Litinfinite Journal | ISSN: 2582-0400 [Online]

LITINFINITE JOURNAL
ISSN: 2582-0400 [Online]
CODEN: LITIBR

Peer-reviewed Journal of Literature and Social Sciences  

Open Access Journal

Litinfinite Journal is indexed by MLA Directory Of Periodicals & MLA International Bibliography, DOAJ, EBSCO, ProQuest, SCILIT, Ulrichsweb & Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory, ICI World Of Journals, J-Gate, JISC, ERIH PLUS & other major indexing services 

Litinfinite Journal
The Musician, 1914 by Louis Casimir Ladislas Marcoussis (artist) French, from Chester Dale Collection. (Thanks for National Art Gallery, Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20565, United States)

Litinfinite Journal 

Vol-IV, Issue-I | July, 2022

Culture, Memory, and Identity

Content

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022

Litinfinite Journal, Vol-4, Issue-1, (2nd July, 2022)

Content

 

Article Title

Authors

Pagination

 

Content

 

i

 

Editorial

Sreetanwi Chakraborty

ii-v

1

The Culture Heritage Protection: Suggestive Themes and Views of August Wilson’s Fences

Hasan Hadi Ali

1-12

2

Food, Memory and Identity: Tracing Mizo Foodways

Lalthansangi Ralte

13-20

3

Identity, Memory, and Monuments: problematics of referentiality

Nancy Ciccone

21-29

4

The Implication of Indigenous Folk Memory in Lakdas Wikkrama Sinha’s Poetry

Vihanga Perera

30-39

5

Mapping Emotions, Culture and Identity through Food and Memory in Esther David’s Book of Rachel

Hitesh D Raviya1

and

Rohini Sharma2

40-47

6

The Spectacle of Death and Deception: Analysing Fictional and Non-Fictional Writings on the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

Md. Shahnawaz

48-54

7

Sabuj Dwiper Raja: A Fight for the Rights of Jarawa Identity and Culture

Sandip Kumar Mishra

55-62

8

জাপানে প্রসবকালীন সময়ে প্রচলিত সাতোগায়েরি শুশসান রীতিনীতির তাৎপর্য

Significance of Japanese Childbirth Rites: With Special Reference to the Practice of Satogaeri-shussan

Hiya Mukherjee

63-70

9

Representation of Identity through Narrativization of Food in Julie and Julia (2009) and The Lunchbox (2013)

Neenu Kumar

71-82

10

Performing Memory: Trauma and the Self in The Miniaturist of Junagadh and Forget Me Not

Ria Banerjee

83-90

11

Remembering Displacement in The Making of Everyday Life in Kolkata: A Sociological Study

Sreya Sen

91-100

12

Mapping the Entangled and Intricate Memories of Diasporic Lives; Revisiting the Mnemonic Spaces in Khaled Hosseini′s The Kite Runner

Poulami Saha

101-108

13

“I Do Not Belong to April”- Review of Alleys are Filled with Future Alphabets By Gopal Lahiri

Sreetanwi Chakraborty

109-112

14

Dissecting The Toto Myths, Tales, and Legends: Review of Oral Stories of the Totos by Ketaki Datta

Sreetanwi Chakraborty

113-116

Editorial
Sreetanwi Chakraborty
Chief-Editor- Litinfinite Journal
Assistant Professor
Amity Institute of English Studies and Research
Amity University Kolkata

Editorial

Sreetanwi Chakraborty

Editor-in-Chief

Assistant Professor

Amity Institute of English Studies and Research, Amity University, Kolkata, West Bengal, India

Mail ID: [email protected] | ORCID ID: 0000-0002-2936-222X

In the introductory chapter titled ‘The interlinkage of cultural memory, heritage and discourses of construction, transformation and destruction’ which forms a part of his edited volume called Critical perspectives on cultural memory and heritage: construction, transformation and destruction, author, and critic Veysel Apaydin enunciates:

            “While the overall concept of cultural memory and heritage in theory and practice has been widely researched, the relationship between cultural memory and heritage needs further discussion in order to expose discourses of importance for groups and communities. In this chapter I do not attempt to argue that we need to be more obsessed with protection and preservation of heritage and memory. On the contrary: I aim to present and discuss the ways in which heritage transformation, reconstruction and destruction can be problematic for communities unless the communities themselves actively decide on- and engage with- these processes, from a bottom-up perspective.” (Apaydin, 13)

The current issue of Litinfinite, Vol. IV, Issue- I, discusses these critical paradigms that are so inextricably interwoven as part of framing memory and culture narratives. The framework behind the reading of individual and collective memory is one of the prerequisites in forming a distinct and dominant cultural patterns and identity.

