Critical and Cultural Studies Commons^™

"I Had The Craziest Dream Last Night...": A Foucauldian Analysis Of Black Swan, Samantha Rose Prochnow

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

The Indian Diaspora And Reading Desai, Mukherjee, Gupta, And Lahiri, Amit Shankar Saha

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "The Indian Diaspora and Reading Desai, Mukherjee, Gupta, and Lahiri" Amit Shankar Saha argues that displacement produces a point of encounter between the alien and authority. Saha analyses aspects of (im)migration in texts about the Indian diaspora: if the host society is intolerant then it is through reactionary self-fashioning that the (im)migrant asserts his/her ethnicity as a defensive mechanism to rescue self-respect. However, while the host society is welcoming, it does not guarantee ready assimilation because there is always the question of severing the (im)migrants ties with his/her home land. (Im)migrants start living in two worlds simultaneously …

History And Politics In Parthasarathy's Play Aurangzeb, Shubh Brat Sarkar

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "History and Politics in Parthasarathy's Play Aurangzeb" Shubh Brat Sarkar analyzes the use of history in a dramatic text, the underlying politics and ideology of a literary product, and the modes by which the materials are shaped through dramaturgy. The name Aurangzeb, the title of the play, has a strong presence in history textbooks and has perhaps become an integral part of a grand historical, "Indian" nationalist discourse. In the play multiple contradictions co-exist and find new projections in translations and theater adaptations in different historical contexts. Indira Parthasarthy's 1974 play is based on events leading …

Women's Worlds In The Novels Of Kandukuri And Gilman, Suneetha Rani

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Women's Worlds in the Novels of Kandukuri and Gilman" Suneetha Rani discusses Veeresalingam Kandukuri's Satyaraja Poorvadesayatralu (Satyaraja's Travel to the Distant Lands) and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland. While the novels were published in two different contexts — one in pre-independence India and the other in pre-World War I in the U.S., one in Telugu and the other in English, one by a man and the other by a woman — there is an interesting connecting thread that brings them together. Both were satires on the contemporary male chauvinistic world. While the Telugu novel pleads for a better …

Gender Anxiety And Contemporary Indian Popular Fiction, Elen Turner

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Gender Anxiety and Contemporary Indian Popular Fiction" Elen Turner discusses two examples of Indian "popular literature" which reflect contemporary Indian middle-class anxieties surrounding globalization and social change. The recent proliferation of foreign business process outsourcing companies in India has changed the financial and lifestyle opportunities available to young, urban Indians. While sociological and ethnographic studies have found that workers embrace what they perceive to be westernized lifestyles, the novels under discussion present a more nuanced picture. Chetan Bhagat's One Night at the Call Centre (2005) and Shruti Saxena's Stilettos in the Boardroom (2010) demonstrate that young workers …

Elements Of Hinduism In Chandra’S Red Earth And Pouring Rain, Corinne M. Ehrfurth

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Elements of Hinduism in Chandra's Red Earth and Pouring Rain" Corinne M. Ehrfurth explores how Hindu tenets in the Bhagavad-gītā continue to provide a didactic framework that inspires contemporary Indian literature. Ehrfurth highlights the similarities between characters, consumed with doubt and seeking understanding, in the ancient Indian text and Vikram Chandra's novel Red Earth and Pouring Rain where protagonists represent the diversity and complexity of Hinduism to a global audience. In examining how the novel's protagonists handle dilemmas, Ehrfurth presents Chandra's novel as illuminating how healthy and destructive actions affect one's ability of achieving the peaceful …

Ancient Hindu Society And Eliot's Ideal Christian Society, Anita Bhela

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Ancient Hindu Society and Eliot's Ideal Christian Society" Anita Bhela examines the influence of Hindu thought and Hindu philosophy on T.S. Eliot's critical writings. In The Idea of a Christian Society Eliot gives a hypothetical account of an ideal society that would contribute towards the well-being of all its members, while in Notes towards the Definition of Culture he enumerates the essential conditions needed for the growth and survival of culture. Bhela argues that religion and culture were inseparably interrelated in Eliot's mind. She then traces similarities in the concepts of family, culture, and religion as expressed …

