scholarly journals FOOD AS A CONCEPT OF CULTURE AND INDIAN CODE IN JHUMPA LAHIRI`S WRITING

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (21) ◽  
Author(s):  
Olha V. Yalovenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
National Culture ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Eating Habits ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
Indian Culture ◽  
Cultural Affiliation ◽  
Cultural Phenomenon ◽  
Daily Food ◽  
Jhumpa Lahiri ◽  
Cultural Code

The purpose of the article is to analyze the culinary concept with Indian gastronomy code analysis in the context of the transcultural paradigm in Jhumpa Lahiri`s writing (an American writer of Bengali origin). In the article we used the following methods: cultural and historical (defining the role and place of Lahiri`s writing in US literature of the twentieth century), historical and typological (determining the specifics of themes, motifs, images, story features of the writer`s works), functional (clarifying the features of Lahiri`s poetics), hermeneutic (interpretation of various aspects of the literary text), narratological analysis (specifics` analysis of Lahiri`s narrative manner), biographical (revealing the reflection of author`s personal experience in her writing), the principles of postcolonial and decolonial criticism (rethinking the problem of �otherness� in transculture discourse). The author of the article notes that food serves as conditional language for characters and as cultural code that interprets by �ours� only � Indian culture representatives. It is indicated that in the context of transcultural understanding, food and the process of its preparation are of particular importance: usual home-cooked dishes are synonymous of protection, security, peace, belonging to one�s home; instead, the presence of �other� exotic dishes makes it possible to get acquainted with the culinary preferences of another culture, as well as to trace the basic similarities and differences.Therefore, cultural culinary differences are found in the kitchen, where the characters are accustomed to spend most of the day and especially carefully prepare the dishes. An interpretation of cooking as a true art is associated with Jhumpa Lahiri`s marginalized / border characters: you need to remember how much, when, and what kind of spices add to the dishes. As a true Bengali women, the characters skillfully prepare �their� traditional dishes. As a result of cooking of two dozen dishes, the smell of mutton curry and pulao (a traditional Indian vegetable pilaf) is especially heard in the rooms. There is a �cultural mix� in the kitchen: Indian dishes are prepared with the help of American household appliances. The �food� concept embodies a cultural phenomenon and allows understanding the features of national Indian cuisine; it is a cultural code that gives meaningful information. The semantic structure of lexical units that fill the �food� concept in Lahiri`s works, as well as cultural and value aspects of this concept are widely represented. It is important to distinguish between home-made daily food or holiday treats, and food as an element of Indian national culture. The writer describes in detail the traditional Indian dishes and the usual, hastily prepared, daily American ones. The reader gets a complete picture of the traditional festive dishes of Indian cuisine. Thus, the structure of the �food� concept can be represented as follows: the names of traditional everyday food (Americans and Bengalis) and traditional American and Bengali holiday dishes. Food is directly connected with gender issues. Eating habits and the way of cooking determine a woman`s identity as well as her difference. Food emphasizes woman`s cultural affiliation: in Lahiri`s writing it is shown that food serves as sacred ritual and art for Indians, in contrast to the American habit of hunger satisfying with semi-finished products. It is noticeable that within Lahiri`s texts the verb �to eat� has a lot of synonyms: to consume, to guzzle, to have, to lunch, to be full of something, to throw down, etc. Using such a variety of lexical and semantic series of one verb, the author reveals the characters` attitude towards traditional Indian cuisine. But what important is not what synonymous series of the word �food� the author uses, but that it conveys Indian culinary customs and traditions. Expressing not meaning but sense, food continues to be an element of Indian national culture.

Jhumpa Lahiri’s World of Fiction

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
Pratima Shah
Keyword(s):  
Indian Culture ◽  
The Real ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri is one of the most dynamic and enthusiastic writers among her contemporaries, She is definitely blessed with rare kind of art which she has achieved by virtue of her incessant labour and courage. Although she was born and brought up in the foreign countries, her attachment with India and the Indians became indispensable, which can easily be noticed all through her work. Lahiri subsequently developed her own technicalities, which she deployed in her fictional works. She is heartily associated with Indian culture and traditions, and this is the real cause for her huge popularity and fame.  