The cultural matrix of any geographical region alters and gets modified from time to time hence the constant concept of identity also changes. Our first author, Hasan Hadi Ali writes on ‘The culture heritage protection: suggestive themes and views of August Wilson’s Fences.’ The paper is an insightful research piece on August Wilson’s depiction of the Afro-American identity in his play Fences. Highlighting the global racist, migration, identity and cultural tangibility issues among races and people, Hadid’s paper transcends the known boundaries of literary explorations.

The next author, Lalthansangi Ralte does extensive research on ‘Food, Memory, and Identity: tracing Mizo foodways. The distinct cultural pattern that is evident in the Mizo food activities are part of their customary rituals that enable them to authenticate and highlight their best identity. Their food culture is a specific way to define and reclaim the lost patterns across generations.

            Culture, memory, and identity as presented in literature are essential devices that contribute to an efficient understanding of any culture. Nancy Ciccone’s paper is on ‘Identity, memory and monuments: problematics of referentiality’. When it is about history and the establishment of monuments, it is where we stop to think and link all the layers of memory that are attached to this piece of history. Public moments, memory, and monuments inhabit a larger part of both the individual and the collective consciousness of any community, race, or ethnic group.

The extension of cultural studies, memory, and formation of identity in South Asian writings have gained much momentum in the last few decades. Vihanga Perera’s paper focuses on ‘The implication of indigenous folk memory in Lakdas Wikkrama Sinha’s poetry’. Sri Lankan poetry and the utilization of the cultural constructs as part of the global literary hemisphere should form an important part of the modern cultural and memory studies. The author discusses the essential anti-colonial stance of Wikkrama Sinha’s poetry has voiced forth a distinct poetic opinion and postcolonial appeal of its own.

            The next authors Hitesh D Raviya and Rohini Sharma explain and dissect deeper into ‘Mapping emotions, culture and identity through food and memory in Esther David’s Book of Rachel.’ The paper aims to magnify a Bene Israeli family and how food, culture and memory form an integral part to create a distinct identity of the characters in the text.

The process of community building, and its sustenance is made possible only with the help of foods and the interconnection between food and body. Md. Shahnawaz in his paper titled ‘The spectacle of death and deception: Analysing fictional and non-fictional writings on the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre’ opines how the phase of massacre, mass violence and killing occupies a major phase in the history of the colonial people to ascertain their future identity. He has also discussed the major political, historical, and social ramifications that the massacre had.

            The next paper, Sandip Kumar Mishra’s ‘Sabuj Dwiper Raja: A fight for the rights of Jarawa identity and culture’ is an incisive research piece on reclaiming the Jarawa identity and cultural patterns that have for a long time been exploited due to tourism and western aggrandizement. The researcher has explained in detail how the natural habitat, environment and survival contexts have been constantly negotiated and how they have taken away the true identity of the Jarawas.

There is a huge discourse that we find in the delineation of the cultural praxis about identity formation across various lands. Hiya Mukherjee’s paper titled ‘Japane prasabkalin samaya prachalito satogaeri-shussan ritinitir tatparya’ (trs. Significance of Japanese childbirth rites: with special reference to the practice of satogaeri shussan) aims to bring to the fore all the traditional cultural rituals and all-pervasive community practices related to Japanese childbirth process. There is a reference to all the primary and secondary techniques that were made part of interviews and that helped the author to frame an idea about the domain of rituals in childbirth.

            The next paper is by Neenu Kumar who discusses ‘Representation of identity through narrativization of food in Julie and Julia (2009) and The Lunchbox (2013)’. The paper is a well-researched one, dealing with the interlinked relationship between identity and a definite food culture. How food is omnipotent in allowing a certain space and identification to the consumer is well-narrated in her paper. To add more variety to the series of papers that we have this time, Ria Banerjee’s ‘Performing memory: trauma and self in The Miniaturist of Junagadh and Forget me not’ is a vivid explanation of human subjectivity, trauma, forgetting, remembering, and going beyond the set cultural binaries. The researcher shows in her paper how the condensation of memory across a span and passage of time has always baffled the scholars and there is no single way in dealing with the pangs of memory in literature and in films.

