A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF GENDER SUBJECTIVITY IN HENRY JAMES’ THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY

Reassessment and interpretation of gender dynamics in the current social order has been prevalent theme within gender discourses. The yoke of subordination borne by women as readers, writers or fictional characters in the patriarchal pyramid occupies a central space across the whole spectrum of debates. This study utilizes a qualitative mode of inquiry which is centered on textual analysis. The present study evaluates the instances of gender subjectivity and patterns of subjugation within the textual arena invested with hegemonic ideologies as depicted in the novel The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James. The paper employs feminist critical discourse analysis as a tool to analyze The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James in order to dissect the underlying ideologies present in the Victorian time period and investigates discourses of subjectivity. The findings of the study demonstrate that notwithstanding temporal advancements, gender power structures remain intact, and women continue to suffer under patriarchal power structures. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0874/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Right to Pray

Focusing on cultural restrictions on women’s access to the garbhagriha in specific Hindu temples in India, this paper attempts to contextualize the wider debates around gender in faith-based practices and the confrontation between the ‘right to pray’ movement and its opponents. It reviews the complexities of practising public religion in a democratic nation. In the ambit of the contemporary feminist movement, activism has been initiated for reclaiming space for women in the realm of religion and faith. This was most clearly demonstrated in the women-led right to pray movement. The movement has been continuously evolving in local spaces and remains diversified across public places of worship. Debates around the exclusion of women have required the judiciary to reinterpret the relation between public temples and the equality proclaimed by the Constitution. By looking at the Sabarimala and Shani Shingnapur temple protests, this paper reflects on the conflict between activism and faith traditions. It charts the legal outcomes, local responses, political tensions, and the associated gender subjectivity. It attempts to revisit the role of women as recipients rather than agents of religion in public spaces, while extending the arguments to other aspects of ritual.

Primed for Suffering: Gender, Subjectivity, and Spectatorship in Spanish Crisis Cinema

Examining three fiction films (Techo y comida, Ayer no termina nunca, and Magical Girl), this essay illuminates the traces of the economic crisis in recent Spanish cinema, focusing on how it is inscribed on female-gendered bodies and subjectivities. In exploring how female pain accumulates across the boundaries of genre in these disparate films, it asks what kind of gendered subjects these films construct, and what work women's suffering is asked to perform, both for the benefit of the film's plot and the spectator's engagement. It shows how, even in cinema sympathetic to those devastated by crisis, women are cast as disposable raw material, as it were, “primed for suffering.” At the same time, it argues, these films bring to light and embody experiences that are seldom revealed, enacting an ethical gesture of potential solidarity with those devastated by multiple forms of crisis.

Gender uncoupled: Asexual people making sense of high school sex talk

Sociologists have documented sex talk as a crucial mechanism in the reproduction of heteronormativity in schools. In this highly sexualized context, how did asexual people make sense of sex talk? Drawing upon 21 retrospective interviews with asexual adults (between 18 and 31 years of age), I examined their accounts of sex talk in high school. Contrary to expectation, most of my respondents did not link sex talk to issues of masculinity/femininity, but instead framed it as about discovery of asexual identity, friendship, immaturity and inappropriate conduct, and/or simply meaningless noise. I suggest that the diverse range of gender ideologies and abundance of gender-coded symbols in our society enabled many respondents to assert asexuality-compatible femininities/masculinities, foreclose potential gender dilemmas, and retain a sense of security in their gender subjectivity. While the diverse narratives of sex talk encounters remind sociologists to appreciate asexual people’s heterogenous experiences, the possibility of subjectively degendering sex talk and desexualizing gender challenges sociologists to adopt a multidimensional approach to understand gendered sexuality.

Motherhood in the Realm of Eastern Indian and Himalayan Art: An Iconographic Study of Visual Forms of Prajñāpāramitā from the National Museum, Delhi

This paper aims to outline and explore the development of iconographic forms and metaphysical grounding of one of the most venerable and distinguished Buddhist female deities, Prajсāpāramitā. The Buddhist female pantheon gained a paramount pre-eminence with the idolization of Prajñāpāramitā, establishing the significance of female figure and, especially, mother symbolism during the early medieval period under the liberal patronage of the Pala dynasty of Eastern India. The religious imageries and practices of this deity gradually disseminated to the adjoining Himalayan kingdoms of Nepal and Tibet through pedagogic and religious linkages, and became an integral part of their society. To understand the factors of cross-cultural assimilation through the study of representational forms and its metaphysical grounding, the paper explores and shows the metaphorical meaning of ‘prajсā’ propounded in the Prajñāpāramitā discourse, and its representation in cultic icons of the goddess Prajñāpāramitā and the manuscript. This thematic narrative opens up new avenues of interpretations on gender-subjectivity in Buddhist cosmology and pantheistic belief system which are touched upon in this paper. The idea of pronouncement and expansion of female-oriented texts and icons is highlighted through a study of select devotional icons of this deity, Prajсāpāramitā, from the collection of the National Museum, Delhi.