Dieva īpašību atainojums latviešu tautasdziesmās teopoētikas kontekstā

2020 ◽  
pp. 390-404
Author(s):  
Eva Mārtuža
Keyword(s):  
Personal Experience ◽  
Folk Songs ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Specific Expression ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Intellectual Activity ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Cultural Phenomenon ◽  
Perceptions Of God

An innovative view to theological texts as a literary genre has been established in research of the modern religions and designated as theopoetics, because, irrespective of whether a theological text is written in the poetic genre, in the form of a story or the style of a more dense, theoretical prose, it is based on the poesis: innovative, intuitive and an imaginary composition of the authors where the central figure is God. Therefore, approximately ten thousand recorded and published folk songs, as well as other Latvian folklore texts about God, are equal to theopoetics as a genre of creative writing with its specific expression tools. Folk songs are a product of purposeful human spiritual/intellectual activity and imagination, a typical cultural phenomenon of the relevant society, which helps to study the public’s views about the perception of God. To approach adequately to analysis and interpretation of such texts, in the late 20th century, a new method of research on religious texts – theopoetics – was established. Theopoetics is a method of analysing religious texts that encourages us to look at the ancient metaphors of God from another angle. It explores the language possibilities of figuratively creating God’s patterns, unlike the previous “scientific” God’s theories as the systematic attempt of theology to find God through the living (“incarnated”) God. Theopoetics theorists accept reality as a source of divine revelation as well as personal experience and metaphor-influenced divine understanding in various religions. This method allows to establish the essence and possible interpretations of the basic metaphors used in every individual religion: 1) critically weigh up the previous explanations of God; 2) study the interaction of applied metaphors, models and concepts within religion; 3) offers the potential of transformative, revolutionary models, using the language and metaphor layer that is widely understandable and used by people in everyday life. Research of metaphors does not impose objective or general criteria for assessing understanding of God; therefore, the aim of theopoetical discourse is not to prevent competing interpretations but to multiply the number of perceptions of God, to extend the emotional feeling, and to reveal new opinions. Folk songs figuratively represent God in metaphors and comparisons, but the theopoetics method has not been applied in the previous studies of God either because it is a relatively new methodological system, or because God’s perception in the folk songs has not been the focus of researchers of contemporary religions.

scholarly journals AB0317 ADHERENCE TO MEDITERRANEAN DIET AND NUTRITIONAL STATE IN ITALIAN WOMEN WITH ISOLATED SJÖGREN’S SYNDROME

2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (Suppl 1) ◽  
pp. 1183.2-1184
Author(s):  
R. Izzo ◽  
S. Colafrancesco ◽  
A. Pinto ◽  
A. Gattamelata ◽  
F. Giardina ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
Disease Activity ◽  
International Physical Activity Questionnaire ◽  
Eating Habits ◽  
Nutritional State ◽  
Walking Test ◽  
Focus Score ◽  
Daily Food ◽  
Anti Inflammatory ◽  
Activity Questionnaire