            As we finally come to the end of the research papers, the last two papers need mention here. Sreya Sen writes on ‘Remembering displacement in the making of everyday life in Kolkata: A sociological study’ where she interviews a family in the city and underscores the theme of displacement and what memory and perception is attached to that sense of displacement. She brings in conceptual frameworks of associational memory and social remembrance.

The last paper is by Poulami Saha, and the title of her paper is ‘Mapping the entangled and intricate memories of diasporic lives; revisiting the pneumonic spaces in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner. The author establishes a very rudimentary connection among time, space and memory and various kinds of artifacts that are associated with it. Political anxiety and depression at large including the Taliban aggression and the effects of the Russian invasion.

            This issue also contains two book reviews, Alleys are filled with future alphabets authored by poet Gopal Lahiri, and Oral Stories of the Totos by Ketaki Datta. The book reviews are aimed at giving a concrete detail about the major thematic concerns, the stylistic variations, and major literary and socio-cultural explorations that these books make.

Here we present Litinfinite Journal Vol. IV, Issue I for our readers.

I express heartfelt thanks to all our esteemed editors, reviewers, and contributors.

I offer my sincerest thanks to Penprints Publication, for their constant technical support.

Thanking You,

Sreetanwi Chakraborty

Editor-in-Chief

Litinfinite Journal

Kolkata

 

References:

Apaydin, Veysel. Critical Perspectives on Cultural Memory and Heritage: Construction, Transformation and Destruction. UCL Press. 2020.

The Culture Heritage Protection: Suggestive Themes and Views of August Wilson’s Fences

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.1-12

Hasan Hadi Ali

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 1-12

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.1-12

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 1-12

The Culture Heritage Protection: Suggestive Themes and Views of August Wilson’s Fences

Hasan Hadi Ali

Doctor of American Literature, Anbar, Ministry of Education, University of Fallujah, Iraq.

Mail Id:  [email protected] , [email protected] 

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7044-8327

Abstract

Identity, values, history, language and principles of a man all compose the cultural form of a cultural form of an individual. Man becomes the focal point of most subject matters of the modernist writers who focus on the concept of humanism. In the light of Marcus Garvey “people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots”. Therefore, this study aims at investigating how Wilson seeks to rediscover African- American’s history and culture via multi-messages besides the play’s title. Wilson had played a great role in raising global issues affecting most societies in the 20th century. Wilson’ dramatized the life of his fellow people to visualize their suffering and plight within American society. As he was trying to supply the black people with determination to gain freedom, he depicted exploitation, abuse and slavery. Wilson’s plays have clearly displayed the tensions among blacks who wanted to clutch their African legacy. This study concludes that losing the individual’s culture will create identity disturbance and rootlessness that lead to the lost generation of Afro-American people.

Keywords: Culture, Identity, Fences, Afro-American People

Ali, H., 2022. The Culture Heritage Protection: Suggestive Themes and Views of August Wilson’s Fences. LITINFINITE JOURNAL, 4(1), p.1.

Food, Memory and Identity: Tracing Mizo Foodways

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.13-20

Dr. Lalthansangi Ralte

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 13-20

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.13-20

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 13-20

Food, Memory and Identity: Tracing Mizo Foodways

Dr. Lalthansangi Ralte

Assistant Professor, Govt. J. Thankima College, Aizawl, Mizoram, India.

Email: [email protected] | ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8043-7573

Abstract

This paper will deal with the development of food practices among the Mizos with the development of their culture and society. The Mizos are a people living in Mizoram, situated in the northeastern region of India, bordered by Myanmar on the east and Bangladesh on the west. Rice is the staple food of the Mizos and the dishes prepared to be eaten with the rice are called chawhmeh (side dish). The important role played by memory and time in repeating and recreating various versions of food preparations will also be discussed. The changes in the food practices act as a valid record of the changes brought forth by the socio-economic conditions of the time. This paper will take into account the Mizo customs of food production, preservation, presentation and marketing. This paper will thus take into account how the ‘indigenousness’ (Dunkel 46) of the Mizos explains their foodways. This paper will study the ways in which food and food practices keep the tradition and memory of a people alive, and the reason for the lack of certain items like salt in the preparations will also be explained. This paper will also study the reversal of gender roles during feast preparation and how age-old customs are still practiced by the Mizos during mealtime.

