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Showing posts with label CIA 3. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CIA 3. Show all posts

Friday, February 25, 2011

The politics of post colonial translation - Harish Trivedi

the following is a write up on 'The politics of post colonial translation' by Rini Thomas
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This particular excerpt discusses the politics of post colonial translation from hindi to english and vice-versa through the implications established by Harish Trivedi in his essay the politics of postcolonial translation. When postcolonial translation is discussed, the foremost idea that is to be addressed is, how it is crucial to assume not only chronological but also a qualitative difference between translations, both in the colonial and the postcolonial eras. This applies only to translations because the original literary works have a historical configuration which envisages the date of composition or publication. But in translations both the original text and the translated text have to be comprehended in terms of its historical co-ordinates. In doing so, there are a few questions which are addressed:
1) Are same kind of texts translated in postcolonial times?
2) Are different kinds of texts now beginning to be translated?
3) Whether the balance of cultural power is transacted in terms of reception and impact?
The process of translation involves interaction between two authors, languages, cultures and political implications. In this pretext the translating process is always a hegemonic one wherein the translation is superior and the source text is inferior as this is not just personal preference but also due to the impact set by the west (british). Coming to the point of discussion, in the act of translation when a literary work is being translated from hindi to english, the translator modifies, reframes and restructures the original work and the original author is falsified. The translations from hindi to english leave behind chunks of Indianness and this kind of a pattern is chosen by translators either foreign or Indian. This so happens in the ending of any literary work where the Indian sense gets subjugated and transfered to a western sense of ending.
Translations of a hindi text share common features of translatorial practices. This is a new formulation which is a whole culture into another. It identifies what gets translated and what may be sought to be translated. The cultural-national project of postcolonial translations in India have two contemporary aspects. They are translations of world literatures into hindi and translations from hindi to english. This is a politics of another kind. E.g. one of the hindi writers Rangey Raghav has translated fifteen Shakespearean works to hindi. Shakespeare is the most notable of all english writer. In translating Shakespeare’s works into hindi would bring in popularity and hindi gets a wider scope and wider audience. This is not because Rangey Ragav expressses his love of shakespeare but rather his love of hindi. Apart from this, there are many other young and rising hindi translators who have translated, the waste land by vishnu khare, the portrait of a lady by mohan rakesh, the stranger by rajendra yadav and many other writers discovered their talent as writers through translating such works of emminent European writers. In translating such works these translators bring home a remarkable power of conception by delineating human characters, European history to the sympathetic Indian reader. The next reason behind such kind of translations is becausee of the aspiration and desire than achievement or performance. Translating literary works from hindi to many other foreign languages not just english means that the history, the society, the culture of the language hindi has to get a global acclaimation.
Yet another reason behind Indian writers translating literary works from hindi to english and vice-versa is ultimately to reach beyond a larger readership. Sometimes there arises a question as to why many works from english have to be translated to hindi precisely because the readers get the original text than wait for the translated works. These are the different ‘politics’ that are discussed in this excerpt.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

The History of Translation and its Trends in Thailand

the following write up on 'The History of Translation and its Trends in Thailand' is by Panom Kaewphadee
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Translation can be traced back in terms of its origin to the time when the western powers spread their dominations around the world, and even earlier than that. Translation was a means to dominate and to learn about other cultures. Thailand, a country which supposedly has not been colonized, has its long history of translation from dealings with the western countries as well as its eastern neighbors. The need for translation in Thai history then arose with a necessity of communication with missionaries and representatives from many countries who either wanted to impose on the common people and the governing heads their influences or to do trades. The early forms of translation were mainly official documents to the royal governments or the kings themselves.
According to Ramayana: An Instrument of Historical Contact and Cultural Transmission between India and Asia (Desai, 1970), traces of Ramayana story were found as early as fourteenth century. These traces were mainly in the forms of temple architecture. It then implies that the Ramayana stories were translated to Thai earlier than fourteenth century and spread among the local population by means of oral traditions. The two epics from India; the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, are very important sources from which came Thai dance and art forms. It also means that the translations of religious texts like the Tripitakas from Pali into Thai were accomplished much earlier than that.
By the time of King Rama I’s reign, literatures from neighboring countries like China and Laos had already been well-known in Thailand, though they were mainly in oral forms. King Rama I ordered many well-known Chinese texts to be translated into Thai, chief among these texts was Sam Kok or Three Kingdoms. In the case of literature from Laos, many folktales were being circulated orally among the people of the northeastern highlands. It was not really translation which took place then. This is interesting in terms of language medium. Laos is the language spoken by the people who lived on the other side of the Mekong River which was also clearly understood by the people who populated the Thailand-side of the river. The literature from Laos which largely comprised Ramayana stories were blended in with the Thai Ramayana tradition, and became the most prominent topics of entertainment for the people.
In the reign of King Rama IV, there were already many foreigners in the royal court. These foreigners were in positions of power. They had influenced the king in terms of his innovative thinking. The king had sent many of his sons to be educated in England. One of these princes would later come to be known as King Rama V the Great who arranged his grand tour to European countries, and who brought an end to the slave systems. From then on, it was a tradition for the royal members to be sent to study in England or the US.
The reign of King Rama VI, the son of King Rama V, was called the Golden Age of Thai literature because it was blessed with the King’s talents and his interests in literature. The King himself had translated many texts ranging from Indian literature to English literature. We also see an emergence of novel as a genre in Thai literature with the first complete translation of Vandetta by Marie Corelli. King Rama VI also wrote many books dealing with Ramayana stories.
When we come to the reign of King Rama IX, or King Bhumibol, a large amount of Japanese literature has been translated into Thai, especially the unique Japanese genre called manga. These manga have been translated into Thai which has proved popular among the general population. What needs to be noted is the fact that only a few numbers of literary Japanese texts have been translated in Thai. The manga is much more popular. The most important of Japanese writers who has been translated is Haruki Murakami.
Apart from English, Chinese, and Japanese texts, we also see an emergence of texts dealing with philosophy being translated into Thai from the European languages like French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish. A few examples of these texts are Cervantes’ Don Quixote from the Spanish, Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose from the Italian and Tolstoy’s War and Peace. These texts are mostly directly translated from their original languages with an exception for War and Peace which has been translated from an English translation.
With the trend of Korean romance becoming prominent among Thai youngsters, we find new translators emerging in a large number. These new faces in a field of translation target the young Thais. The translational products of these translators are often met with skeptical scornful comments from critics of the literary circle. The critics’ argument is that the translated texts produced by the young translators from Korean romance lack language efficiency and often appeal only to the young, mainly college and school girls. These texts lose their original meanings and flavors in the process of translations.
In a recently held seminar on translation and interpretation in Bangkok, a group of famous and well known writers and interpreters, along with experts in the field of translations, compares the positions of writers and translators in the literary and academic circles. Texts produced by writers and those which have been translated are held in the same position. One of the translators in the said seminar pointed out that writers are those who chronicle events in the society, translators, on the other hands, are those who ‘transmit’ messages from one culture to another. Thus translation is an important practice which requires the practitioners to be efficient in many aspects. A translator needs to have a thorough knowledge of the source language and also that of the target language. A translator needs to have flexibility while he is in the process of translation.
In comparison to literary texts scientific texts are rarely translated into Thai. For example, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species has not been translated into Thai at all. On the other hand, works of Charles Darwin and Shakespeare have been found to be translated into Thai since the reign of King Rama VI. The king himself had rendered the play The Merchant of Venice of Shakespeare into Thai verses. Scientific texts are translated and used in academic syllabuses but otherwise it is rarely done. The scientific texts that get translated are those which have attracted the general readers, and those which do not deal with too difficult topics. The obstacles of translating scientific texts stem from the unique jargons used in those texts. It is often observed that jargons get translated and sometimes they are left as they are in the languages they were first written.
Throughout the history of translation in Thailand, there is a few works translated into other languages. A novel by the so-called Queen of Thai fictions Dhamayantri, Koo Kam was translated into English as Sunset at Chaophraya and also into Japanese. An award-winning The Happiness of Kati has been translated into English, Japanese and French. Another example is a political novel by the former Prime Minister of Thailand Krukrit Pramoj, Four Reigns. The novel has been both translated into English in unabridged and abridged versions in which parts of the story are cut. This leads to a trend that only the popular and award-winning books get translated, and the translation is done by native English speakers or, in some cases, with the help of the authors.
In conclusion, the trends of translation in Thailand lie heavily on domesticating the translated texts. The critics and translators in general agree that a translated text should be made to contain elements of the culture and language into which it is being translated, and at the same time retain its values and contents. The Thai critics and translators emphasize on the beautification of language. The language used should read smoothly and not to have a sense of foreign language in it that it is rendered unintelligible.
In recent years, many of the Thai fictions have had the opportunity of being translated into English or one or two of the far-eastern languages. It is hoped that in future the Thai literature would take its place in world literatures through means of translations.