Africa And India In The Novels Of Dai And Emecheta, Debarshi Prasad Nath, Juri Dutta

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "Africa and India in the Novels of Dai and Emecheta" Debarshi Prasad Nath and Juri Dutta discusses the work of two writers belonging to different continents, India and Nigeria. Interestingly, the novels of the two writers Dutta is analyzing — Lummer Dai and Buchi Emecheta —never heard of each other. Both novels are based on the custom of bride price, both writers speak out against the stifling rigidity of traditional customs, and uphold aspects of modernity in languages other than their native tongues. At the same time, both writers affirm the sanctity of the traditional institutions and …

Introduction To New Work In Comparative Indian Literatures And Cultures, Mohan G. Ramanan, Tutun Mukherjee

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Duality Of Illusion And Reality In Desai's In Custody, Narinder K. Sharma

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Duality of Illusion and Reality in Desai's In Custody," Narinder K. Sharma analyses Anita Desai's internal confrontation of choices. In the novel, Desai's narration offers various options at every step and the author suggests that it becomes difficult to decide what actually should be done. The attempt is to personalize impersonal time and space thereby brings it into the domain of conflicting choices signifying an existential desire to manifest freedom. Going a step further, it can be deciphered that the individual desires to make an ideal choice to experience "authenticity"; however, the desire of making an …

World Literature And The Case Of Joyce, Rao, And Borges, Bhavya Tiwari

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "World Literature and the Case of Joyce, Rao, and Borges" Bhavya Tiwari discusses the work of James Joyce and poses the question why Joyce is considered an important figure in Latin America and South Asia. Have Indian languages (e.g., Bengali and Hindi) responded differently to Joycean aesthetics? If yes, can there be political reasons behind this difference? Joyce's own position in Europe as a modernist aesthetician complicates his reception in the "periphery," India and Latin America. Hence, Tiwari queries as to what happens when Joyce's texts are received on two different continents. In this context, Tiwari discusses …

Redefinitions Of India And Individuality In Adiga's The White Tiger, Kathleen Waller

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Redefinitions of India and Individuality in Adiga's The White Tiger" Kathleen Waller discusses Indian individualism as being supported by a democratic and secular society, but also stymied by traditions and socioeconomic realities which keep most of its people living in poverty. In The White Tiger, Adiga challenges Indian culture to create a society in which individuals are truly free. Waller argues that the relevance of Adiga's novel is that it is social structure and practices of hierarchy keep many people in the lower classes of Indian society and that this state of affairs is counter …

The Idea Of England In Eighteenth-Century Indian Travel Writing, Amrita Satapathy

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "The Idea of England in Eighteenth-century Indian Travel Writing" Amrita Satapathy discusses how Dean Mahomed's 1794 The Travels of Dean Mahomed maps out territories of the mind of the colonizer and the colonized, how the narrative redefines contours of two diverse communities and cultures, and determines forms of cultural representations. Mahomed's Travels presented for the first time the idea of England from an Indian immigrant's point of view and altered the prejudiced outlook of early Western travel writings about the East. Mahomed's narrative opened an alternative vista for the wide-eyed Easterner of the world of the West …

Shakespeare Reception In India And The Netherlands Until The Early Twentieth Century, Vikram Singh Thakur

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Shakespeare Reception in India and The Netherlands until the Early Twentieth Century" Vikram Singh Thakur locates Shakespeare in two different cultural contexts by looking at its reception in The Netherlands and India. His analysis is based on the fact that Shakespeare was a foreign playwright to both cultures yet both have gradually assimilated his works into their respective cultures and made him, probably, the most performed foreign playwright since the 1870s. Thakur aims at understanding how the reception of a work in different cultures is mediated by various social, cultural, historical, and ideological sieves through which the …

Being Critical In Marketing Studies: The Imperative Of Macro Perspectives, Nikhilesh Dholakia

College of Business Faculty Publications

In this article, I argue that an elevated macro-level perspective is imperative for conducting critical studies in the fields of marketing and consumer research. There are epistemic barriers to operating in this manner, and I offer several suggestions for overcoming these barriers. Finally, I review the research spaces for critical studies of marketing in various global settings and conclude that United Kingdom and Nordic Europe have the best epistemic climate, and this region needs to take leadership in promoting greater range of macro and critical studies of marketing in the rest of the world.

