{"title":"Hybridities on the Final Frontier: Bio-utilitarianism in Star Trek","authors":"Jackie Hogan, James M. Decker","doi":"10.5325/intelitestud.23.3.0293","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/intelitestud.23.3.0293","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:The long-lived Star Trek franchise illuminates the evolution of social priorities and anxieties over more than fifty years. Specifically, it provides a useful lens on shifting attitudes toward science, technology, diversity, and hybridity. This article suggests that Star Trek is grounded in what we call a bio-utilitarian ethos, that embraces techno-scientific changes if they contribute to the greater good but rejects them if they increase individual happiness at the expense of the whole. An examination of multiple forms of hybridity on the \"final frontier\" further reveals that the franchise has moved toward an increasingly apprehensive and pessimistic preoccupation with the technological and genetic enhancement of humanity. This shift reflects, and potentially shapes, attitudes toward real-world techno-scientific developments.","PeriodicalId":40903,"journal":{"name":"Interdisciplinary Literary Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78592171","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Countering Anthropocentric Perspective of Ecology with the Dictum of the Gita","authors":"Bam Dev Adhikari","doi":"10.3126/litstud.v34i01.39519","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3126/litstud.v34i01.39519","url":null,"abstract":"Human beings and the natural world have remained in constant collision with each other since the beginning of human civilization. The biosphere is shared by millions living beings including human beings. From the early days of human civilization, human beings kept themselves in the centre and developed an attitude of us and them, human beings us and the entire plants, animals and elements them. In Complete anthropocentric perspective of development of about ten thousand years, human beings never thought about the impacts upon the natural world and as a result the entire earth is in disfigured appearance now. In this essay, I have made an argument that only karma irrespective of the benefits can slow down or even reverse the conflict between human beings and the natural world.","PeriodicalId":40903,"journal":{"name":"Interdisciplinary Literary Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84620821","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Journey Within: Inner Calling as Spiritual in R. K. Narayan’s The Guide and Robin Sharma’s The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari","authors":"K. Sharma","doi":"10.3126/litstud.v34i01.39524","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3126/litstud.v34i01.39524","url":null,"abstract":"The Journey within begins when people start contemplating about the real purpose of their existence. The contemplation of longing to know the real purpose of life starts in the process of sitting with mindfulness – meditation which transcends the survival purpose of life. It leads to spirituality, the ability to talk to oneself or the heart - the inner calling, leads humans towards the perception of Divine within oneself, treasure within oneself and happiness within oneself. R. K. Narayan’s The Guide and Robin Sharma’s The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari carve out spiritual traces where protagonists find pleasure and happiness. In The Guide, the transformation of Raju from a tourist guide to spiritual guide for the sake of humankind and his interconnectedness with the Divine owes much to the self-realization as well as to his heart. In the same way, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari transcends the material prosperity and reaches to the state of ecstasy as exemplified in spiritual preaching of the monk - Robin. Following the spirituality as theoretical tool, the article the central characters and explores their transformation towards spiritual awakening.","PeriodicalId":40903,"journal":{"name":"Interdisciplinary Literary Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86963672","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"No more “Us’’ Versus “Others”: Critique of Cultural Trauma in the Movie Partition by Vic Sarin","authors":"Yog Raj Lamichhane","doi":"10.3126/litstud.v34i01.39541","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3126/litstud.v34i01.39541","url":null,"abstract":"On 15 August 1947, the glory of Indian Independence has introduced with a political hubris, dividing British India into two separate independent nations: secular India and Islamic Pakistan. The partition brings trauma in the life of millions; nevertheless, this trauma itself becomes the victim of nationhood and community both in official history and literary writing. In this background, the study examines how a Hollywood movie Partition directed by Vic Sarin in 2007, exceptionally surpasses that tendency of dividing the community into ‘‘as’’ and ‘‘others’’ imparting Indian partition trauma politically. While analyzing the behavior and action of major characters along with the overall imparted theme of the movie, it rethinks the customary archives of community and nationhood depicting partition memory objectively. The