scholarly journals Amitav Ghosh and the Uses of Subaltern History

2015 ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Nandana Dutta
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Amitav Ghosh ◽  
Historical Material ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
Subaltern History ◽  
Historical Necessity ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Historical Practice

The interface between history and fiction has been an area of rich potential for the postcolonial novelist in South Asia and this is evident in the practice of many novelists from the region who have used historical material as backdrop but have also used fiction to comment on recent events in their countries. In this paper I examine the work of Amitav Ghosh as offering a fictional method that has evolved out of his immersion in subaltern historical practice and one that successfully bridges the gap between these two genres. I show this through his deployment of historical material in the three novels, The Shadow Lines (1988), The Glass Palace (2000) and The Hungry Tide (2004), where Ghosh is not simply ‘using’ the subaltern method but pointing to the possibilities of reparation. Ghosh adopts a complex inversion of the subaltern method that involves two processes: one, the selection of small, neglected events from the national story in a concession to subaltern practice –the little narrative against the grand; and two, the neglect by the narrative of some aspect of these stories. He does this by choosing his historical area carefully, keeping some part of it silent and invisible and then meditating on silence as it is revealed as a fictional and historical necessity. I suggest that Ghosh, by retrieving and giving place/voice to the historically repressed event in the fiction, achieves a swerve from simply ‘righting the record’ and releases the marginal as a referent in the present. Such fiction enters the realm of intervention in public discourse, or carries the potential, by introducing considerations that create public consciousness about historical injustices, successfully ‘using’ subaltern history.

scholarly journals Cinnabar, Calomel and the Art of kushtasāzī: Mercurial Preparations in Unani Medicine

2015 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 901-932 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Preckel
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Medical Literature ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Unani Medicine ◽  
Islamic Medicine ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract This paper examines the role of mercury in “Graeco-Islamic” medicine, which is referred to as Ṭibb-e yūnānī or unani medicine in South Asia. Having its origin in Ancient Greece, unani medicine spread to the Arabic countries and from the fifteenth century onwards to India. With its main roots in the Greek and Latin sources, the most influential works of ‘ilm al-adviya (pharmacology) were translated into Arabic, Persian and Urdu. Mercury (Arabic: zībaq; Persian: sīmāb; Urdu: sīmāb and pāra) played an important role in all Indian traditions of medicine, and had a prominent place in unani medicine. This paper highlights the historical use of mercury in Indian, Persian and Urdu medical literature, the discourses on its efficacy and some of the important mercurial preparations presented in a selection of unani works. Further, the use of mercury as a single and compound drug and its role in the treatment of different diseases will be analysed.

scholarly journals Dwelling, Dispossession, and “Slow Violence” in the Time of Climate Change The Representation of Refugees in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide

Il Tolomeo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Pilia
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Human History ◽  
Amitav Ghosh ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Slow Violence ◽  
The Sundarbans

In this essay, I will analyse the crucial issues of dwelling and dispossession concerning refugees in the novel The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh. Political and environmental displacement is addressed within the framework of ‘slow violence’ as proposed by the landmark work of Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (2011). With the intention to define the Morichjhãpi refugees as a foreshadowing of the climate migrations involving the lives of the subalterns in South Asia, as argued by Brandon Jones (2018), the essay provides a historical background of the Morichjhãpi Massacre and studies the forced eviction narrated in the novel through the pages of Nirmal’s diary. Together with Kusum, the Marxist professor experiences the tragedy of the subalterns in the ever-changing ecosystem of the Sundarbans, bridging the gap between environmental and postcolonial categories while providing fruitful insights within the notions of human history and ecological deep time.

scholarly journals Judges’ Virtues and Vices: Outline of a Research Agenda for Legal Theory

2019 ◽  
pp. 51-62
Author(s):  
Tomasz Widłak
Keyword(s):  
Role Models ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Ethical Standards ◽  
Judicial Decision Making ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
The Status ◽  
Selection Of