How Media Frame Roller Derby Around The World In 20 Different Countries, Julie Chartrou

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A content analysis was conducted to analyze how media frame roller derby. The research included an analysis of newspaper articles published all around the world in 20 different nations from January 1, 2001 to December 31, 2011, and different languages were considered. The research did not support previous studies concerning women athletes and the sport. Overall tone toward roller derby was mainly neutral, and the description of roller derby was not defined as sexist or using violent terms. Women journalists who wrote articles were slightly more sexist and used violent terms than men. Exploratory research showed that the previous findings …

A Symbolic Prison: A Prisoner's Story As Masculinity Crisis Narrative In Bronson, James Benjamin Shupe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For this project I analyze the film Bronson, focusing on its connection to the contemporary masculinity crisis discourse or the belief that traditional notions of masculinity are in peril due to changing gender norms and women's social progress. I argue Bronson privileges a narrow, violent conception of masculinity through its presentation of violence and domination over other men. I use Ernest Bormann's Symbolic Convergence Theory to analyze how the film makes sense of the real life events it is based on in a way that appeals to the contemporary masculinity crisis discourse. I argue that Bronson is a notable representation …

Selective Amnesia And Racial Transcendence In News Coverage Of President Obama’S Inauguration, Kristen Hoerl

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

The mainstream press frequently characterized the election of President Barack Obama the first African American US President as the realization of Martin Luther King’s dream, thus crafting a postracial narrative of national transcendence. I argue that this routine characterization of Obama’s election functions as a site for the production of selective amnesia, a form of remembrance that routinely negates and silences those who would contest hegemonic narratives of national progress and unity.

Passing The Salt: How Eating Together Creates Community, Rebecca Katz

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Sharing a meal is a simple, yet sacred occasion. It is a universal act that is important to building relationships within people groups. Intentionally eating together creates time and space to engage in the spiritual and intellectual levels that are unique to human beings. Sharing food cultivates community because the implications of the meal extend beyond the time of eating together. While there are other places people meet, gathering around a meal is the most accessible because if nothing else, everyone must eat. Through participant observation and personal interviews, this CE/T project explores four meals to determine how eating together …

Theories Of Culture, Identity, And Ethnomusicology: A Synthesis Of Popular Music, Cultural, And Communication Studies, Alyssa Santos

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

The Initiation Of Growth-Focused Relationships Involving Healthy Accountability At The Carbondale Church Of Christ, Stephen Shaffer

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

After several years of transition, the Carbondale Church of Christ is in the early stages of becoming a spiritual growth-focused community. However, the emerging growth community appears to reflect the prevailing cultural assumptions that growth is a personal, private, and an individual task. To shape this emergent growth culture, this project initiated a group of congregational opinion leaders, organized in pairs, into the practice of growth-focused relationships involving healthy accountability. The initiation involved a theological orientation followed by a four-week healthy accountability praxis.

