Rewriting Marginality

2019 ◽  
pp. 220-255
Author(s):  
Douglas Allen
Keyword(s):  
Minority Literature

Focusing on American minority literature, as well as Indian minority literature, how do we understand “marginality,” contextually informed rewriting of marginality, and invaluable contributions of Gandhian hermeneutical challenges? After acknowledging the perspectival nature of rewriting marginality, we examine dynamic open-ended interrelations of literary and other texts, contexts, and interpretations of meaning. We then formulate key Gandhian challenges and contributions in rewriting marginality in both hegemonic and subaltern marginalized contexts. Using major values, concepts, and principles from Gandhi’s philosophy and practice, we analyze how a Gandhian approach to minority literature and rewriting marginality privileges the perspectives of the marginalized oppressed and downtrodden. Most significantly, we analyze how Gandhi’s insightful approach to violence and nonviolence, means-ends relations, and relative-absolute relations of truth and reality is invaluable for challenging us to approach minority literature, multiculturalism, inclusive interrelated pluralism, and rewriting and transforming marginality in way of greatest contemporary significance.

scholarly journals Ecocriticism as Subversive Aesthetics

2019 ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Jelka Kernev Štrajn
Keyword(s):  
Media Studies ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Minority Literature ◽  
Contemporary Theory ◽  
Female Authors ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Literary Art ◽  
Level Of Consciousness

Art is subversive when it crosses the boundary of the generally acceptable, though over time such art can and does become mainstream. A much more complicated question is what is subversive in aesthetics? Ecocriticism has already become, along with ecofeminism and animal studies, an academic discipline. It can be defined as subversive if it is understood in terms of an attitude, which is not anthropocentric. And here is the catch: how can the human also encompass the alien? The question that emerges here is all but rhetorical: how can we decentre and amplify our human consciousness and perspective to include zoocentric, biocentric or geocentric positions? At this point the contemporary theory creates contrasting opinions, which cross the boundaries of aesthetics, poetics and ecocriticism since they reach out to the fields of metaphysics and antimetaphysics. Within the phenomenon of perception the other always appears, as Deleuze said in his Logic of Sense, as “a priori Other”. We have to deal, henceforth, with a kind of pre-reflexive level of consciousness and amplified sensory perception, which, as we know, is the basic condition of artistic creation. Thus, this paper – because it seeks to penetrate into the node of these questions – takes literary art as its starting point. In the spirit of the above-mentioned observations, I have attempted to investigate in ‘minority literature’ (female authors of contemporary Polish and Slovene literature) how this decentred attitude, which Jure Detela, a Slovene poet, poetically defined, corresponds to our thesis on a particular ecocritical stream, which can be defined as an ecofeminist aesthetics. The ‘minoritarian literature’ here is meant exclusively in the sense that was defined by Deleuze and Guattari’s books Kafka and A Thousand Plateaus. Article received: April 12, 2019; Article accepted: July 6, 2019; Published online: October 15, 2019; Original scholarly paperHow to cite this article: Kernev Štrajn, Jelka. "Ecocriticism as Subversive Aesthetics." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 20 (2019): 17-25. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i20.321

scholarly journals WAYS OF DEVELOPMENT OF “MINORITY” LITERATURE: POETRY BY NENETS PROKOPIY YAVTYSY

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 623-632
Author(s):  
Alexey Andreevich Arzamazov
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Studies ◽  
Far East ◽  
Minority Literature ◽  
Literary Traditions ◽  
Far North ◽  
The Far East ◽  
The World ◽  
Poetic Texts ◽  
North Siberia ◽  
Linguistic Phenomenon

The study of the manifold ethnocultural heritage of Russia is one of the paramount tasks, potentially the most important area of Russian humanities. At the same time, the literary traditions of the peoples of our country, representing a unique civilizational integrity, spiritual wealth, are of significant scientific interest. Focusing on the problems of the development of "minority" literature and the contexts of its updating, it must be emphasized that this is a complex and theoretically insufficiently comprehended artistic and aesthetic, ethnopsychological, linguistic phenomenon. It should be recognized that at present there is a need for fundamental comparative studies and the development of new approaches to the study of close and distant cultures, literature, and models of the world. The article discusses the realities of the development of a separate "minority" literature at the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries on the example of poetic texts by the Nenets poet Prokopiy Yavtysy. A brief description of the main stages of the formation of the Nenets literature is given, a number of its key features that are important for heterogeneous typological, comparative studies are highlighted. P. Yavtysy’s work represents a set of artistic features and codes of expressiveness that are common to many literary traditions of the native minorities of the Far North, Siberia, and the Far East, and there are also separate stadial and typological correspondences with Finno-Ugric literature of Russia. The main poetic methods and contexts of Yavtysy’s poems are established, the most representative figurative and symbolic strata, plot and situational blocks are determined, the linguistic and poetic component is interpreted. The deep genetic connection of the poetic system of the Nenets author with the folklore and mythological ideas of the Nenets is emphasized. The question of the influence of socialist realism on the artistic rhetoric of P. Yavtysy is raised. In the article, a separate place is occupied by the problem of translating the works by the Nenets author into Russian.

scholarly journals “You Mix Up the Thinking, and then You Look at the Journey”: ‘Pausing’ to Reflect on Masculinities in a South African Township

2020 ◽  
pp. 1097184X2092587
Author(s):  
Antonella (Toni) Pyke
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
South African ◽  
Black Men ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Minority Literature ◽  
South African Township ◽  
Gender Change ◽  
Men And Masculinity

Changes in political, social, and economic structures in South Africa during the transition from apartheid to democratic governance in 1994 have put men and masculinity/ies under public and scholarly scrutiny. Attention has generally focused on the links between masculinity and violence, particularly among black men from low-income backgrounds, in attempts to understand the widespread levels of sexual violence throughout the country. Together, but in tension with the focus on men and violence, has been a literature that documents gender change in South Africa. This literature argues for example, that men are embracing fatherhood and becoming more engaged in childcare. Nevertheless this is a minority literature that is overshadowed by a focus on men and violence. In this article, I reflect on the lives of a group of men living in Alexandra township in Johannesburg, who are exploring what it means to be a man in a contemporary township setting, and the issues and challenges they face in attempts to transition their masculine identities.

Feminine Writing As A Minority Literature

2009 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 5-26
Author(s):  
Min Gun Kang ◽  
◽  
Joon-Seog Ko
Keyword(s):  
Minority Literature ◽  
Feminine Writing
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