Keywords: Culture, Identity, Fences, Afro-American People

Ralte, L., 2022. Food, Memory and Identity: Tracing Mizo Foodways. LITINFINITE JOURNAL, 4(1), p.13.

Identity, Memory, and Monuments: Problematics of Referentiality

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.21-29

Nancy Ciccone

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 21-29

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.21-29

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 21-29

Identity, Memory, and Monuments: Problematics of Referentiality

Nancy Ciccone

Emerita, Department of English, University of Colorado Denver, Colorado, USA       

Mail ID:  [email protected]| ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9714-9375

Abstract

Honoring a person or an event, public monuments interrupt geographical landscapes and point to a temporal past asking us to stop, to look, and to engage memory.  They invite reveries as the word, monument, derives from the Latin word monēre, meaning ‘to remind.’  In effect, they occupy public spaces asking for private thoughts that problematize a referentiality dependent on identity.  An analysis of Yusef Komunyakaa’s poem “Facing It,” based on viewing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., illustrates the way monuments offer a phenomenological space for an individual’s transformation.   Yet in addition to an interiority the poem captures, the monument itself reifies politically official and unofficial messaging, an ambivalence that further muddies the referentiality it reifies because it privileges one cultural identity over others.  The theories from the phenomenologist Gaston Bachelard, the psychoanalyst Jacque Lacan, and the literary critic Cathy Caruth provide the framework for investigating the loss and the gain from the construction and the removal of monuments.

Keywords: Public Monuments, Trauma, Identity, Reverie, Bachelard, Caruth, Komunyakaa, Lacan

Ciccone, N., 2022. Identity, Memory, and Monuments: Problematics of Referentiality. LITINFINITE JOURNAL, 4(1), p.21.

The Implication of Indigenous Folk Memory in Lakdas Wikkrama Sinha’s Poetry

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.30-39

Vihanga Perera

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 30-39

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.30-39

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 30-39

The Implication of Indigenous Folk Memory in Lakdas Wikkrama Sinha’s Poetry[i]

Vihanga Perera

Visiting Lecturer, Department of English, University of Peradeniya.

Mail Id:  [email protected] | ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9988-9791

Abstract

The present article examines the place of and search for a pre-colonial poetics embedded in indigenous folk memory in the writing of Lakdas Wikkrama Sinha, a leading postcolonial Sri Lankan poet. The discussion departs from the general assessment of Wikkrama Sinha as being an “anti-colonial” voice, and examines the larger creative vision the writer espoused by re-living a lost Sinhala sensibility and way of life by evoking dramatizations, memory, and rupture that transcend his post-colonial present. In doing so, the present discussion attempts to complicate Wikkrama Sinha’s poetic world as demonstrating energy to break away from his contemporaries whose poetics relied on an English sensibility. In anchoring the conversation, the article draws on selected poems from Wikkrama Sinha’s debut collection, Lustre. Poems – in particular, “Hearts of Granite” and “Memorial” – and later work such as “In Ancient Kotmale” and “Don’t Talk to Me About Matisse”. The paper drives that the place of indigenous folk memory is crucial for the grounding of Wikkrama Sinha’s creative programme and for an in depth reading of his exercise as a writer.          

[i]Lakdas Wikkrama Sinha’s name has also been variously presented as ‘Lakdhas Wikkrama Sinha’, ‘Lakdhasa Wikkramasinha’ and, more commonly, as ‘Lakdasa Wikkramasinha’. To avoid confusion I have consistently used the spelling corresponding with that in the poet’s Lustre. Poems, to which this paper makes central reference.

Keywords: Sri Lankan Writing, Postcolonial Literature, Folk Memory, Pre-colonial Memory

Perera, V., 2022. The Implication of Indigenous Folk Memory in Lakdas Wikkrama Sinha’s Poetry. LITINFINITE JOURNAL, 4(1), p.30.

Mapping Emotions, Culture and Identity through Food and Memory in Esther David’s Book of Rachel

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.40-47

Prof. Hitesh D Raviya

Ms. Rohini Sharma

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 40-47

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.40-47

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 40-47

Mapping Emotions, Culture and Identity through Food and Memory in Esther David’s Book of Rachel

Prof. Hitesh D Raviya

Head, Department of English, Faculty of Arts, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara, Gujarat, India.