References

Desai, Santosh N. “Ramayana: An Instrument of Historical Contact and Cultural Transmission between India and Asia.” The Journal of Asian Studies 30.1 (1970): 5-20. Web. 6 February 2011.
Jantasoka, Ponchai. “The Confession of Niida, in the world of Literature.” Life Style: Read & Write (2010) Bangkok Business. Web. 7 February 2011.
Panyapayatjati, Chatchawan. “Translated Works and Works of Fiction.” ArtGazinesArticles (2010). Web. 7 February 2011.

Contemporary Trends and Debate of Translation in Thailand

the following write up on 'Contemporary Trends and Debate of Translation in Thailand' is by Rungkan Leelasopawut
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Translation, both commercially and literally, is an activity that is growing phenomenally in today’s globalized world. The study of translation, an interdisciplinary field known as Translation studies, has also developed enormously in the past twenty years. It interfaces with a wide range of other disciplines from linguistics to modern languages and Cultural studies and post-colonialism. With regard to the importance of translation in the globalization era, this paper aims to outline the trends and debate regarding the translation studies in the contemporary Thailand.
Translation of foreign texts into Thai had been manifested a long time ago. Such manifestations can be located in many Thai classical literary texts. The essential theme of these texts was often associated with aspects pertaining to religion and drama. However, characteristics of Thai classical literature resulted from the contact with southern China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma, Laos, and Vietnam. Hence, what we know as Thai classical literature today is in fact the adaptation of her neighboring countries’ literatures rather than purely her own established literature. Such literatures tend to reveal the Thai cultures which have been influenced by other cultures. For instance, the varied Indian and Chinese cultures. Most of the Thai classical literatures are written in verse in different patterns.
The most prominent and well known Thai classical literatures consist of five different stories. These are The Romance of Khun Chang Khun Phaen, the Ramakian, the Romance of Inao, Sam Kok, and Phra Aphaimani. Among these texts, only The Romance of Khun Chang Khun Phaen, was composed based on pure Thai culture. The remaining were translated from Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese, and western languages such as French and English.
Overview of the history of Thai classical literatures provides us the knowledge of most of Thai classical literatures which are borrowed from foreign literatures. Hence this duty significant information implies that the translation have long been practiced in Thailand for many centuries past. Although there were traces of translation in Thailand for many centuries, very few discussions regarding the history of translation, or its contemporary trends and debate on translation in Thailand have been published. However, for a certainly none have been discussed as an academic discipline until the present time, in part because so few people are active in this particular area. It would be hard to list out the number of Thai people who translate Thai literature into English or other languages. However, we could see a further number of Thai people translating foreign literatures into Thai language. If little is being discussed, as a result, even less is being published. This can be explained by the lack of awareness of Thailand and its literature in the world, at large.
In modern days, globalization seems to be the most prominent word which has a significant role of acting as catalyst to motivation or to drive us into the world of technology and computerized space. The impact of globalization also invades the space of translation as well, particularly in the translation space in Thailand. The impact of globalization is the functional determinant for the translator to choose “what to translate” and “to whom the translation is meant for”.
In Thailand, the paradigm shift of translation have been clearly presented through the corresponding selection of literary genre. In the past, many translated literatures in Thailand were generally dealing with religious and cultural themes, Buddhism and Hinduism in predominating over several others. Afterwards however, Western literature was introduced into the country, ever since, there have been constant translations mostly through the medium of English. More recently however, there has arisen a quest to write Thai novels and short stories in the Western style, some of Shakespeare's works such as Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, and also a number of English and French plays. Many of them were adapted and staged, giving an impetus to a new kind of performance. Hence we will see many Thai literatures being translated from English and Sanskrit classical dramas, for instance, Sakuntala and Savitri. We could say that through the earlier kings’ geniuses and influences, a new era of Thai literature has evolved and developed up until now. However, this trends have been transcended/ been given a makeshift, As such, modern Thai readers tend to read the translated novels which have themes based on romance or thrillers, action packaged or etc.
In the present day, it is increasingly noted that many Thai individuals are taking marked interest in reading translated versions of the vampire romance of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight Saga, thriller stories; these are similar to those of Dan Brown's history-related mysteries, such as, cooking books, children's picture books, and Thai cultural heritage books. These makeshift trends of the readers’ interest from religious classical literary texts such as Ramakien to romance such as the Twilight Saga, and from Sanskrit to English and other European languages could be a possible the impact of globalization.
Today, translation need not be the sole means for the translation of literary texts. Plenty will be seen also a lot more in terms of the translation for business purposes. The source and target language of translation can nonetheless be varies. For instance, in Thailand, the upcoming of Japanese and Korean as target languages in translation is popular. This is because of business expansion in today’s world. Hence, we also see the shift of the translation purposes from entertainment to business and economic development in the competitive world we all live in at the present.
In the light of the argument above, we finally arrive at the significant axiom, Is there Any Debate of Translation in Thailand? The answer for this is “Yes, there is.” The reason for this is the recent, mode of effective translation which has been the focal point of the debate, for many critics regarding the translation in Thailand. In western world, over several centuries there has been a debate about how the text should be translated. Some may suggest that the text should be translated word to word, some suggest for sense to sense translation, and some for literal translation. In Thailand, A literal or "word for word" translation cannot be applied for the translation of foreign language into Thai or the other way around. If a translator tries to translate a saying or motto from English to Thai, that translated sentence would certainly end up being completely out of context which could possibly border on the nonsensical when read in Thai from English.
A translation of Thai verse into English is also another hot debate in the present time. There would be not much problem for Thai translator to translate other foreign poems into Thai verse, but it will not be practical for a foreign translator to transform Thai verses into English or any other languages. Many people could translate Japanese or Chinese literature into English, and they would succeed in doing it. But in terms of Thai verses, certainly few foreign translators could succeed in transforming the aesthetics of Thai verses into foreign languages. If they happen to translate Thai verses into English or other languages’, the result is the loss of either “content” or “form”. This is because very rarely translator could keep the balance between these two extremes when they translate Thai verses into foreign languages.
Error in translation is another aspect in the debate of translation in Thailand at the present time. Based on Nitaya Suksaeresup’s research on the error on translation, this paper aims at finding the sources of errors in translating from English to Thai. It is postulated that there are two major sources: the translator's erroneous reading of the English text and misinterpretation of English lexical meaning. The first one involves misunderstanding of the English text, while the second involves wrong propositional and expressive meanings.
Machine translation is another interesting topic for the debate on translation in the present scenario. This debate is not being discussed only in the Western part of the world but also a hot debate of translation in Thailand as well. Therefore the general outline of the debate on machine translation in Thailand is similar to the West. In Thailand, Translation shifted its focus dramatically from the translation of literary texts to other kinds of text and electronic Media as well. Today, we see that not only literary texts have been translated but also the movies, films and other kind of Thai texts. The replacement of the machine in translation has created a lot of difference between human translator and machine translator. This gives rise to the question whether machine translators could replace human translators? In Thailand, the problem with machine translation is that it cannot give a proper translation of the texts or movies. The machine tends to translate from word to word which the readers or the audiences could not make sense out of the translated text. Sometimes, the translated text has the meaning which seems to be out of context. The problems in machine translation form English to Thai or Thai to English can be found such as complex sentences cannot be translated, less vocabularies in the translation system, and the ambiguity between sentences and noun phrases is still unsolvable.
Generally, it is easy to translate foreign language into Thai language but it is more difficult to do otherwise. Machine translation is helpful but somehow it cannot give a better translation than what a human translator can give through accurate sound effects and expressions. The problems of translation in Thailand are mostly the same everywhere else.
Therefore, the contemporary trends of translation in Thailand are clearly shown that its shift has occurred because of the influence of globalization. Globalization is considered to be a major factor which has influences the shift of translation genre from past to present, the shift of the source language from Pali and Chinese to English and French and other languages, the shift of reader’s interest from traditional literature which has religious and cultural themes to western romance like Vampire romance etc. In terms of the debate on translation in Thailand, we see that the topics which are being discussed are not different than the debates on translation theory in the west.