protagonist never pronounces a single word of communal intolerance even when he has been mocked and tortured in the name of religion. Conversely, some characters in the movie always attempt to massacre the truth of trauma spreading communal bile; however, the overall essence and message of the movie keep that alive. Rethinking cultural trauma and using the approach of memory, the study concludes that this in-between movie appears as “West Running Brook” that exceeds the common communalization and perpetual politicization in the history of depicting Indian partition. Eventually, the study establishes that sharing pain seems to work as a healer among victims to overcome their trauma on one side and uniquely it adjoins the British as a party in Indian partition trauma in the next, which has been blurred considering insignificant in the one-to-one conflict between two giants.","PeriodicalId":40903,"journal":{"name":"Interdisciplinary Literary Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89627545","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Blending of Fiction with Historical Reality in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and Grabiel Gracia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude","authors":"Khum Prasad Sharma","doi":"10.3126/litstud.v34i01.39525","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3126/litstud.v34i01.39525","url":null,"abstract":"This paper investigates the use of magic realism as a strategic tool in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981) and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967). Both the authors belong to two distinct continents; still, they have similar histories and stories of struggle. They develop a unique relationship while untangling reality. They create the mysterious relationship between the human beings and their circumstances in a way more realistic than the realist text.Also, the textual analysis reveals the basic goal of both the novelist to revisit their past through magic realism as both of them believe in the distortion of reality as outcome of colonial impact in their respective societies. In this sense, this paper justifies the rationale behind the blending of fiction and historical reality in both the novels. In doing so it explores how the unsayable in today’s world of asymmetrical power and domination could be said through the use of tools and elements of magic realism such as hybridity, authorial presence, metafiction, awareness of mystery in a real world setting.","PeriodicalId":40903,"journal":{"name":"Interdisciplinary Literary Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74506790","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Socio-Cultural Values and Ecological Awareness in Sakela Sili in Kirant Rai in Nepal","authors":"P. Rai","doi":"10.3126/litstud.v34i01.39537","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3126/litstud.v34i01.39537","url":null,"abstract":"In the Eastern part of Nepal, Kirant Rai in traditional attires perform Sakela Sili, a dance style performed twice a yearin a larger circle to honour of Sakela, a deity in Kirant Rai community. The performance of Sakela or Sakkew involves singing and dancing simultaneously. Sakela connects the Kirant to their original source of energy, cultural root, origin and the civilization. Ethnic Kirant Rai, including youth and the old in their dance steps of working in the farmland and worshiping gods, with their hands and legs raising low and high, embody their connections to the terrestrial and celestial, profane and sacred, and the humanity and the divinity to maintain a perfect balance of art and life. The dancers in their body movements blend their passionate intensity to work and aesthetic response to art and embody socio -cultural practices and ecological awareness. While dancing, they work and dance for representing the life in totality. The Kirant Rai work pleasingly, and they dance with their strong passion to work. This paper as an instance of qualitative research employs both emic and etic perspectives to find out how such Sakela Sili performed shapes the socio - cultural values and ecological awareness among Kirant Rai community.","PeriodicalId":40903,"journal":{"name":"Interdisciplinary Literary Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83755939","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Critique of Capitalist Ideology in Bhattarai’s Muglan","authors":"Hari K Lamichhane","doi":"10.3126/litstud.v34i01.39521","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3126/litstud.v34i01.39521","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores Govinda Raj Bhattarai’s worries about the innocent youths to be the Muglanis forced by the dominant capitalistideology of the society in his novel Muglan. In the novel, he presents the critical situation of the youths who are compelled to leave their motherland just for survival but they get sold like cattle and are enslaved and forced to do hard physical labour in the cruel foreign land. The article applies neo-Marxist insights to study devastating results of elitist bourgeois ideology of the society over the life of poor innocent people in the novel. It mainly borrows ideas from Luis Althusser’s “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” along with the