Sambalpur Studies in Literatures and Cultures
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Sambalpur Studies in LiteraturesISSN-2231 and Cultures-5616 Sambalpur Studies in Literatures and Cultures Series 5, 2019 Department of English Sambalpur University Odisha INDIA 183 Advisory Board Prof K. Narayana Chandran (University of Hyderabad) Prof Krishna Sen (University of Calcutta) Prof Nadini Bhattacharya (University of Burdwan) Prof Bijay K Danta (Tejpur University) Editorial Board K Misra, Professor R. Tripathy, Professor A. Patel, Associate Professor Ajit Kullu, Assistant Professor Editor Ashok K Mohapatra, Professor, Department of English, Sambalpur University, Jyoti Vihar, Burla-768019, Sambalpur, Odisha, INDIA [email protected] Copy-right Holder & Publisher © Department of English, Sambalpur University, Jyoti Vihar, Burla-768019, Sambalpur, Odisha, INDIA SSLC is a peer-reviewed journal and listed in the UGC approved list of journals. It is published annually by the Department of English, Sambalpur University. This journal invites full-length scholarly essays on the topics relating to culture, society, art and literature as well as Translation Studies. It insists on analytical rigour and insightfulness of the essays. It also invites book reviews and interviews. Essays must be sent in soft copy format subject to the following conditions: 1. Essays typed in double-space, from 3000 to 6000 words in text-file format, should be sent by e-mail. 2. Reviews must be between 1500 and 2000 words. 3. Essays and reviews must be original and must not have been either accepted for publication or published anywhere else in any form. 4. Essays should conform to the 9th edition of MLA style manual. 5. Essays should be accompanied by the academic details and mailing address by the contributors separately to facilitate confidential peer-reading. All correspondences and contributions should be addressed to the editor at his postal address or e-mail ID: [email protected]. Individual Subscription-Rs 250/- , Institutional Subscription- Rs 400/- , Overseas Subscription- $ 10 184 Sambalpur Studies in Literatures and Cultures Editorial Over the years, a belief has grown stronger that the text is an open-ended system of writing, a dynamic body of representations and an economy of meaning. It is no longer a self-contained repository of determinate authorial meaning. At the same time, another belief that the literary text is not self- evidently ‘literary’ has also gained gr ound. Both beliefs have combined to give a culturalist turn to literary studies. For its part, literary studies has fashioned itself as critical humanities in a bid to hold its grounds against the callenges of science, techonolgy and all those disciplines directly linked with money-making, health and material benefits. We situate ourselves with greater rigour of analytic theory than ever before as subjectivities in society and history while reading the texts. While we aknowledge the importance of form and beauty as ethos and structural principle of art, we still want to break out of the self-validating models of aesthetics in trying to understand why certain representations and ideas appear more significant at the expense of others at certain times and places. We also study how the various forms of legitimacy are fashioned and maintained. With these new objectives of enquiry, we go beyond traditional literary studies and look around for social and cultural texts. We do not just marvel at the beauty and affective power of art, we also emphasize ethics and empathy in our study of history and society. The essays contained in the present series of SSLC reflect the culturalist objectives stated above.With a wide swathe of issues and concerns like ethnography, materialist reading of popular culture, visual arts and film studies and environment studies, the journal also contains studies of literary texts. For special features, it contains an interview with Jacinta Kerketta, a young tribal poet, and a book review. Ashok K Mohapatra 185 CONTENTS Editorial 1. Baigapada: Biography of an Indian Village Raj Kumar 1 – 22 2. Constructing Postcolonial Pedagogies of Folk: Partha Sarathi Gupta 23 -30 Archiving Oratures of India’s North-East through ‘Play’ and ‘Pictures’ 3. Affect, Materiality and the Production of Avishek Parui 31 - 47 Contagious Sacrality: A Cultural Studies Perspective of Jagannath in Puri 4. Emancipating Ekphrasis: Anshuman Mittra 48 - 58 Reflections on a few Edward Hopper Paintings 5. Moral Truth of the Questions in Srishti Sharma 59 - 73 Bob Dylan’s ‘Blowing in the Wind’: A Burthen/An Ethical Burden 6. Postcolonial Adaptation of Koushik Mondal 74 - 82 the Masculine Genre of Detective Fiction in Rituparno Ghosh’s Shuvo Maharat and Satyanweshi 7. Diotima and Ubhaya Bharati: Anway Mukhopadhyay 83 - 93 A Postcolonial Colloquy on Eros, Wisdom and Responsibility 8. Apropos Basanti in English translation: Ashok K Mohapatra 94 - 106 Writing/interrogating the new woman 9. Seeing through Colonial Eyes: Aloka Patel 107 - 119 Women and Landscape in English Literary