This article focuses on the issue of applicability of virtue theory to legal theory in civil-law (statutory) jurisdictions and suggests research areas and problems in that respect. The author starts with an assumption that the notion of “virtue” and virtue ethics should be used for the purposes of legal theory starting from references to judicial ethics and normative theory of judicial decision-making. This approach looks especially promising for the purpose of systematizing the chaotic moral language that is being currently used in Poland in reference to judges, their skills, and qualities of their character, which in turn may lead to formulating an explanatory and normative theory of the judicial role that better addresses the observable deficiencies of legal deontology. The author suggests research that could proceed from interpretatively uncovering what are believed to be specific judicial virtues and vices, considering different aspects of the wider Polish and European legal culture of civil law countries (included but not limited to legal and ethical standards, public discourse, legal and other literature, historical and fictional examples, and role models). With respect to judicial ethics, existing virtue theories, including non-eudaimonistic ones, may be examined for the purpose of identifying the model of virtue best suited to the particular nature of the judicial profession. The aretaic (rather than deontological or consequentialist) perspective may enable legal scholarship to take a new path in the debate on the status and qualities of the judiciary, including the problems relating to judicial independence and the selection of candidates for judicial offices.

scholarly journals A Case Report On Vitriolage

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 336-338
Author(s):  
Tamanna Tasmin ◽  
Nasreen Akther ◽  
Asma Begum
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Case Report ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Psychological Abuse ◽  
Medical Science ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Extreme Form ◽  
Public Consciousness

Vitriolage is an extreme form of violence in Bangladesh. The alarming increase in its frequency is a cause of concern. Violence against woman within South Asia includes rape and sexual abuse, trafficking, prostitution, domestic violence, dowry related deaths and psychological abuse. The reported case is of a 25 years old lady affected by acid burn in her face and adjoining part of the head during night while she was sleeping. On medicolegal point of view, the injury was homicidal in nature to run away without having a motive to kill the person. We should create public consciousness against this sort of brutal act. Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science Vol.19(2) 2020 p.336-338

Urban Heritage in Troubled Times

2009 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 20-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Gadsby
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Historical Information ◽  
The Public ◽  
Incomplete Knowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
Urban Heritage ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
The Public Sphere

The terrain of heritage—where the past and present intersect—is one of a few places where anthropological archaeology can become an applied, even activist practice. This is because heritage has a kind of "slippery temporality" about it. On its surface, heritage is about history, or at least the information that we possess about the past. However, heritage happens in the present; it is really the continually evolving result of a set of contemporary ideological practices that help us to order the often confusing and incomplete knowledge we have about the past. Heritage is a story, written or spoken in the present. That story transforms the raw material of historical information into a valueladen narrative about the present. Those narratives make their way into the public consciousness, where they are operationalized in the realm of public discourse. There, in the public sphere, heritage discourses have material consequences for all parties involved.

scholarly journals Creating a Hero . . . Laughing at Clowns? Representations of Sports and Fitness in Soviet Fiction Films after the Olympic U-Turn in Politics

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 108-136
Author(s):  
Andrey Adelfinsky ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Social Adaptation ◽  
Elite Sport ◽  
Feature Films ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sport Industry ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
Positive Representation ◽  
Olympic Sport ◽  
Selection Of

In the 1940s–1960s, the USSR made an ideological turn from leftist sports politics to the struggle for Olympic achievements. How has this U-turn affected the social order in Soviet sport and its artistic repre-sentation? The article offers a systematic review of Soviet sport fiction films. The study of sport and fit-ness imagination is conducted through a correlation between artistic performance and social context. Fo-cusing on the 1950s–1980s, we found three different types of representation: № 1 is the creating of a hero (for an elite athlete). This is the lion’s share of all sport movies where the “Myth of a Hero” in Olympic sport was constructed. In praising elite sport, modern Russian movies continue the well-known Soviet tradition; № 2 is the laughing at clowns (for mass sportsmen). These are mostly episodes in feature films on themes, where mass sport (i.e., non-elite, grassroots, recreational, fitness, and ordinary) is mentioned. Surprisingly, this sport is presented in a comic sense (except hiking and mountaineering); №3 is sport reality. This type comprises the tiniest selection of movies where art reflects the real situation inside the Soviet sport industry. Elite athletes are presented here as antiheroes with social adaptation problems; ad-ditionally, such issues as shamateurism are severely criticized. The conclusions are following: since the 1970s, sport films ceased to function as propaganda of fitness and recreational sport. On the contrary, elite sport (as an art branch), its representations in official arts and media jointly constructed the great “evan-gelical myth” about itself, which became the part of public consciousness. However, this myth had little to do with a new reality. Elite sport’s positive representation acted only as a propagandist tool that created a fictional social world. The existing social order’s irrationality was critically reflected only by the comedy genre.

