themes. The destructive nature of Western imperialism is highlighted through the characters of Lieutenant Yolland, Maire, Owen and Captain Lancey. The paper will exclusively look on the postcolonial concepts as employed in the play through the key terms of appropriation, hybridity, mimicry, hegemony, and exoticism as put forward by Homi K. Bhabha and Gramsci.
Keywords: Hegemony, Hybridity, Mimicry, Postcolonialism, appropriation, exoticism
Amitav Ghosh’s “history” is a threshold in Re-Constructing National and Cultural Identity: A Study (Published)
As is well-known, history is often shaped by the socio-political perspectives of the Colonizers and therefore, the narratives generated by colonial history must utilize both the author’s imagination and empirical or factual research to create a broader view of historical reality. Amitav Ghosh, one of the most promising Indian writers writing in English has amazingly blended “history” with fiction which is profoundly attached to the re-construction of identity of the people in our postcolonial world. Indeed, one of the important concerns of historical reconstruction in modern third world literature is re-imagining the cultural cartography through the re-formation of national and cultural identities in the wake of emerging nation-states in the post imperial era. This paper clearly indicates how colonial history is incisively connected to the question of reforming national and cultural identity in today’s postcolonial reality.
Keywords: Globalization, Postcolonialism, east-west trope, geographical boundary, history, national and cultural identity
Kamila Shamsie’s Novel “Burnt Shadows”: A Discourse of Traumatic Displacement (Published)
Kamila Shamsie, a Pakistani English fiction writer in her epic novel, Burnt Shadows (2009), covers more than half a century, from fatal day of atomic bombing on 9th August 1945 at Nagasaki in World War II to the 9/11/ 2001 attack on World Trade Centre and the post-9/11 world. This study explores the traumatic displacement of innocent humans because of the major historical events caused by the world power politics. A Series of traumatic displacement is presented through the stories of two families which consist of individuals of various nationalities and a number of cross-cultural relationships. Norman Fairclough’s (1995) interpretative framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) has been used to uncover the traumatic impacts of the misuse of power which according to Van Dijk(1990) is the most prominent theme of CDA. Postcolonial context of the writer and the text and inherent ideology and power relations embedded in the text have been explored. The outcome of this academic discussion provides a tapestry of emotional, psychological and social challenges caused by traumatic displacement and the enormity of damage it causes in the life of the poor victims.
Keywords: Displacement, Postcolonialism, Power Politics, Trauma
DOING RESEARCH IN THE POSTMODERN AGE: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES (Published)
The first part of this paper seeks to explicate the postmodernist tendency to explore what they call ‘mininarratives’ in their scheme of ideas. It also attempts to justify the need to do research on the emerging alternatives, indigenous and postcolonial literatures and cultures. The second part of the paper analyzes the challenges a research scholar faces while conducting a research on this comparatively fresh field of study. Since there is a dearth of research materials in most of the traditional libraries, one may find them in the web resources. The challenge posed before a research scholar is how to collect such information from the web resources. The paper is an innovative inquiry into this new horizon of online data collection and analysis procedure. The results of this qualitative study foreground the intricacies of judging the quality, authenticity and reliability of the web- based resources
Keywords: E-Books, Online Libraries, Online Research, Postcolonialism, Postmodernism, Web-Based Resources.