Tagore’s Gitanjali and self translation

the following write up on 'Tagore's Gitanjali and self traanslation' is by Kusumika Mitra
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Homi Bhaba in his ‘The Location of Culture’ quotes Walter Benjamin and says that “Translation passes through continua of transformation, not abstract ideas of identity and similarity”. Thus according to Walter Benjamin there can never be anything like a perfect translation and in turn nothing called an ideal translator. Benjamin believes that translation is not about similarity but a transformation. This same theory can be applied to even in the field of self translation. Literary self translation like translation itself is a process in which a text is translated from the source language to the target language with the only exception that the author of the text becomes the translator of the text. Since the source text is created by the author himself, it is not wrong to believe that the author should have a command over the text and thus if he is expected to translate his work, he should be able to do so perfectly since he has the best knowledge of the text. This however does not happen. Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali is an example of the myth that self translation is the ideal translation.

Gitanjali is a collection of one hundred and three verses that the poet himself translated. Much has already been debated on the reasons behind these translations and on whether he deserved the Nobel Prize or not. However from the perspective of self translation it would not be out of place to try and locate Gitanjali as a piece of self translated work and try and understand through it, the politics of self translation. The first verse in the Bengali text reads:

Amare tumi ashesh korecho

Emni leela tobo

Furiye fele abare bhorecho

Jeebon nobo nobo

Tagore translated the same verse in English as:

Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure

This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again,

And fillest it ever with fresh life.

When we try and compare the two verses, we see that though he has been successful in maintaining the overall meaning, he has made certain compromises and changes. First and foremost the structure of the verse itself has changed drastically. While writing in Bengali, he has used a rhyme scheme of abab; however while translating he does away with this rhyme scheme. Also ‘pleasure’ is not an equivalent translation of the Bengali word ‘leela’. ‘Leela’ is a religious term and is used to commonly refer to god’s game play with the human race and not so much pleasure. Another observation is his use of metaphors while translating into English. ‘jeebon’ (life) is translated as ‘frail vessel’. Going back to talking about the structure in verse XXX he takes two lines to express what he writes in five lines in Bengali.

Saathe saathe ke chole mor

Nirob anukaare

Chadate chai onek kore

Ghure feli, jaye je shore

Mone kori aapod geche

Aabar dekhi tare

The above lines he translates into English in just three lines:

But who is this that follows me in the silent dark?

I move aside to avoid his presence

But I escape him not.

This can be because of the fact that it is believed that Tagore gave more importance to ideas than to the structural framework. Thus he emphasized more on the lyrical qualities.

One of the main aims of translation (be it self- translated or not), is to convey the message as accurately as possible. When we read Gitanjali in English, it is very evident through words like ‘thou’, ‘thee’, ‘thy’ etc, that the verses are addressed to God. They can be seen as hymns or even prayers for God. However when we read the Bengali version of the same, we cannot dismiss the verses as just hymns sung to the almighty. They can also be seen as songs or poems written for a beloved. There is no archaism or loftiness in the way the verses have been written in Bengali. The tone is informal. Thus though the source text (Gitanjali written in Bengali in this case) can be interpreted in more than one way, Tagore consciously constructs the English translation in such a way that not many interpretations can be possible. One of the possible reasons behind this can be that Tagore was very concerned about his target audience (the west). He was aware that the west saw India as a land of mysticism. He wanted to build on it and thus we find Gitanjali (the English translation) to be full of mysticism and spiritual thoughts.