scholarly journals KURIKULUM PENDIDIKAN SEJARAH DALAM PERSPEKTIF HISTORIS

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zulkarnain Zulkarnain
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
School Curriculum ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Education History ◽  
History Teaching ◽  
Historical Material ◽  
Theory Of History ◽  
Curriculum Education ◽  
Selection Of

AbstrakPenelitian ini bertujuan untuk: (1) mengetahui eksistensi pembelajaran sejarah dalam kurikulum 2013, dan (2) mengetahui bagaimana pengorganisasian pembelajaran sejarah dalam kurikulum pembelajaran sejarah dilihat dari perspektif historis. Metode yang digunakan peneliti dalam penulisan sejarah ini adalah metode penelitian menurut Kuntowijoyo. Adapun tahapan penelitian sejarah menurut Kuntowijoyo mempunyai lima tahap yaitu pemilihan topik, heuristik, verifikasi, interpretasi, dan penulisan. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa materi sejarah dimasukkan dalam kurikulum sekolah untuk membangun kohesi dan identitas nasional, serta pewarisan nilai, etika, dan budaya kepada peserta didik. Pengorganisasian materi berkaitan dengan penguasaan konsep atau tema besar yang diambil dari disiplin ilmu sosial serta penggunaan teori sejarah atau disiplin ilmu sosial. Konsep perubahan (change), kesinambungan (continuity), konflik, revolusi, interdependensi, relasi sosial, status dan peranan, budaya, masyarakat, peradaban, dan lain-lain dapat menjadi tema dalam pembelajaran sejarah. Konsep dapat membantu memahami berbagai objek, peristiwa, gagasan, fenomena, serta dapat digunakan untuk memecahkan masalah.Kata Kunci: kurikulum, pendidikan, sejarah, historis.  AbstractThis study aims to: (1) know the existence of the teaching of history in the curriculum of 2013, and (2) determine how to organize the teaching of history in the curriculum of history teaching viewed from a historical perspective. The method the researchers used in the writing of this history is a research method according to Kuntowijoyo. The stages of historical research according to Kuntowijoyo has five stages, namely the selection of topics, heuristic, verification, interpretation, and writing. The results showed that the historical material included in the school curriculum to build cohesion and national identity, as well as the inheritance of values, ethics, and culture to students. Organizing the material related to the mastery of concepts or major themes drawn from social science disciplines as well as the use of the theory of history or social science discipline. The concept of change (change), continuity (continuity), conflict, revolution, interdependence, social relations, status and roles, culture, society, civilization, and others can become a theme in the teaching of history. The concept could help understand a variety of objects, events, ideas, phenomena, and can be used to solve problems.Keywords: curriculum, education, history, historical.

Indo-Persian narrative literature: Cultural translation and rewriting of Indian stories in Persianate South Asia

2020 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 387-412
Author(s):  
Pegah Shahbaz
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Codes Of Conduct ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Cultural Adaptations ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Narrative Tradition ◽  
Narrative Literature ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract The present article aims to study the translation and rewriting process of Indian narratives in Persian during the Delhi Sultanate (1206–1526) and the Mughal period (1526–1858), and to examine their cultural adaptations and strategies of adjustment to the Muslim recipient culture involving a reciprocal exchange of literary and cultural elements and religious interpretations. In the first stage, the features of Indo-Persian narrative tradition are briefly introduced with regards to structure and integral themes and in the second, the acculturation of Indian elements will be analysed according to Islamic principles and mystical thoughts in a selection of literary texts produced by Muslim Persian scholars. The article will focus on the representations of gender in stories and the perception of justice in the Perso-Islamic context to see, in particular, how narratives carried across Indian rituals and women’s codes of conduct to the Muslim readership; in other words, we try to shed light on how the alienated Indian became domesticated in the Persian-Muslim world of thought.

scholarly journals Environmental Security in South-Asia

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-30
Author(s):  
Chandra Pandey
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
National Security ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Environmental Security ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Individual State ◽  
Major Factors ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Combined Impact

The proposition that climate change will engender anxieties for international security has become profound in public discourse over two decades. This paper discusses the concerns of environmental security in South Asia. It examines different meanings of environmental security to explain how it is associated with national security of the states in the region. Three major factors of environmental security problems are considered. Firstly, how environmental change can affect human security. Secondly, how environmental change can turn into violent conflict and thirdly, how the combined impact of these two variables affect the developmental concerns and national security of the individual state in South Asia.

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