Texts 10. The Environmental Turn in Literary Theory Bedika Bhattacharjee 120 - 132 and Criticism and the “Truth of Ecology”: Understanding Ecocriticism 11. Cultural Ecotone and Transformation of Asis De 133 - 144 the Human Geography in Mahasweta Devi’s Chotti Munda and His Arrow 12. Shipping Fictional Desires and Sneha Kar Chaudhuri 145 - 155 Historical Disillusionments in Amitav Ghosh’s the Ibis Trilogy 13. Community as a Shared and Divided Space in Sumandeep Kaur 156 - 169 Nadeem Aslam’s The Wasted Vigil 14. A Voice in the Wilderness: Ajit Kumar Kullu 170 - 176 An Interview with the Adivasi Woman Poet Jacinta Kerketta 15. Kevin Powers’ The Yellow Birds: A Novel Chandralekha Panda 177 - 180 (Book Review) Contributors 186 Sambalpur Studies in Literatures and Cultures Baigapada: Biography of an Indian Village Raj Kumar My study has convinced me of the enormous value of studying Indian sociological problems in single villages. I do not say that all sociological problems can be studied in the village. But those that can be studied in single villages or in small clusters of neighbouring villages will yield rich insights into Indian social life. M.N. Srinivas, Village Studies and Their Significance, 1962:135. The Indian village as the symbol of a tyrannical system that obligingly conforms to nineteenth-century left-Hegelian depictions of feudalism, the Indian village as the obstinate symbol of mindless homicidal patriarchy, the Indian village as the depot of ‘pure’ environmental-cultural sensitivity and people’s critique of conventional development, and, above all, the Indian village as the counter-city and escape from the city — these are all markers of the changing political-cultural Ashis Nandy, An Ambiguous Journey to the City, 2007:74-75. The primary objective of this article is to study the changes in an Indian village. For the purpose of the study, I have chosen my village named Baigapada, which is a part of the erstwhile Kalahandi district of Odisha and now comes under Nuapada district. I chose to study Baigapada because I have known my village intimately for the last five decades and hopefully will be able to document the changes the village has witnessed over the years. Several sociologists and social anthropologists have emphasized the need of studying an Indian village to understand the dynamics of Indian social life. My focus in this essay is not just to explore and understand sociological problems of my village. The reason for doing so is simple. Sociological problems have their origin in certain social structural factors and the interplay of these factors in time. Structural factors and their interplay have their roots in particular historical condition and are both undergirded by and reflect certain cultural, economic and political factors. Moreover, there is involved time span in which the interplay of structural factors develops, takes concrete shape, and yields certain consequences for individual lives and social relations. As such, a simple sociological approach to the ever developing pattern of individual and communal life does not and cannot fully illuminate the experiences in the sense that have injected daily lives. In view 5 Sambalpur Studies in Literatures and Cultures of this, I will cast my net wide and include historical, political, economical, cultural and religious factors that have impinged on the life of my village and shaped its onward movement in time. Since the time-period of this study spans over five decades, it is difficult to encapsulate the complex process of change and the evolving life patterns in the village. However, even a brief account of the village caught in the process of change will go a long way to not only enhance our understanding also to properly evaluate it. The time-span of fifty years relating to a village that was stationary or what economists call “steady state” for long and then suddenly exposed to external forces, rousing it up from its long slumber must have been jolted by the impact of these forces and reacted or responded to them. For example, one can immediately think of such external forces that impinge on the village life as the various welfare programmes undertaken by the government of India after independence and their impact on the placid life pattern of what was characterized Indian villages as “little Republics”. Further, the liberalized economy introduced in India some twenty eight years back has already brought several changes in the lives of the people all over the country. These two examples are enough to show the lives of change in the modern time is primarily economic. It is through the modification, alteration, and even overturning the pre-existent patterns of social life and relation in different spatially organized entities that it is expected to bring into being the kind of society that has been the preferred goals since Enlightenment. As such, in order to apprehend the character and the significance of the economically induced social change, it is desirable to focus on those economic factors that impinge heavily on village life today.