After reading his English translations, it would not be wrong to think that Tagore was keener on expressing his emotions rather than strictly translating his Bengali work. Thus he does not follow any particular pattern of translation. While translating some verses he follows a word to word translation, whereas on other occasions he follows the method of paraphrasing. Many critics believe that Tagore feared that the west would not be able to understand the cultural nuances of his country and thus he chose simple English word that though would not accurately match the Bengali one, would however succeed in putting across his emotions to the western readers.

Hence, Tagore as a self translator takes a lot of liberties while translating. His English version of the Gitanjali is less of a translation of the Bengali text and can be considered more of a trans- creation. Tagore’s Gitanjali contributes to the larger debate of whether self- translation is the ideal translation and it also questions the stance that the author/translator takes while translating his own work.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Masks of Conquests- Gauri Viswanathan

the following is a write up on 'Masks of Conquests' by Rinu Dina John
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Gauri Viswanathan’s Masks of Conquests is about the institution, practice, and ideology of English studies introduced in India under British colonial rule. It does not seek to be a comprehensive record of the history of English, nor does it even attempt to record, in minute historical fashion, the various educational decisions, acts, and resolutions that led to the institutionalization of English. The work draws upon the illuminating insight of Antonio Gramsci, writing on the relations of culture and power, that cultural domination works by consent and can (and often does) precede conquest by force. Power operated concurrently at two clearly distinguishable levels where, according to Gramsci, the supremacy of a social group manifests itself in two ways: firstly as ‘domination and secondly as ‘intellectual and moral leadership.’

This book sets out to demonstrate in part that the discipline of English came into its own in an age of colonialism, as well as to argue that no serious account of its growth and development can afford to ignore the imperial mission of educating and civilizing colonial subjects in the literature and thought of England, a mission that in the long run served to strengthen Western cultural hegemony in enormously complex ways.

The author has two general aims in writing this book. Firstly she studies the adaptation of the content of English literary education to the administrative and political imperatives of British rule; and secondly she examines the ways in which these imperatives in turn charged that content with a thoroughly changed significance, enabling the humanistic ideals of enlightenment to coexist with and indeed even support education for social and political control.

Among the several broad areas of emphases in this book the first and perhaps most important is that the history of English and that of Indian developments in the same areas are related but at the same time quite separate. The word separate indicates the gap between functions and uses of literary education in England and in India, despite the comparability of content at various points. One of the great contradictions in early nineteenth-century developments is uncovered at the level of comparison of the educational histories of England and India. With the educational context, one runs head on into the central paradox of British deliberations on the curriculum as prescribed for both England and India. While Englishmen of all ages could enjoy and appreciate exotic tales, romantic narrative, adventure stories, and mythological literature for their charm and even derive instruction from them, their colonial subjects were believed incapable of doing so because they lacked the prior mental and moral cultivation required for literature-especially their own-to have any instructive value for them.

The argument of this book leans toward the second proposition, specifically, that the introduction of English represented an tormented response to historical and political pressures: to tensions between the East India Company and the English Parliament, between Parliament and missionaries, between the East India Company and the Indian elite classes.

The book does not attempt to be a “definitive” study of English studies in India. It leaves aside many questions apart from those concerning the effects of literary instruction on individual Indians and the readings that educated Indians gave to the English texts they were taught

Thursday, February 10, 2011

"History of the Subaltern Classes" "The Concept of Ideology" "Cultural Themes: Ideological Material"- Antonio Gramsci

the following write up on "History of the Subaltern Classes" "The Concept of Ideology" "Cultural Themes: Ideological Material" is by Josna Perumannil

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The term subaltern is used in postcolonial theory. The exact meaning of the term in current philosophical and critical usage is disputed. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak use it in a more specific sense. She argues that subaltern is not just a classy word for oppressed, for Other, for somebody who's not getting a piece of the pie....In postcolonial terms, everything that has limited or no access to the cultural imperialism is subaltern-—a space of difference. Now who would say that's just the oppressed? The working class is oppressed. It's not subaltern....Many people want to claim subalternity. Subaltern was first used in a non-military sense by Marxist Antonio Gramsci.

History of the Subaltern Classes

In the state there are two groups one is the ruling classes and the other is the subaltern classes. Ruling classes those who handling the State power. They are the dominating class. The Subaltern classes are part the ‘civil society’. They are intertwined with the civil society, and thereby with the history of the States and the groups of State.

Gramsci emphasizes the centrality of the State and State Power during a subaltern class struggle. He states that the possession of State Power is crucial to the Subaltern class struggle. Due to the complexity of formation of the Subaltern classes and diversity of subjects that constitute the Subaltern class it becomes very difficult for the Subaltern classes to unite and rise against ruling classes.

The history of the Subaltern groups is very complex. It must include all the repercussions of party activity, throughout the area of the subaltern groups themselves taken globally, and also upon the attitudes of the dominant groups. Among the subaltern groups, one will exercise hegemony through the mediation of a party; it must be established by studying the development of the all other parties too. The hegemony or the supremacy of a social group manifests itself in two ways, as ‘domination’ and as ‘intellectual and moral leadership’. The dominate group even uses armed force to subjugate the antagonistic group. In order to win the governmental power, they already exercise the ‘leadership’.

The Concept of ‘Ideology’ and Cultural Themes: Ideological Material

‘Ideology’ was an aspect of ‘sensationalism’. Different meanings of ‘ideology’ was ‘science of ideas’, ‘analysis of ideas’ and ‘investigation of the original ideas’. Ideas derived from sensations. In Marxist philosophy of praxis represents a distinct advance and historically is precisely in opposition to ideology. Ideology contains a negative value judgment in Marxist philosophy, the Ideology as the ‘Base’ and praxis as a superstructure.

The main elements of error in assessing the value of ideologies within Marxist philosophy are

1. The base always determines the super structure but the super structure cannot determine the base.

2. If any political solution is ideological, it is sidelined as being impractical and inferior.

3. Ideology is only superficial; it does not have any concrete effects.

Gramsci points out that there is always an opposition between ideology and praxis wherein ideology is assigned an inferior position. He explains the ideology and the ideological materials (materials through which ideology operates) are very crucial in understanding the methodological criterion to approach the subaltern class struggle.