Background:The Mediterranean Diet (MD) has anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effects1,2 suggesting a protective role in rheumatic diseases. There is limited knowledge about the eating habits and the nutritional state in patients with isolated Sjögren Syndrome (SS) living within the Mediterranean area.Objectives:assessment of adherence to the MD and analysis of the nutritional state in women with SS and their correlations with the clinical, laboratory and histological data of the disease.Methods:patients classified as isolated SS according to AECG criteria 20023 who had undergone to minor salivary gland biopsy during the previous twelve months were consecutively enrolled during follow-up visits. The adherence to the MD was assessed by the Med Diet (MDiet)4 which includes eleven groups of foods; to each group is assigned a value ranging between 0 and 5 based on the frequency of monthly intake. The total score spans from 0 (poor adherence) to 55 (maximum adherence). The level of physical activity was measured by the 6-minutes walking test (6MWT) and by the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ). Systemic disease activity was evaluated with the EULAR SS disease activity index (ESSDAI); EULAR SS patient-reported index (ESSPRI) was calculated as well. A subgroup of patients was asked to fill a daily food diary processed with FOOD CONS software which allows to study in detail their eating habits. Nutritional state, muscle strength and basal metabolic rate were assessed. Alcoholism or drug abuse, diabetes mellitus, specific dietary models, treatment with drugs and/or food supplements with anti-inflammatory and/or antioxidant activity were considered exclusion criteria. Multivariate linear regression was performed with R project for Statistical Computing.Results:N= 40 N= 26Age, median (range) 53 (25-80) 33 (25-71)BMI, median (range) 21 (19-29.3) 25.1 (19-33.7)MedDiet score, median (range) 33 (26-43) 33 (23-40)ESSDAI, median (range) 2 (0-16) 1 (0-16)ESSPRI, median (range) 6 (0-8.6) 5.3 (1.6-9)ESSPRI dryness, median (range) 6 (0-10) 6 (2-10)Focus score, median (range) 2.5 (0-9.6) 1.7 (0.8-6.24)ASM kg, median (range) - 16.8 (13.3-21.7)IPAQ meters, median (range) - 1386 (99-11865)6MWT meters, median (range) - 595 (536-680)BMI, body mass index; ASM appendicular skeletal mass; IPAQ International Physical Activity Questionnaire; 6MWT, six minute walking test.MDiet was administered to 40 female SS outpatients. Even if not reaching significativity, patients with a higher focus score in their MSG have a lower value of MDiet score (p = 0.058, r = -1.00). The MDiet score is not associated with ESSDAI (p = 0.85, r 0.02), but only with lower serum levels of C3 (p = 0.004, r = - 0.08).In 26 patients, daily food questionnaire shows that their diet consists of 43% of carbohydrates while fats represent 40% of total energy intake, the remaining 17% daily energy comes from proteins. Fat consumption is higher compared to the levels of energy and nutrient intake for the Italian population5. Six patients had a reduction in muscle mass; sarcopenia is not associated to ESSDAI (p = 0.610).The MDiet score and the amount eaten of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) were reduced in patients with high value of subscale dryness of ESSPRI (p = 0.057, r -1.21; p =0.610, r -1.00).Conclusion:This study highlights a lower degree of glandular lymphocytic infiltration (expressed as focus score) in minor salivary glands in patients following MD, so its anti-inflammatory role of seems to be confirmed. SS patients have an unbalanced diet because of a higher intake of fat foods, likely for their lubricating effect. Despite the absence of correlation with objective parameters, the increased dryness in patients with a reduced intake of PUFA arouses our interest in a future study including omega-3 supplementation.References:[1]Schwingshackl L et al., Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis 2014[2]Mena MP et al., Am J Clin Nutr. 2009[3]Vitali C et al, ARD 2002[4]Panagiotakos D et al., J Med Food 2007[5]LARN 2014Disclosure of Interests:None declared

Traditional costume as a cultural code: iconography, symbolic and semantics (on the example of a women’s costume)

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 206-212
Author(s):  
Elvira Fayzullina ◽  
◽  
Tatyana Khristidis ◽  
Keyword(s):  
National Culture ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Structural Components ◽  
Creative Practice ◽  
Cultural Information ◽  
Cultural Codes ◽  
Symbolic Structure ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cultural Code ◽  
Over Time