Mail Id:  Email ID- [email protected] | ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9727-1373

Ms. Rohini Sharma

PhD Research Scholar, Department of English, Faculty of Arts, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara, Gujarat, India.

 Mail Id:  Email ID- [email protected] | ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9231-4941

Abstract

Food imagery has appeared in literature from time immemorial but food studies have started to gain impetuous in the very recent years. From the twentieth-century French philosopher Michel de Certeau who has worked on the ‘natural history’ of food with reference to material, social, technical, and economic history up till the contemporary researchers like Deborah Lupton who has worked upon the relationship of food to body and identity, establishes how food codes in literature act as significant connotative language. The Jewish diaspora throughout history is considered as most savage exile creating numerous Jewish communities in different countries. Bene Israel is the community of Jews in India. The experience of displacement leads to cultural ambivalence, a feeling of homelessness, and culinary nostalgia. Esther David’s Book of Rachel is a story of Bane Israel woman Rachel, who fights to preserve the heritage and culture of bene Israel Jews after most of the members of the community migrated to Israel. Food in the novel acts as a cultural code to bring back the community together. The research paper explores how food, consumption, and recipes in the novel recreate the Jewish identity, an essential reconnect with home through culinary memories.

Keywords: Cultural Identity, Dislocation, Consumption, Recipe’s, Diaspora, Culinary Nostalgia, Esther David’s Book of Rachel

Raviya, H. and Sharma, R., 2022. Mapping Emotions, Culture and Identity through Food and Memory in Esther David’s Book of Rachel. LITINFINITE JOURNAL, 4(1), p.40.

The Spectacle of Death and Deception: Analysing Fictional and Non-Fictional Writings on the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.48-54

Md. Shahnawaz

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 48-54

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.48-54

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 48-54

The Spectacle of Death and Deception: Analysing Fictional and Non-Fictional Writings on the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

Md. Shahnawaz

Ph.D. Scholar, Jadavpur University, Department of English. Kolkata. West Bengal. India.

Mail Id:  [email protected] | ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9684-6240

Abstract

The act of remembrance and memory-making becomes significant in the discourse regarding watershed events of a nation. The role of memory in recounting historical experiences acts as an interface that specifically underlines the ‘horror’, psychologically more potent than ‘terror’, of an event in the cultural consciousness of a society. The representation of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre gives rise to questions related to historiography in regard to a binary privileging of narratives that are bifurcated into two distinguishing strands of dominant discourse and marginalized narratives. We are forced to contemplate our national history where Gandhi referred to the Rowlatt Satyagraha as a “Himalayan Miscalculation” or should we take pride in the fact that Tagore had relinquished his Knighthood in retaliation to the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre? In consideration of the binary privileging of hegemonic discourse, this paper will bring the marginalized experiences into the mainstream dialogue. Thus, through my paper, I would like to analyse selected texts in English and bhasha languages that highlight personal and alternative accounts of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. These texts will help us to understand the act of representation that brings our attention to the way memory itself is perceived and given relevance to as a framework of the national history and a marker of identity.

Keywords: Memory, Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, Marginalization, Identity, Nation

Shahnawaz, M., The Spectacle of Death and Deception: Analysing Fictional and Non-Fictional Writings on the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. LITINFINITE JOURNAL, 4(1), p.48.

Sabuj Dwiper Raja: A Fight for the Rights of Jarawa Identity and Culture

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.55-62

Dr. Sandip Kumar Mishra

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 55-62

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.55-62

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 55-62

Sabuj Dwiper Raja: A Fight for the Rights of Jarawa Identity and Culture

Dr. Sandip Kumar Mishra

Headmaster, Karanjee Subhas Bidyabhaban, West Bengal, India.