Seksualitas dalam tubuh bergender

Media populer seperti film animasi atau anime menawarkan arena kontestasi. Penelitian ini menganalisis anime berjudul Kimi no Na Wa (2016) sebagai sebuah arena dengan melihat beberapa adegan tertentu. Tujuannya adalah untuk melihat bagaimana subjektivitas gender dan perbedaan seksual itu dibentuk di dalam anime ini. Dengan menggunakan metode psikoanalisis feminis film dari Laura Mulvey dan Kaja Silverman, penelitian ini menyimpulkan bahwa struktur naratif dalam anime ini masih dipengaruhi oleh male bias. Hal ini berpengaruh pada bagaimana pembentukan subjektivitas gender yang menjadikan perempuan sebagai objek tatapan sedangkan laki-laki sebagai subjek yang menatap. Selain itu, kamera yang bias gender berpotensi menciptakan tatapan yang sama dari penonton (terutama laki-laki heterseksual) kepada karakter perempuan. Ketika Taki bertransgresi ke tubuh Mitsuha, ia melakukan bentuk fetis untuk memuaskan hasratnya pada tubuh perempuan. Tetapi sebaliknya, ketika Mitsuha yang berada di tubuh Taki, hampir tidak adegan yang menunjukkan secara langsung bentuk fetis yang dilakukan perempuan terhadap tubuh laki-laki. Hal ini dimungkinkan karena tubuh perempuan bisa dibicarakan secara seksual namun pemikirannya dilarang untuk berpikiran seksual. Sebaliknya, tubuh laki-laki jarang untuk dibicarakan secara seksual tapi ia memiliki kebebasan untuk berpikir secara seksual. Pada akhirnya, struktur naratif anime ini seolah mereproduksi sistem patriarki masyarakat Jepang dalam pembentukan subjektivitas gender di sepanjang cerita. AbstractPopular media such as animation or anime offer a contested arena. This study analyzes the anime titled Kimi no Na Wa (2016) as an arena by looking at certain scenes. The aim is to see how gender subjectivity and sexual differences are formed in this anime. Using the film feminist psychoanalysis method from Laura Mulvey and Kaja Silverman, this study concludes that the narrative structure in this anime is still influenced by male bias. This has an effect on how the formation of gender subjectivity which makes women as the to be looked at while men as the bearer of the looking. In addition, gender-biased cameras have the potential to create the same gaze from the audience (especially male heterosexual) towards female characters. When Taki transgresses into Mitsuha's body, she performs a fetish form to satisfy her desires for a woman's body. But on the contrary, when Mitsuha was in Taki's body, there was hardly a scene that directly shows the fetish form that women do to a man's body. This is possible because women's bodies can be discussed sexually, but their thoughts are forbidden to have sexual thoughts. In contrast, a man's body is rarely talked about sexually but he has the freedom to think sexually. In the end, the narrative structure of this anime seems to reproduce the patriarchal system of Japanese society in the formation of gender subjectivity throughout the story.

Metamorphosis of a Despondent Indian Woman: A Feminist Evaluation of Girish Karnad's Naga-Mandala

The article engages with the feminist approach in Girish Karnad's Naga-Mandala (1988) in the framework of postcolonial gender analysis. Naga-Mandala (1988) addresses the continued uneven power relations between female and male gender. Karnad's female character, Rani, in Naga-Mandala, is primarily pitiable, downgraded and most importantly an object of patriarchal social and political dominance and authority. The paper postulates Rani as a site of theoretical transformations, engaging with issues of gender subjectivity, sexuality, and power positionality in relation to the patriarchal Indian state. It further argues that Rani situates a performative self in the text through an interrogatory narrative voice that succeeds in participating in the critique of patriarchal subjectivity and hegemonic feminist positioning while inserting a resistant feminist ideology into gender discourse to re-envision the role of Indian women in India's development. Naga-Mandala echoes a substantial constituent of feminism. The drama enquires the patriarchal ethical enigma which burdens women with fidelity to their husbands but not the loyalty of men to their wives.