The article is devoted to the research of the traditional costume as the material embodiment of the cultural code. The semantic-symbolic structure of a traditional costume undoubtedly reflects significant cultural information about its owner: social and age status, gender, self-awareness, etc. All this together reflects the cultural code of one or another national culture. From the perspective of this research, the traditional women’s costume of the peoples of Eurasia, which, in the opinion of researchers, allows even deeper understanding of the popularity of its motifs in the creative practice of modern designers. In the article, the very history of the emergence and evolution of the basic elements of a traditional women’s costume is considered as a kind of reflection of cultural codes. The researching on the basis of functionality expressed in everyday, festive, ceremonial and ritual functions of clothes is likened to structural components of a cultural code. At the same time, one can trace how over time the iconography, symbolism and semantics associated with his transition from one category to another change in a costume.

scholarly journals The Cultural Code in Terms of Translation Activity

2020 ◽  
pp. 18-31
Author(s):  
Nikokay Baryshev ◽  
◽  
Vadim Sdobnikov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
National Security ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
National Culture ◽  
Professional Competence ◽  
Present Condition ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Younger Generation ◽  
Cultural Code

The article discusses the cultural code as a component of the general professional competence of translators and interpreters, postulating that the success of any given translation activity depends on the degree to which the translator knows the cultural code, viewed here as knowledge of key quotations, personalities, and dates. It also argues that a country’s national security depends upon the degree to which the population has mastered the country’s cultural code. The authors have conducted a survey among students of a Russian university to determine the degree to which they possess the Russian cultural code. The results of the survey reveal that the respondents’ mastery of the cultural code is weak and inadequate, and thus they are not prepared to perform translation activity with required accuracy. The authors conclude that potential erosion of the cultural code poses a threat to national security and results in the destruction of the nation’s geopolitical code. Theoretical relevance of the research lies in the authors’ attempt to estimate the present condition of the collective memory and the population’s mastery of the Russian cultural code as reflected in the younger generation as well as in determining the dependence of the country’s national security, firstly, on the degree to which the population has mastered the cultural code and, secondly, on the population’s grasp of its national identity. The practical value of this research project lies in the new additional challenges it sets for those who are involved in training translators and interpreters, calling educators to revise and improve current methods of teaching translation in view of the obvious insufficiency of students’ knowledge of their national culture.

scholarly journals "But you're Indian!" Cultural Hybridity and Assimilation in The Namesake

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sura Mohammad Khrais
Keyword(s):  
Personal Growth ◽  
Western Society ◽  
Cultural Hybridity ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Indian Culture ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Cultural Challenges ◽  
Homi Bhabha ◽  
Jhumpa Lahiri

This paper is a study of the cultural struggle and conflict survived by the protagonists in The Namesake (2003) by Jhumpa Lahiri as they move from their native land to America. It is an application of the theoretical concepts of hybridity and assimilation, as discussed in post-colonial criticism by critics such as Homi Bhabha. The researcher will discuss how the three main characters finally manage to develop new anti-monolithic models of cultural growth and exchange. As a result, they succeed in embracing a new culture while protecting their Bengali heritage. The novel depicts the life of an Indian couple (Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli) who settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1968. It describes the cultural challenges the heroine faces as she struggles to accommodate to a new Western society. Ashima clings tightly to her Bengali roots and identity, a fact which becomes apparent through the dilemma caused over naming their first baby. However, to survive the challenges of Massachusetts' society, Ashima welcomes its culture to a certain extent. Thus, she succeeds in overcoming feelings of loneliness and displacement. On the other hand, Ashoke's adjustment is less complicated. Although he copes with the new Western life faster, his respect for his native traditions is daily observed. His resentment of his children's attempt to give up their native identity is heartbreaking. Early in the novel, Gogol rejects symbols of his Indian culture, and later he repudiates his parents' style of life. Finally and after his father's death, Gogol's personal growth is associated not only with him welcoming his native culture, but also embracing both cultures in an excellent example of cultural hybridity.

scholarly journals Scrivere di Islam

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Brioni ◽  
Shirin Ramzanali Fazel
Keyword(s):  
National Culture ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
White Male ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
News Reports ◽  
Muslim Immigrants ◽  
Collaborative Exploration ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Narrative Forms