Mail Id:  [email protected] | ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0513-0907

Abstract

The present paper is an attempt to study Sunil Gangopadhyay’s prose narrative Sabuj Dwiper Raja (The King of the Green Island) which may be treated as a short fiction to fight against the violation of human rights of the Jarawa tribe. The Jarawa land is as though an independent nation within a nation. The ancient tribal people of Andaman Nicobar Islands have to strive hard to protect their habitat, identity and culture from the clutches of the outside people who even consider them no better than barbaric animals. The article highlights the fact that the Jarawa people are human, not cruel animals and they have also the human right to protect their identity and culture. Their land is haunted by the so-called civilized world for the greed for natural resources. Even though the colonial rule is over, the sufferings continue. They are brutally murdered and deprived of the wealth of nature that survives them since ancient times. Yet their land is exploited by the outsiders despite they lead a life synchronized with nature.

Keywords: Jarawa Identity, Culture, Human Rights, Nature, Exploitation, Survival

Mishra, S.K., Sabuj Dwiper Raja: A Fight for the Rights of Jarawa Identity and Culture. LITINFINITE JOURNAL, 4(1), p.55.

জাপানে প্রসবকালীন সময়ে প্রচলিত সাতোগায়েরি শুশসান রীতিনীতির তাৎপর্য

(Title translated in English – Significance of Japanese Childbirth Rites: With Special Reference to the Practice of Satogaeri-shussan)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.63-70

Dr. Hiya Mukherjee

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 63-70

(This paper is written in Bengali, but the abstract, keywords, Author(s) affiliation / details and works cited are available in English and Bengali)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.63-70

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 63-70

জাপানে প্রসবকালীন সময়ে প্রচলিত সাতোগায়েরি শুশসান রীতিনীতির তাৎপর্য

(Title translated in English – Significance of Japanese Childbirth Rites: With Special Reference to the Practice of Satogaeri-shussan)

Dr. Hiya Mukherjee

Consultant in Japanese Language, School of Foreign Languages, Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, India.

Mail Id:  [email protected] | ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0452-1749

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss why Japanese women still practice their traditional age-old ritual like Satogaeri-shussan even in contemporary times, particularly when rapid modernization and urbanization have already taken place all over Japan. From the perspective of Japanese women from Nagoya city, this paper will examine why Japanese women during their pregnancy and the young mothers after giving childbirth feel the necessity to conduct the ritual of Satogaeri-shussan. In addition, this paper will describe their impressions or thoughts about this ritualistic practice. Unlike the previous studies related to Satogaeri-shussan, this paper will seek contemporary Japanese women’s point of view on Satogaeri- shussan. This paper will mainly rely on the primary and secondary data for the analysis. Around 61 informants have participated in the face-to-face interview survey, and 747 informants have participated in the questionnaire survey conducted by the author between 2018 and 2020. Finally, this paper will conclude that even if so many changes have taken place in the way of performing traditional rituals or day-to-day life of Japanese people due to modernization and rapid economic growth, still many Japanese women love to preserve and continue their conventional childbirth practices and customs because their previous generation has handed down this traditional childbirth custom to them.

Keywords: Japanese childbirth rituals, Contemporary times, Japanese women, Nagoya city, Satogaeri-shussan

Hiya, M., Significance of Japanese Childbirth Rites: With Special Reference to the Practice of Satogaeri-shussan. LITINFINITE JOURNAL, 4(1), p.63.

Representation of Identity through Narrativization of Food in Julie and Julia (2009) and The Lunchbox (2013)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.71-82

Dr. Neenu Kumar

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 71-82

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.71-82

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 71-82

Representation of Identity through Narrativization of Food in Julie and Julia (2009) and The Lunchbox (2013)

Dr. Neenu Kumar

Professor, Department of English, Aditi Mahavidyalaya, University of Delhi, India.

Mail Id:  [email protected] | ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4619-9292

Abstract

Food is one of the most important ‘cultural markers’ for human beings. It creates a sense of belonging and identity. It also helps to understand social, familial, relational and class connections. Another aspect associated with food and its usage is related to gender. It is an undisputed fact that food is a significant activity in the lives of human beings. However, food never has been/ is not merely about physical sustenance. We should not delude ourselves into thinking that eating is a non-essential undertaking due to its ‘quotidian’ nature. Food can never be looked at singularly. Like literature, it has endless meanings, which have to be ‘read in between the lines.’ It is replete with both overt and covert meanings which are related to the most cherished and inaccessible parts of human rational/ irrational depths of the brain. We eat for various reasons; out of hunger, anxiety, stress, emotional distress and even after we have been satiated. Food comprises a ‘more or less conscious tool’ for an amiable and volitional behaviour of a person or her/ his association with a group/ section of the society. It also acts as a means of bias against gender, abuse, and subjugation.  Women have been confined to the kitchen since time immemorial. This ‘space’ has been responsible for their subjection, enslavement, unacknowledged labour and anguish. The present paper examines Julie and Julia (2009) and The Lunchbox (2013) to look at the stereotypical notion of ‘kitchen’ being the restricted ‘space’ from a different perspective. There are many dimensions to the ‘kitchen,’ the food cooked in it and a sense of liberation and identity involved with it. For the protagonists of these movies, the ‘kitchen space’ has multifarious implications and each deals with them according to her individual social setting.