Gramsci states that the print media is one of the ideological materials through which the dominant ideology is propagated. He even believes that the first step to stop being subalternized is by serious intellectual and moral activity and also the erasing the concept of ‘mass’. Through this essay Gramsci adds an new dimension to the domain of cultural studies.

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Introduction: Theorising Culture, Reading ourselves-Kenneth Womack

the following write up on Introduction: Theorising Culture, Reading ourselves is by Panom Kaewphadee

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Introduction: Theorising Culture, Reading ourselves is an essay written by Kenneth Womack from an anthology of essays on cultural Studies called Literary Theory: A Reader and Guide.

In Introduction: Theorising Culture, Reading Ourselves Womack traces the development of cultural studies as a discipline through the ages by referring to works by eminent writers and thinkers of that particular time. At the beginning of the essay, Womack puts forth his ideas that cultural studies not only urges us to look at the “social, artistic, political, economic and linguistic mélange”, but also to look inside of ourselves in order to understand how the norms in the society have shaped us. Womack goes on to talk about the postwar stance of cultural studies which no longer deals with social norms and values but criticizes cultural relations and intellectual domination.

Womack emphasizes on works by J. Hillis Miller which “demonstrate the interdisciplinary possibilities of cultural studies”. In works such as Cultural Studies and Reading (1997), The Ethics of Reading: Kant de Man, Eliot, Trollope, James, and Benjamin (1987), and Version of Pygmalion (1990), Miller tries to explain the reflexive process that occurs between the text and the reader. Such a process, Says Miller, allows readers to give conclusive ideas about the properties of literary texts and its “sensibilities of their theoretical premises.”

What is clearly portrayed in the essay is its emphasis on the shift that takes cultural studies from its dealing with a reading of the Great Traditions to its intersecting with literary criticism and popular cultures.

An Introduction to Cultural Studies- Simon During

the following write up on An Introduction to Cultural Studies is by Dhanya Joy

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The cultural studies deal with the study of culture from a sociological rather than an aesthetic viewpoint. The early cultural studies were an engaged form of analysis, because it studied about the social inequalities. The theory of cultural studies is different from the objective social sciences. It relied more on the literary criticism which considered more political.

The rapid development of Cultural Studies as a “new discipline” is closely related to the progress of postmodernism. It may even be considered the real product of the era. Postmodernism opens the paradigm of mini narratives instead of grand narratives, and cultural studies applies the paradigm that “culture” is not an abbreviation of “high culture”. Text, for cultural studies, is an object of discussion, and consequently it’s not merely written, because anything can be text. Cultural studies considers cultural text to be mode of representation, in which cultural studies sees its form and meaning make sense only when there is an examination of its intersections in all complexity. Text is the product of a complex interaction of production, response, and reception.

Simon During noted that cultural-studies appears as a field of study in Great Britain in the 1950s out of Leavisism. From this fact, should easily understand that this study is still closely related to the study of literature, and this consequently means that any methods one has used with literature may be applied to cultural studies as well. However, for one or more reasons, people are probably led into confusion as the object of discussion in cultural studies is not merely a piece of canonical literature. Even, in its development cultural studies tends to grasp or to pierce into any kinds of text, because for cultural studies anything can be text. This condition will surely remind us of the phenomenon of postmodernism which “completes” the era of modernism. Therefore, we may be certain that cultural studies stands as an extension of literary studies and develops in accordance with the progression of postmodernism’s philosophical thought.

According to During ‘culture’ was not an abbreviation of a ‘high culture’ assumed to have constant value across time and space. It is an extension of literary studies in which it struggles not to be trapped by the canon created by the modernists, and as a result this field of study has an extensive range in terms of objects of discussion and, consequently, theories. Since ‘culture’ is not the abbreviation of ‘high-culture’, the understanding of text is also developed. Simon During said that culture was broken down into discrete messages, ‘signifying practices’ or ‘discourses’ which were distributed by particular institutions and media. Since the understanding of text (in literary studies) is an object of discussion, cultural studies extend the paradigm of text to that which is not only written and canonical, because text is a mode of representation.

Cultural studies looks at various kinds of texts within the context of cultural practice, that is, the work, production, and material stuff of daily life, marked as it is by economics and class, by politics, gender, and race, by need and desire. The term cultural studies itself, of course, suggests that it is the study of culture, or, more particularly, the study of contemporary culture. Even assuming that we know precisely what ‘contemporary culture’ is, it can be analysed in many ways – sociologically, for instance, by ‘objectively’ describing its institutions and functions as if they belong to a large, regulated system; or economically, by describing the effects of investment and marketing on cultural production. This means cultural studies should be a cultural analysis of a text from some aspects. It examines the form and structure of cultural texts as they create meaning. Raymond William also noted that this study of culture is interdisciplinary and broad..

Simon During’s An Introduction to Cultural Studies is a wide-ranging and stimulating introduction to the history and theory of Cultural Studies from Leavisism, through the era of the CCCS, to the global nature of contemporary Cultural Studies. Each thematic section examines and explains a key topic within Cultural Studies. This includes time, space, media and the public sphere, identity, sexuality and gender and value.

The most basic and most radical assumption of cultural studies is that the basic unit of investigation is always relationships, and that anything can only truly be understood relationally; thus, studying culture means studying the relationships between configurations of cultural texts and practices on the one hand, and everything that is not in the first instance cultural, including economics, social relations and differences, national issues, social institutions, and so forth on the other. It involves mapping connections, to see how those connections are being made and where they can be remade. As a result, cultural studies always involves the study of contexts sets of relations located and circumscribed in time and space, and defined by questions. And cultural studies is always interdisciplinary because understanding culture requires looking at culture's relationship to everything that is not culture. Moreover, cultural studies is committed to a radical contextualism; it is a rigorous attempt to contextualize intellectual work. This contextualism shapes the project of cultural studies profoundly, and involves a commitment to complexity, contingency, and constructionism.

Cultural studies refuses to reduce the complex to the simple, the specific to the exemplary, and the singular to the typical. It refuses to see this complexity as an inconvenience to be acknowledged only after the analysis. It employs a conjunctive logic where one thing is true, another may also be true and thereby refuses the illusion of a total, all-encompassing answer. It avoids confusing projects with accomplishments; and it refuses to put off until later the resistances, the interruptions, and the fractures and contradictions of the context.

Cultural studies believes in contingency; it denies that the shape and structure of any context is inevitable. But cultural studies does not simply reject essentialism, for anti-essentialism is, in its own way, another version of a logic of necessity: in this case, the necessity that there are never any real relations. It is committed to what we might call an anti-anti-essentialism, to the view that there are relationships in history and reality, but they are not necessary. They did not have to be that way, but given that they are that way, they have real effects. Above all, there are no guarantees in history that things will form in some particular way, or work out in some particular way. Reality and history are, so to speak, up for grabs, never guaranteed. It operates in the space between, on the one hand, absolute containment, closure, complete and final understanding, total domination, and, on the other hand, absolute freedom and possibility, and openness.