ideas by Terry Eagleton and Antonio Gramsci. The article shows Bhattarai’s critique of elitist bourgeois ideology of the society that he does through his choice of the protagonist, Sutar, who along with other youths leaves his home and goes to muglan but gets robbed, sold and forced to work as road builder in the foreign land of Bhutan. By showing the hopelessness of better life for the youths in their native land, Nepal and their pathetic condition in the foreign land, Bhattarai critiques the elitist ideology of Nepalese society.","PeriodicalId":40903,"journal":{"name":"Interdisciplinary Literary Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89897850","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reclamation of the Narrative for the Silenced Voice in Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad","authors":"Saroj G.C.","doi":"10.3126/litstud.v34i01.39538","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3126/litstud.v34i01.39538","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyzes Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, a rewriting of Homeric epic, The Odyssey. Atwood rewrites the story — the saga of gallantry and triumphalism of Odysseus, with narrative shift that brings postmodern irony and parody, self-reflexivity and metafiction, and intertextuality and paratextuality into play. The article tries explore if Atwood’s shifting of narrative orientation of the Homeric epic yields any different and substantial reception and interpretation of the epic in the recent context.Moreover, I demonstrate how Atwood’s reconstruction and subsequently the empowerment of the minor characters unfolds the incompatibilities and discrepancies the official version of Homer’s epic, and brings the marginal voice to the front by granting a variety of narrative access.I argue, giving subject positions to silent agents and using various genres of expression, for instance, history and myth, Atwood, through the deployment of an autodiegetic narrative, brings together gender, genre and language in such a way that results in a decisive shift in conceptualizing the narrative structure for the marginal voice and agency female characters. The article concludes that why rereading of classical and canonical text is crucial to bring the marginals’ claim to a subject position, and produce a different language and literature that allows space for expression subjectivity of characters on the margins","PeriodicalId":40903,"journal":{"name":"Interdisciplinary Literary Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84943436","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Searching for the Way in Life: Yang Zhu’s Theory of Tending Life in Liezi","authors":"N. Zhang","doi":"10.3126/litstud.v34i01.39535","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3126/litstud.v34i01.39535","url":null,"abstract":"Known as a Taoist, Yang Zhuw lived in the Warring States Period. In his only transmitted work named ‘Yangzhu’in Liezi, he presented the “tending life” theory which was considered by most scholars as a sort of “hedonism,” “extreme egoism” or “indulgence.” However, the “tending life” theory should not be simply regarded as an avocation of physical enjoyment. First, ‘Yangzhu’ defined Tao(the Way) as a “weak power” which only assists things to “auto-generate” and “self-transform,” so that “tending life” is also a pursuit of the ultimate meaning of Tao. ‘Yangzhu’ further argued that the best way of “tending life” is not to restraint and suppress one’s natural desire, for the realization of “tending life” should be based on the preservation of the body. ‘Yangzhu’ discusses the relationship between the “Ming”(name/reputation) and the “Shi”(Reality), which reveal that the attachment to the “reputation” is the main obstacle of the realization of “tending life.” At last, Yang Zhu proposed that the most ideal life should “roaming as the nature prompt” through a dialectical discussion. Therefore, the theory of “tending life” also reflects a pursuit that to some extent transcends the physical life.","PeriodicalId":40903,"journal":{"name":"Interdisciplinary Literary Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76926389","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Écriture Feminine and the Poetry of Langston Hughes","authors":"Shruti Das","doi":"10.3126/litstud.v34i01.39540","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3126/litstud.v34i01.39540","url":null,"abstract":"This paper attempts to locate Hughes’s poetic diction as Ecriture feminine since like feminist poetry the diction of his poetry is rebellious and questions the hierarchical structure of society where White people hold more power and promote the idea of racial superiority. His desire to express the angst of the Blacks finds currency in the definition and explication of feminine writing. The focus of this paper will be on analysis of the poetry of Langston Hughes in the light of ecriture feminine in order to show how Hughes counters hegemony’s repressive rhetoric, challenges the loss of agency through the language of the dominant class and recreates another symbolic order.","PeriodicalId":40903,"journal":{"name":"Interdisciplinary Literary Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88396945","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}