Keywords: Food, Gendered, Kitchen, Space, Emancipation, Identity

Kumar, N., Representation of Identity through Narrativization of Food in Julie and Julia (2009) and The Lunchbox (2013). LITINFINITE JOURNAL, 4(1), p.71.

Performing Memory: Trauma and the Self in The Miniaturist of Junagadh and Forget Me Not

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.83-90

Ria Banerjee

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 83-90

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.83-90

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 83-90

Performing Memory: Trauma and the Self in The Miniaturist of Junagadh and Forget Me Not

Ria Banerjee

Faculty in the Department of English at Prafulla Chandra College, Kolkata. West Bengal. India.

Email ID- [email protected] | ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7399-0218

Abstract

Theorizations on the subversive potential of memory to resurrect and recover lost history have been a central preoccupation for the poststructuralist as well as the postcolonial theorists alike. Judith Butler, in her groundbreaking work entitled Gender Trouble: Feminism and The Subversion of Identity contends gender to be a performance while looking at performativity as a “repetition and a ritual, which achieves its effects through its naturalization.”(Butler xv) Such a performance facilitates the endorsement of specific brands of identity. Memory, with its cognitive apparatus and discursive extensions, like gender, is a performative category that informs and refashions human subjectivity. The simultaneity of remembering, forgetting and strategically dismembering experiences involve a complex mechanism that is the domain of neuroscience as much as it is a cultural phenomenon. As an immediate site of memory, the trope of the body, then, becomes a crucial marker that determines acts of remembrance and forgetting. Using contemporary scholarship from a wide range of disciplines, this paper will endeavor to map memory as a performative category as it relates to the larger ideological project of re(producing) identities in the context of Kaushal Oza’s The Miniaturist of Junagadh (2021) and Srijit Mukherji’s Forget Me Not ( 2021) from the Ray anthology.

Keywords: Memory, Performativity, Remembering, Cognitive, Subjectivity

Banerjee, R., Performing Memory: Trauma and the Self in The Miniaturist of Junagadh and Forget Me Not. LITINFINITE JOURNAL, 4(1), p.83.

Remembering Displacement in The Making of Everyday Life in Kolkata: A Sociological Study

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.91-100

Sreya Sen

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 91-100

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.91-100

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 91-100

Remembering Displacement in The Making of Everyday Life in Kolkata: A Sociological Study

Sreya Sen

Guest Lecturer, Department of Sociology, Loreto College, Kolkata, West Bengal, India.

Mail Id: [email protected] | ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4374-6254

Abstract

Scholars have argued that the process of remembering takes place in a social context, and not in social vacuum (Misztal 2003). There exists a long history of the role of memory in the processes of inheritance, appropriation, and recognition that an individual or a family attach to a house. In this research paper, I focus on how house/home as space/site for memory making is not static, rather a fluid process. Through sociological approaches to memory, my work argues that the Partition (of British India and of provinces of Bengal) and migration of people thereafter has shaped the everyday life of displaced individuals who moved to the city of Calcutta (now Kolkata) and contributed to their sense of home and belonging. Moving from one house to another not only reflected the significance of associational memory but also the forms of social remembrance. Therefore, the meanings and values that individuals attached to their “new home” were conditional to the memory of their “old home”. The data presented here was collected through two rounds of qualitative fieldwork in Kolkata between September 2017 and July 2018, where remembering displacement happened among the middle-class at both the individual and community levels.

Keywords: Home, Social Remembrance, Middle-Class, Belonging, Partition

Sen, S., Remembering Displacement in The Making of Everyday Life in Kolkata: A Sociological Study. LITINFINITE JOURNAL, 4(1), p.91.

