In recent years, there has been a claim in contemporary dramaturgy about the shift from the state of the nation to the state of the mind. The production of the biopolitical body as the original activity of sovereign power is related to understanding the nature of contemporary human beings and the society in which they live (Agamben 1998). In response to the contemporary questions of citizenship, grief and madness in society, this paper aims at exploring our exposure to death and human catastrophism in the present Capitalocene through selected plays by the recently deceased playwright Edward Bond. Coined as 'rational' theatre, his latest productions explore hope and optimism for the salvation of the human being through radical aesthetics and narratives of death. My approach in this paper delves into his concept of social madness as illustrative of the politics of society and evaluates hope as an ontological human characteristic that embraces more inclusive conceptualizations of distributive justice. Following the framework of this analysis, I will approach the literary corpus of this paper, the plays Chair (2006) and Dea (2018), from the lenses of anthropological and hope studies.
Despite the growing application of Bakhtinian dialogism in feminist literary criticism, scholarly attention remains concentrated on Western or female-authored texts, leaving a gap in applying this framework to Arabic literature authored by men. By exploring the dialogic structure of the female protagonist's interior monologue, which constitutes the primary narrative mode in Mohammed Abul Wali's short story "The Land, Salma," this study explores how dialogism can illuminate female interiority in male-authored, non-Western narratives where the interior discourse of a female character can enact ideological resistance and reveal complex negotiations of gendered identity. This narrative strategy allows Abul Wali to construct a nuanced, feminist portrayal of a woman negotiating her identity within a patriarchal context. The present paper, through qualitative close textual analysis, argues that Abul Wali uses interior monologue not merely as a psychological device but as a site of ideological confrontation, staging a complex dialogue between dominant cultural narratives and emergent subversive counter-narratives. Ultimately, the paper situates "The Land, Salma" within broader feminist debates in Arabic literature, particularly in relation to the dialogic representation of the "woman question," gendered voice, and ideological heteroglossia.
Amitav Ghosh's The Nutmegs' Curse examines how the lives of the people of the Banda Islands are intrinsically connected to their landscapes and the environment. Their livelihoods and culture revolve around the nutmeg, which is traded with other countries. The study will examine how the text challenges the traditional Western anthropocentric views of nature as an inert object that led colonizers to exploit the nutmeg trade, resulting in destructive changes like resource extraction, environmental exploitation, land ownership, displacement of indigenous people and the imposition of the nutmeg monoculture. By examining how Ghosh's work depicts the agency of non-human subjects, the paper emphasizes the need for recognizing the interdependence between humans and the natural world, the intrinsic value of biodiversity, and the ethical significance of land, which form the core concerns of environmental ethics. The paper will use ideas from environmental ethics as the theoretical framework to understand the urgent need to recognize non-humans as subjects and call for developing ethical relationships between humans and non-human beings so as to save the planet from further environmental catastrophes.
This paper examines the complex relationship between mind, body, and identity as represented in Hanif Kureishi's The Body (2002). The narrative centres on Adam, an elderly writer who undergoes a radical transformation-a brain transplant into a youthful body. Through this futuristic scenario, Kureishi compels us to question traditional notions of selfhood. Using an interdisciplinary approach- drawing on insights from brain science, philosophy, psychology, posthumanism, and literary theory-this paper argues that Adam is still Adam stressing on the brain crucial role in the persistence and coherence of personal identity through time. It is thus the brain that matters not the 'body' as implied by the novel's title. The body is nothing but a vehicle of the self, a machine-like carrier of consciousness. In short, this paper attempts to use the novel as a laboratory for thought experiments where the dimensions of personal identity can be easily tested and observed.
The scavengers referred to as Harijans or Methars-belong to that downtrodden subaltern class who are religiously exploited, socially humiliated, economically deprived, and politically unrepresented. Two notable works on scavengers-Mulk Raj Anand's Untouchable (1935) and Thakazhi Pillai's Scavengers' Son (1975)-depicted the plights of this subaltern group from two different perspectives. In contrast to these two representations of the scavengers, Harishankar Jaladas's Ramgolam (2019) stands on a different paradigm. Ramgolam, in fact, stretching its focus from the inception of untouchability and casteism, lands in the present-day scenario of Bangladesh, where these subalterns became the worst victims of the modified recruitment policy of the scavengers by the city corporation authority. Taking Paulo Freire's conscientization as a theoretical framework, this paper analyzes Jaladas's Ramgolam to argue on the scavengers' capability to reflect on their concrete objective reality to develop their conscientization (critical consciousness) to resist all exploitation strongly. Furthermore, exploring the three novels on manual scavenging, it attempts to investigate how, without traditional education, these scavengers, through interrogation and reflection on their oppressed reality, can evolve through the four stages of development of conscientization (thematization, codification, decodification, and action) to challenge the authority for breaking the age-old shackles of oppression. Finally, inquiring into the above-mentioned points, it examines whether, with a developed conscientization, these scavengers are able to amass strength to raise their voice and form strong resistance, or they are still vulnerable to be violently silenced to speak or resist only "through dying" (Spivak, The Nation 1).