Finally, cultural studies assumes that relationships are produced or constructed, and not simply always the result of chance. The relations that make up a context are real through the various activities of different agents and agencies, including people and institutions. Insofar as we are talking about the human world—and even when we are describing the physical world, we are within the human world as well—cultural practices and forms matter because they constitute a key dimension of the ongoing transformation or construction of reality. However, the effects of cultural practices are always limited by the existence of a material or nondiscursive reality. Cultural studies, then, does not make everything into culture, nor does it deny the existence of material reality. It does not assume that culture, by itself, constructs reality. To say that culture is constitutive—that it produces the world, along with other kinds of practices does not mean that real material practices are not being enacted, or that real material conditions do not both enable and constrain the ways in which reality functions and can be interpreted. Cultural studies is, in the first instance, concerned with cultural practices. To put it simply, the culture we live in, the cultural practices we use, and the cultural forms we place upon and insert into reality, have consequences for the way reality is organized and lived.

The commitment to a radical contextualism affects every dimension of cultural studies, including its theory and politics, its questions and answers, and its analytic vocabulary—which includes concepts of culture (text, technology, media), power, and social identity. Cultural studies derives its questions, not from a theoretical tradition or a disciplinary paradigm but from a recognition that the context is always already structured, not only by relations of force and power, but also by voices of political anger, despair, and hope. Cultural studies attempts to engage the existing articulations of hope and disappointment in everyday life and to bring the messy and painful reality of power as it operates both outside and inside the academy into the practice of scholarship.

There are two features that characterized cultural studies, when it first appeared in Great Britain in the 1950s. It concentrated on ‘subjectivity’ which means that it studied culture in relation to individual lives, breaking with social scientific positivism or ‘objectivism’.

Cultural studies insist that one cannot just ignore or accept the division and struggle in the society. It was developed out of Leavisism through Hoggart and Williams, who came from working-class families. They wrote in the interests of the society and their own individual experiences. According to the Leavisites, culture was not simply a leisure activity. Because it is all about forming mature individuals with concrete and balanced sense of life.

Culture could also be seen as a form of ‘governmentality’, that is, a means to produce conforming or ‘docile’ citizens, most of all through the education system. The most sophisticated concept that emerged in cultural studies was that of articulation. It emphasizes how hegemony mutates in terms of its elements and contents. It is a process of making alliances and connections, releasing energies rather than of presenting a static set of values and knowledge’s.

The notion of polysemy remains limited in that it still works at the level of individual signs as discrete signifying units. Cultural studies has been interested in how groups with least power practically develop their own readings of, and uses for, cultural products – in fun, in resisitance, or to articualate their own identity. Theorists have pointed out the fact that private discourse always comes from somewhere else and its meanings cannot be wholly mastered by those who use it. The problem confronted this new model of cultural studies as, it broke society down into fractions united by sexuality, gender, or ethnicity.

Cultural studies see theory as a resource to be used to respond strategically to a particular project, to specific questions and specific contexts. The measure of a theory's truth is its ability to enable a better understanding of a particular context through experiences. Thus, cultural studies cannot be identified with any single theoretical paradigm or tradition. It continues to wrestle with various modern and postmodern philosophies, including Marxism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, pragmatism, poststructuralism, and postmodernism.

Cultural studies do not begin with a general theory of culture but rather views cultural practices as the intersection of many possible effects. It does not start by defining culture or its effects, or by assembling, in advance, a set of relevant dimensions within which to describe particular practices. Instead, cultural practices are places where different things can and do happen. The common assumption that cultural studies is a theory of ideology and representation, or of identity and subjectivity, or of the circulation of communication, or of hegemony, is mistaken. Cultural studies often address such issues, but that is the result of analytic work on the context rather than an assumption that overwhelms the context.

Cultural studies has taken the force of arguments against ‘meta-discourses’ and does not want the voice of the academic theorist to drown out other less often heard voices. Like the other studies, cultural studies are politically driven. It is committed to understanding power—or more accurately, the relationships of culture, power, and context—and to producing knowledge that might help people understand what is going on in the world and the possibilities that exist for changing it.

The study of cultural studies, then, is a way of politicizing theory and theorizing politics. Cultural studies is always interested in how power infiltrates, contaminates, limits, and empowers the possibilities that people possess to live their lives in dignified and secure ways. Cultural studies also approaches power and politics as complex, contingent, and contextual phenomena and refuses to reduce power to a single dimension or axis, or to assume in advance what the relevant sites, goals, and forms of power and struggle might be. Consequently, it advocates a flexible, somewhat pragmatic or strategic, and often modest approach to political programs and possibilities. For cultural studies, knowledge based on statistical techniques belongs to the processes which ‘normalize’ society and stand in opposition to cultural studies’ respect for the marginal subject. The study of Cultural theories carries the notion of ‘popular’ and the everyday life of the individuals. Now we need to think of cultural studies not as a traditional field or discipline, nor as a mode of interdisciplinarity, but a field within multidisciplinarity, which thinks of engaged cultural studies less as an academic specialism than as a critical moment within a larger, dispersed, not wholly politicized field, is, then, a way of shoring up differences and counter-hegemony inside the humanities in an epoch of global managerialism.

Works cited

www.wordiq.com/definition/Cultural_studies

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/routledge/09502386.html

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Cultural Studies and its Theoretical Legacies- Stuart Hall


the following write up on Cultural Studies and its Theoretical Legacies is by Rinu Dina John

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Stuart Hall is one of the most influential figures in cultural studies. He was part of the time when cultural studies was originated as an academic discourse or discipline. In this essay he questions the seriousness with which this discourse is engaged with a personal version of the history of the cultural studies.

According to Hall cultural studies emerged as a disciple out of the 1950s disintegration of classical Marxism and its thesis that the economic base has a determining effect on the cultural superstructure. He speaks of two interruptions that the trajectories of cultural studies faced namely feminism and racism. But what is stable in cultural studies is the conjunctional knowledge based on the idea of Gramsci. It means knowledge situated in and applicable to, specific and immediate political/historical circumstances. In addition, the awareness that the structure of representations which forms culture’s alphabet and grammar are instruments of social power requiring critical examination. What he does is to trace the history of the development of cultural studies. He does it by referring to some theoretical legacies, namely the New Left and some theoretical moments, namely Racism and Feminism

According to Hall cultural studies has a discursive formation in Foucault’s sense. It means it has no single origin. It is a multiple discourse and has many histories. It is always a set of unstable formation. It has ‘centre’ only in quotation. It has many trajectories. It does not mean it is not a organised or policed disciplinary area. It means cultural studies refuse to be a meta narrative. It is a project that is open to that which it does not know. But at the same time just because there is no fixed centre doesn’t mean that there is no possibility of taking a particular position and arguing for it. He doesn’t believe that knowledge is close but he believes in arbitrary closure. This is what allows for politics. Every practice that intends to make a difference in the world should have some points of difference or distinction. It is the question of positionalities. But we should always keep in mind that positions are never absolute or final.