The theological framework of the project involved three main aspects. First, the project used the body image …

Towards Self-Emancipation In Ict For Development Research: Narratives About Respect, Traditional Leadership And Building Networks Of Friendships In Rural South Africa, Kirstin Krauss

The African Journal of Information Systems

In this paper, the author contends that if the outsider-researcher involved in Information and Communication Technology for Development really wants to make a difference and honestly address the emancipatory interests of the developing community, social transformation will have to occur on both sides of the “development divide.” This statement implies both an understanding of the researcher’s own ethnocentrism, prejudice, assumptions and inabilities as well as local concerns, needs, expectations and realities. Using critical social theory as a position of inquiry and learning from the enculturation phases of critical ethnographic fieldwork in a deep rural part of South Africa, the paper …

Tripping With Stephen Gaskin: An Exploration Of A Hippy Adult Educator, Gabriel Patrick Morley

Dissertations

For the last 40 years, Stephen Gaskin has been an adult educator on the fringe, working with tens of thousands of adults in the counterculture movement in pursuit of social change regarding marijuana legalization, women’s rights, environmental justice issues and beyond. Gaskin has written 11 books about his experiences teaching and learning with adults outside the mainstream, yet, he is virtually unknown in the field of adult education. He lists his religion as hippy; he is a member of the Counterculture Hall of Fame (inducted 2004), a convicted felon, a United States Marine, a Korean War combat veteran, and a …

Ideological “Smackdown”: A Textual Analysis Of Class, Race And Gender In Wwe Televised Professional Wrestling, Casey Brandon Hart

Dissertations

The focus of this study is an in-depth intertextual examination of how the WWE in 2010 and by extension contemporary professional wrestling in general represents a microcosm of modern cultural ideology. The study examines three major areas in which this occurs. The first of these areas is that of class values. This section focuses on the establishment and extension middle-American values, defined as those values generally shared by the middle-class of the United States. The second section of this study focuses on how the WWE uses racial commodification in the treatment of people of color. Using concepts of Marxist power …

Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics: A Case Study Of Music Censorship And Suppression In America, Nathaniel T. Belcik

Young Historians Conference

The paper talks about music censorship in the 1980s, specifically the PMRC hearings in 1985. The paper looks at the anti-Rock movement of the 1980s and the Parents Music Resource Center, an organization that wanted warning labels placed on albums. The paper examines the motives of the PMRC and opposition to their proposals from famous musicians. The thesis of the paper is that the PMRC's proposals were adopted by the RIAA because the RIAA wanted to get a tax on cassettes passed and the negative publicity over explicit music was hurting their efforts to get the tax passed.

Is It Sexy? A Semiotic Analysis Of Sexual Imagery In Japanese And United States Advertising, Marc P. Pereira

Northwest Communication Association Conference Papers & Presentations

This study presents a semiotic analysis of several magazine advertisements in an attempt to explore body image and sexuality as it is illustrated in marketing campaigns in both the United States and Japan. Each of the magazines from which the artifacts were drawn was published in 2011, and each presents a similar focus on fitness, fashion, and television in each country. A comparison of the sexuality portrayed in advertisements was conducted to explore similarities and differences. It was found that there is a difference in how sexual imagery was used between the United States and Japan, with the United States …

Information Literacy In The Workplace: A Cross-Cultural Perspective, Yuhfen Diana H. Wu

Faculty and Staff Publications

This cross-cultural study has two main purposes: to investigate how information literacy is perceived in the workplace and to discover how employees obtain information to carry out their jobs in an effective and timely fashion. This project applies a mix of research methods, including site visits, interviews, and a survey. More than 120 participants from forty companies were involved in this study. They were from a wide variety of industries in Taiwan and Silicon Valley, in Northern California, where many companies base offices or operations from around the world. Major obstacles in conducting cross-continent research are cost, time demands, scheduling, …

Martin Kahl (Ed.). The Transnationalisation Of Risks Of Violence. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft. 2011., Erin Mcelroy M.A.

Journal of International and Global Studies

Book review.

Michael Arthur, Aung-Thwin, & Kenneth R. Hall (Eds.). New Perspectives On The History And Historiography Of Southeast Asia: Continuing Explorations. London & New York: Routledge. 2011., James M. Hastings Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

Book review.

Yan Xuetong. Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power. Edited By Daniel A. Bell & Sun Zhe. Translated By Edmund Ryden. Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press. 2011., Lik Hang Tsui

Journal of International and Global Studies

Book review.