Mapping the Entangled and Intricate Memories of Diasporic Lives; Revisiting the Mnemonic Spaces in Khaled Hosseini′s The Kite Runner

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.101-108

Poulami Saha

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 101-108

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.4.1.2022.101-108

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 101-108

Mapping the Entangled and Intricate Memories of Diasporic Lives; Revisiting the Mnemonic Spaces in Khaled Hosseini′s The Kite Runner

Poulami Saha

MA in English, University of Gour Banga, Malda. West Bengal, India.

Mail Id:  [email protected] | ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7890-5198

Abstract

Memory Studies is a progressive academic field which resorts to the aid of memory to delve deep into the enigmatic field of human psyche by remembering the past. Memory shapes-reshapes, constructs-deconstructs, moulds-remoulds individuals as well as collective identity. For the diasporic people who have left their homeland either willingly or in compulsion, their memories about past life act as repository of various kinds of experiences which come and go like flashbulbs in the conscious and subconscious minds of people. The act of forgetting as well as filling the missing links with imaginations are not ontologically different from the act of remembering, rather they are cognitive components and through this dual process, identities are formed and nurtured. Memory Studies frequently challenges the privileged memories and tries to trace the marginalised abundant voices which are less known by digging up the mini narratives, largely repressed under the pressure of privileged grand narratives. Khaled Hosseini, the writer of the novel The Kite Runner, is one of those diasporic migrants who either willingly or unwillingly migrated to different socio-cultural spaces from their homelands and always felt haunted by their memories which construct, deconstruct and reconstruct their identities. And so, his fictional characters are. His characters by carrying double consciousness tried to raise their voices to reassert their dignity and importance by writing back to the centre. The Kite Runner initially describes the past happy state of Afghanistan only to contrast it with the devastated state of the nation as a result of the Russian invasion and Taliban aggression. The text shows how different memories and nostalgic longings about the past shape and reshape the identities of individuals, communities as well as of an entire nation.

Keywords: Memory, Diaspora, Migration, Identity, Double Consciousness

Saha, P., Mapping the Entangled and Intricate Memories of Diasporic Lives; Revisiting the Mnemonic Spaces in Khaled Hosseini′s The Kite Runner. LITINFINITE JOURNAL, 4(1), p.101.

Book Review

“I Do Not Belong to April”- Review of Alleys are Filled with Future Alphabets By Gopal Lahiri

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.3.2.2021.109-112

Sreetanwi Chakraborty

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 109-112

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.3.2.2021.109-112

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 109-112

“I Do Not Belong to April”- Review of Alleys are Filled with Future Alphabets By Gopal Lahiri

Sreetanwi Chakraborty

Assistant Professor, Amity Institute of English Studies and Research, Amity University, Kolkata, West Bengal, India.

Mail Id: [email protected] | ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2936-222X

Bibliographic Information:

Name of the Book: Alleys are Filled with Future Alphabets

Author: Gopal Lahiri

Publisher: Rubric Publishing

Pages: 137

Language: English

ISBN: 978-81-945865-8-6 (Hardback)

Price: $25 | INR 275

Chakraborty, S., 2022. “I Do Not Belong to April”- Review of Alleys are Filled with Future Alphabets By Gopal Lahiri. LITINFINITE JOURNAL, 4(1), p.109.

Dissecting The Toto Myths, Tales, and Legends: Review of Oral Stories of the Totos by Ketaki Datta

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.3.2.2021.113-116

Sreetanwi Chakraborty

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 113-116

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.3.2.2021.113-116

Litinfinite Journal | Vol-4, Issue-1 | July, 2022 | Page: 113-116

Dissecting The Toto Myths, Tales, and Legends: Review of Oral Stories of the Totos by Ketaki Datta

Sreetanwi Chakraborty

Assistant Professor, Amity Institute of English Studies and Research, Amity University, Kolkata, West Bengal, India.

Mail Id: [email protected] | ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2936-222X

Bibliographic Information:

Name of the Book: Oral Stories of the Totos

Author: Ketaki Datta

Publisher: Sahitya Akademi

Pages: 134

Language: English

ISBN: 978-93-5548-046-0

Price: INR 150

Chakraborty, S., 2022. Dissecting The Toto Myths, Tales, and Legends: Review of Oral Stories of the Totos by Ketaki Datta. LITINFINITE JOURNAL, 4(1), p.113.

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