Cultural studies in the academies of the advanced capitalist countries have transformed the object of studies in the humanities. In particular, in English departments, cultural studies has challenged the predominance of the governing categories of literary studies (the "canon," the homogeneous "period," the formal properties of genre, the literary object as autonomous and self-contained) in the interest of producing "readings" of all texts of culture and inquiring into the reproduction of subjectivities. To this end, pressure has been placed on disciplinary boundaries, the methods which police these boundaries, and modes of interpretation and critique have been developed which bring, for example, "economics" and "politics" to bear on the formal properties of texts. In addition, the lines between "high culture" and "mass culture" have been relativized, making it possible to address texts in terms of their social effectivity rather than their "inherent" literary, philosophical or other values.

He speaks of one of the important theoretical legacies part of the origin of cultural studies namely the emergence of New Left in Britain with the disintegration of classical Marxism. Classical Marxist thesis was that economic base has a determining effect on the cultural superstructure. Classical Marxism was mainly engaged with power, capital, exploitation etc. and did not talk about the objective cultural studies such as culture, ideology, language, the symbolic etc.

He also speaks of certain movements that provoke theoretical movements. There were two such movements in relation to cultural studies. They are racism and feminism. These two movements were considered as interruptions that the cultural studies faced. These interruptions led to new theoretical formulations within cultural studies. These interruptions are good.

An Intelligent Critic's Guide to Indian Cinema- Ashish Nandy

the following write up on An Intelligent Critic's Guide to Indian Cinema is by Abhay Shetty

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1. The Cultural Matrix of the popular film.

The writer Ashish Nandy makes a clear distinction on how the cultural capital of Indian is much influenced by the middle class of the urban India be it cinema, cricket or anyother forms of entertainment, Nandy goes on explaining that the urban middle class politics which is only a part compared to the rest of the Indian rural population has a mojor influences in giving momentum to these areas of entertainment. " Urban India also would continue to provide a critical mass sustaining a level of intellectual activity and creative initiative difficult or impossible to achieve in smaller Third World societies ". Claiming that these urban middle class are the intellectual powers which sustain and encourage creative initiations which is assumed to be impossible by the third world countries. Thanks to its political presence compared to the other third world countries which have in compare provided to its westernized bourgeoisie." These classes have often provided the baseline for a critique of modernity as well as of traditions". Thinker and social reformers of Ninteenth and twetieth century of India have all provided for such a intellectual growth to the middle class in India irrespective of the social background of these reformers like Rabindranath Tagore , Bankmchandra Chattopadhyay, Gandhi and Bhimrao Ambedkar. " They Shared an Idiom and culture", and this is because they shared the cultural intellectual together irrespective of their social backdrop. Intellectuals or creative individuals from cinema , art and literature are forming a definite culture that mediates between the classical and the non-classical or folk, and between West and East. Nandy terms another set of the divients of the culture as Low-brow middle class for they 'vulgate' the new concepts of ethics and conciousness into the masses. Stating them to be 'underground' which has taken a legitamate popular form, threatening the high culture of the middle class.

The need for this new self assertion of the low -brow is because " The accelerating process of social change in India uprooted increasing number of people from their folk traditions".For the middle class it was their relatibility to the sanskrit tradition and for the upper class it was westernized concepts so the low-brow needed a self assertion of their culture to mingle in this melting pot of the urban. And this clash of the middle class and the low brow was in a sense resolved with the with a new fromation of expression " a middle -brow medium of self expression to serve as a new urban folk expression and a popular form of classicism". Thus a new mass culture formed. The new culture thus formed has certain traits of its own. The first one being including the elemants of the low-brow dominant and laying of the western high cultuer which was once prominant in the Indian Middle class culture. But the new mass culture doesnt reject the classical culture but inly undeplays it .Secondly there is a sense of prdictability and readability in the then popular culture of the urban middle class. Where as the urban mass culture now is purely on the creativity of the producer that cares to stimulate the sensibility of the masses. The third is that popular culture plays a mediatory rle between the classical and the folk , modern and tradition which is fragmented geograohically .where as in mass culture it has a very pan india effect reaching out to people through out the nation. The fouth being that the mass culture is not being critical of the of the current political culture and political sterotypes.where as the popular middle class culture relies on concepts such as sanity, maturity and normality .

Thus leading us to the common features and differences between art films, middle-brow cinema and commercial cinema . "All three depend on middle class for legitamacy and critical acclaim" by stating so Nandy also give middle class a certain power fram or structure to value all the three bases of cinema. Firstly according to the writer the commercial films center around the value system of the society basing itself on subtle criticizm of society but yet ahdering to the larger social mores and values. Thus criticising the middle class values to too. Where as art cinema or high-brow cinema writer terms it give a ruthless criticism of the social potholes and and gives a deep analysis of cinema as such. Where as the middle bro cinema fails to have to arty face of the high brow cinema but constantly try to achieve the artiness among their cinema. Which carries on the tradition od "good popular cinema".The writer goes on making such distinctions from one genre of cinema to the other.

2. Beyond Oriental Despotism

Politics and femininity in Satyajit Ray

In this section the writer shows how in Satyajit Ray's movie Shatranj how the west and the east is percieved and the western notions of Masculinities are projected as against that of eastern notions of femininity.The femininity is only potrayed at the expense of masculinity.

3. Shyam Benegal and the case of missing Krsna

Nandy potrays how the Indian epics do not have Hero in sense of the greek myths. but also touches upon where the intellectuals felt a need for a Karna to be potrayed as a hero in the curret day scenario.

4. The Double in Commercial Films

The use of double role as an alter ego is being projected to that of an fight between the eastern and the western concepts of the double, in reference to main stream Indian cinema.

5. Cultural Spaces and Aesthetic Spaces

The art films and the main stream indian movies share different spaces and with respect to their spaces they function accordingly. Nandy also adds on that these spaces should not be interchanged because the masses do not recognise the the aesthetics spaces and only rely on the cultural spaces of the movies or cinema.