Scrivere di Islam. Raccontare la diaspora (Writing About Islam. Narrating a Diaspora) is a meditation on our multireligious, multicultural, and multilingual reality. It is the result of a personal and collaborative exploration of the necessity to rethink national culture and identity in a more diverse, inclusive, and anti-racist way. The central part of this volume – both symbolically and physically – includes Shirin Ramzanali Fazel’s reflections on the discrimination of Muslims, and especially Muslim women, in Italy and the UK. Looking at school textbooks, newspapers, TV programs, and sharing her own personal experience, this section invites us to change the way Muslim immigrants are narrated in scholarly research and news reports. Most importantly, this section urges us to consider minorities not just as ‘topics’ of cultural analysis, but as audiences and cultural agents. Following Shirin’s invitation to question prevailing modes of representations of immigrants, the volume continues with a dialogue between the co-authors and discusses how collaboration can be a way to avoid reproducing a ‘colonial model’ of knowledge production, in which the white male scholar takes as object of analysis the work of an African female writer. The last chapter also asserts that immigration literature cannot be approached with the same expectations and questions readers would have when reading ‘canonised’ texts. A new critical terminology is needed in order to understand the innovative linguistic choices and narrative forms that immigrant writers have invented in order to describe a reality that has lacked representation or which has frequently been misrepresented, especially in the discourse around the contemporary Muslim diaspora.

scholarly journals CULTURAL UNIQUENESS OF THE COMIC MODE: ARTISTIC STRATEGIES AND SIGN CODE (BASED ON THE PLAYS OF N. KOLYADA AND O. BOGAEV)

2021 ◽  
pp. 39-43
Author(s):  
Olga Fialkovskaya
Keyword(s):  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Cultural Tradition ◽  
Binary Opposition ◽  
Semiotic System ◽  
Cultural Phenomenon ◽  
Compositional Structure ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
Cultural Code ◽  
The Aesthetic

In the modern socio-cultural space, which is based on globalization processes, the principles of transculturalism and technocentrism, the idea of comprehension of the cultural code and value absolute manifestly comes itself to the forefront. The comic beginning as an aesthetic and cultural phenomenon is a way of expressing the value worldview system, it is verbalized as an ethno-marked substrate in the axiological picture of the world of the people. The article is devoted to the comprehension of the mode of the comic on the basis of the plays "The old hare" of N. Kolyada and "33 happiness" of O. Bogaev. This category is studied in the aesthetic and philosophical context as a way of dialogue with traditions, the search for national archetypes and overcoming the socio-cultural crisis. The dominant features of the poetics of the comic beginning, which is significantly complicated by philosophical searches are determined using the following artistic strategies: carnivalization (a system of images, models of heroes, linguistic experimentalism, plot-compositional beginning), irony, grotesque, binary opposition (tragic – comic), defamiliarisation, game intertextual beginning as a way of comprehending the cultural tradition and dialogue with the classics, mythologization, intermediality, artistic technique of the mask, trickster myth, the Menippean nature of the text canvas, the compositional structure of theater-in-the-theater, the motive of repetition. The signs of the semiotic system are analyzed as a way of expressing transitional thinking and the implementation of an axiological picture of the world: a goldfish (a symbol of deification of a miracle), an old man and an old woman (national archetypes, images of fairy-tale heroes), "Public Paradise", "Chungova Changa" (mythological codification, symbols of Paradise, resurrection of the soul), a hare (a symbol of a lost man in a crazy, insane world, a metaphor of a "little man"), a "dancing negrito" (a symbol of a "divine puppet", "a wonderful doll of the Gods"), a black beetle (a sign of an imminent meeting of heroes, a symbol of a lost soul, the semantics of crossing the semiotic border), a cat (a symbol of loneliness, wildness), "legs on a frosty window" (a symbol of a "little man").