Bibilography :

1. Nandy, Ashis; 1995; Intelligent Film Critic’s Guide to Indian Cinema; The Savage Freud and Other Essays on Possible and Retrievable Selves; New Delhi; OUP; pp 196-236

Cultural Industry Reconsidered -Theodor W. Adorno

the following write up on Culture Industry Reconsidered is by Inchara Ravi

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Culture Industry Reconsidered was written by Theodor W. Adorno, a German philosopher. He was born on September 11, 1903. He belonged to the Frankfurt School of social theory. The Frankfurt School takes its name from the Institute for Social Research established in Frankfurt, Germany in 1923. Adorno along with Max Horkheimer published a book named ‘Dialectic of Enlightenment’ in 1947. In this book they use the term ‘cultural industry’ for the first time.

In the essay Cultural Industry Reconsidered, Adorno replaces the expression ‘mass culture’ with ‘culture industry'. This is to avoid the popular understanding of mass culture as the culture that arises from the masses. He prefers calling it ‘culture industry’ because of the commodification of the culture forms or artistic objects. He opines that the cultural forms create a means of income for their creators and profit has become more important than the artistic expression. Hence, culture has turned into an industry and the cultural objects are looked at as products. One of the characteristics of cultural industry is that it intentionally integrates both the high and low art.

By referring to the term industry, Adorno does not point to the production process instead he is looking at the ‘standardization of the thing itself’ and to the rationalization of distribution techniques and not strictly to the production process. It is industrial more in a sociological sense, in terms of incorporation of the industrial forms of organization even though nothing is manufactured. He also makes clear the difference between the technique used in cultural industry and the technique used in works of art. In the works of art the technique refers to the formal organization of the object, with its inner logic, where as in cultural industry it refers to the distribution and the mechanical production. Thus technique in cultural industry is external to the object where as in the works of art it is internal. Adorno opines that a work of art is not different than a commercial product in the industrial era.

Adorno says that the masses are secondary and are ‘an appendage of the machinery’ in the cultural industry. He argues that, the culture industry claims to bring order in the chaotic world it provides human being with something like a standard and an orientation, yet the thing that it is claiming to preserve is actually being destroyed. The mass media is supposed to enlighten the mass, to bring about rational thinking and also demystification. But mass media is deceiving people in the name of enlightenment. They are actually controlling the people rather than liberating their thoughts.

The current culture industry acts as if it satisfies the consumers’ need for entertainment, but masks the manner by which these needs are standardized, manipulating the consumers to obsess about its products. A relevant example for Adorno’s view on mass media is cinema and television. Each film is the replica of what has been already done, but people believe it to be different from what has been done before. As a result of this critical thinking, individuality of an object or an idea is lost due to the commodification by the cultural industry.

The essay also makes a reference to Benjamin’s theory of the ‘aura’. It says that the Culture Industry doesn’t have an alternative to the aura. Hence, it is going against its own ideologies. Adorno's concept of culture industry indicates the necessity for rethinking his theory of mass culture.

References

http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC20folder/AdornoMassCult.html

Monday, February 07, 2011

EMPIRE, NATION, AND LITERARY TEXT- Susie Tharu and Dr. K. Lalitha

the following write up on Empire, Nation and the Literary Text is by Rekha Kamath

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The essay ''Empire, Nation and the Literary Text'' is a combined effort of Prof. Susie Tharu and Dr. K. Lalitha. By using ''Radhika Santwanam'' (Appeasing Radhika), a classic work of the eighteenth century Telugu poetess ''Muddupalani'' as an example, the authors have attempted to portray the imbalance in the cultural authority during the colonial period, and its changing trends. In the introductory section, the essay reveals the efforts made by Bangalore Nagaratnamma, philanthropist and savant of the twentieth century, in trying to bring back to the public eye the great classic of Muddupalani which had gone unnoticed.

Muddupalani was a courtesan attached to the retinue of Pratapsimha (1739-1763), a Nayaka king of Tanjavur. Traditionally the only women who had an access to scholarship and arts like dancing, music, and literature were courtesans. Many of such women commanded respect for their learning and their accomplishments. One such accomplishment was Muddupalani’s Radhika Santwanam. It consists of 584 poems divided into four sections. The poems are stories involving Radha, Krishna’s aunt, who brings up Ila Devi from childhood and then gets her married to Krishna. The poems are a detail description of Ila Devi’s puberty and her consummation of her marriage with Krishna. In these poems Radha advises Ila Devi how to respond to Krishna’s love-making, and Krishna how to tenderly handle Ila Devi. At a point of time, the poems change course and Radha, unable to bear the pain and grief of her own separation from Krishna, whom she desires herself, breaks down and rages against Krishna for having abandoned her. When Krishna gently appeases her, she is comforted by his loving embrace. This is what gives Muddupalai’s creation its title.

The introduction of the essay shows the serious implications of the efforts made by Bangalore Nagaratnamma in reprinting the classic ''Radhika Satwanam'' (Appeasing Radhika) in 1910, during the reign of the British in India. She did so with a very clear intention of making the classic work of Muddupalani available to the public again. But this resulted in Muddupalani’s work being criticized as obscene and was banned from being printed, published, or even read. Even though the ban was lifted with the winning of Independence, the text didn’t achieve the recognition that it deserved. Radhika Santwanam gives a chance to take a peek into the ideological conjunctures of the last 250 years of Indian critiques.In the sections following the introduction, the authors attempt to "trace the changing political economies of gender, caste and class, serviced in turn by changes in literary taste as well as by altogether new notions of the function of literature and the nature of the literary curriculum."

The third section of the essay elaborates on the accomplishments of courtesans or ganika during Maddupalai’s time. Unlike the non-Muslim women upper caste women of that time, this section of the community got a chance to get well-versed with the literature of various languages including Sanskrit. As the culture of the Thanjavur court grew into a singularly composite one, the national culture also showed signs of miscegenation. The Thanjavur rulers were displaced by a Maratha dynasty and therefore there was a cultural influence too. This also showed changehad an impact in Muddupalani’s writings. Verses and secular prose narratives started replacing the poems. But what gave Muddupalani's works their uniqueness were the subversion of the received form. Usually it is the man is the lover and the woman is the loved one. But in Radhika Santwanam the woman's sensuality is at the center. "Legitimation of female desire and its endorsement of a woman's right to pleasure" is what makes Radhika Santwanam a unique classic.

The fourth section of the essay concentrates on the reason for the shift in ideologies. The work that was uncontroversial during its time became totally unacceptable when Bangalore Nagaratnamma brought its reprinted version into the open in 1911, the time when British rule in India was at its peak. The era saw major shifts in political, economic, and social ideologies. Thanjavur lost its relevance as the British started taking over places that were once ruled by Indian rulers. Artists, singers, dancers, especially the women, lost their status in the society and were forced to take up peury and prostitution.