scholarly journals Dance in Indian culture: A cosmic manifestation of divine creation and a path to liberation

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 15-25
Author(s):  
Adriana Simoncelli
Keyword(s):  
Performing Arts ◽  
Original Form ◽  
Emotional Communication ◽  
Indian Culture ◽  
Cultural Affiliation ◽  
European Culture ◽  
Time Cycle ◽  
First Time ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
Material Evidence

Dance is a human cultural activity aimed at non-verbal emotional communication, mentioned for the first time in the circle of European culture by Homer in the Iliad (8th/7th century BC). In Indian culture — the most extensive one of four contemporary civilizations of antiquity (next to Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Chinese), whose cradle is the Indus Valley Civilization — the first material evidence of the presence of dance is dated between 2300–1750 BC. It is a bronze statuette of a dancing girl, making us aware of the fact that this type of activity has accompanied people since the dawn of time, regardless of their origin and cultural affiliation. India and its oldest religion, Hinduism, have made this art highly prized because of its original, pure spiritual character. The first treatise entirely devoted to dance, entitled Natyashastra (Treatise on Performing Arts), was written according to tradition between the 2nd century BC and the 2nd century AD, although many premises indicate that its beginnings date back to the 5th century BC, and the final version — to around 5th century AD. Its author was Bharata Muni, an ancient sage, theatrologist and musicologist who allegedly received knowledge of arts from the god Brahma himself to create a symbolic representation of the world which, by showing good and evil, would persuade both the viewers and the performers to act ethically. From Natyashastra it appears that dance was created by the gods for their worship. In its most original form, dance grew out of the sacrificial ritual, hence the knowledge of it was secret, highly codified and communicated in strict confidentiality. The patron of the dance and its divine performer par excellence is the god Shiva in the aspect of Nataraja (Lord of the Dance), who in one image combines god as the creator, protector and destroyer of the universe, while simultaneously containing the Indian concept of an endless time cycle. Accurate recreation of the mythical dance initiated by Shiva guarantees that the faithful achieve salvation by overcoming sin, ignorance, and laziness represented by the demon Apasmara, on whom the god treads in a dancing trance. For the Indian Hindu culture dance has a highly important ritualistic and mystical meaning, hence it is also present along with music and singing, which is a melodic recitation of sacred verses, in all literature, from the Vedas (sacred books of Hinduism), through encyclopedic Puranas, to epics such as Mahabharata and Ramayana. Dance is indispensable to the theater as well as visual and audiovisual arts, brings relief to those in mourning and sorrow, leads to liberation from samsara (the wheel of incarnations), and is a reflection of divinity in its purest, most dynamic manifestation: movement. Thanks to dance being a rejection of oneself, entering a mystical trance, one can connect with the Absolute here on Earth and experience divinity.

Mountstuart Elphinstone and Indian Education

2019 ◽  
pp. 167-182
Author(s):  
Lynn Zastoupil
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Educational Policy ◽  
National Culture ◽  
Indian Education ◽  
Western India ◽  
Indian Culture ◽  
Indian People ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The One ◽  
Language Literature

Mountstuart Elphinstone was widely lauded by his contemporaries for his progressive views and advanced policies regarding education whilst he held senior colonial positions in western India from 1817 until 1827. The creation of Elphinstone College in his honor exemplifies this. This essay is an exploration of Elphinstone's educational views and policies, paying attention to various influences that explain his distinctive approach to education. These influences included the East India Company's ethos of pragmatic respect for Indian culture, religion and mores; educational policy and debates in contemporary British Bengal; Scotland's parish schools and Adam Smith's use of these to defend state-sponsored education; and German Romantic ideas regarding language, literature and national culture. The chapter concludes with Elphinstone's larger vision of a political education that would lead the Indian people to eventual independence but leave Britain with a "moral empire" that might rival the one that outlasted the Roman Empire.

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