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Papers by Goutam Karmakar

Routledge eBooks, Oct 25, 2022

Journal of Environmental Planning and Management

This research article will discuss the manner in which multi-modal narratology anchors ecological... more This research article will discuss the manner in which multi-modal narratology anchors ecological consciousness in Indian literary and visual practices with special reference to Amruta Patil and Devdutt Pattanaik's <i>Aranyaka: Book of the Forest</i>. After mapping the different visual-verbal narrative technique and its implications in representing ecological concerns, the paper will show how <i>Aranyaka</i> triggers the 'ecological thought' of human and non-human entanglement in <i>aranya</i>, the 'contact zone' of multispecies. It further aims to reveal how the 'transmedial' narrative with its two tracks of narratology, involving image-narrative on one hand and word-narrative on the other, revives the life of <i>aranya</i> before the post-millennial city dwellers who are increasingly being removed from 'ecological awareness' in their highly mechanised world. The sketches accompanied by word bubbles...

Quarterly Review of Film and Video

Comparative Literature: East & West

South Asia Research

The contested identity of Kashmir and Kashmiris and their intrinsic pain of hoping for freedom [ ... more The contested identity of Kashmir and Kashmiris and their intrinsic pain of hoping for freedom [ Azadi] have found expression through The Srinagar Conspiracy, a novel by Vikram A. Chandra (2000). The article highlights how, through the fractured friendship between a Muslim and a Kashmiri Pandit boy, Chandra traces the upsurge of militant insurgency in Kashmir in the late 1980s and 1990s. The article also examines how the changing dynamics of identity were manipulated by the politics of ethnic and religious nationalism in Kashmir, leading to the 1989 insurgency and its drastic implications. The article also shows how the ethos of Kashmiriyat has been compromised, while the call for azad [free] Kashmir has remained an unrealised dream.

Pedagogies: An International Journal

Routledge India eBooks, Aug 11, 2022

Virus and Visible Reality: Biopolitics, Crime, and Disability in Peter May's Lockdown, 2022

This paper examines Peter May's crime novel Lockdown (2020) to explain how a bioengineered virus ... more This paper examines Peter May's crime novel Lockdown (2020) to explain how a bioengineered virus cripples London and results in a crime, the denouement of which reveals a nefarious, capitalist purpose that is a stark reflection of the world we live in. The plan to use an artificially engineered virus as a bioweapon to profit wreaks havoc in London, resulting in several deaths, fear, panic, civil disorder, a spike in crime, and a string of anarchy throughout the city. By examining Michel Foucault's concept of biopower and Giorgio Agamben and Slavoj Žižek's perspectives on the ethics and politics of the virus, the paper aims to demonstrate how a virus transforms London into the centre of a global pandemic, compelling the officials to implement a lockdown. The paper also discusses how Lockdown (2020) can be viewed as a hard-boiled crime narrative due to the urban setting of London, the sensational and violent crime, the true-to-life description of events, and the male protagonist's visible dominance. Additionally, the paper endeavours to depict how the disabilities of certain characters are inextricably linked to the frozen state of the city under lockdown.

Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 2021

ABSTRACT This research article will discuss the manner in which multi-modal narratology anchors e... more ABSTRACT This research article will discuss the manner in which multi-modal narratology anchors ecological consciousness in Indian literary and visual practices with special reference to Amruta Patil and Devdutt Pattanaik’s Aranyaka: Book of the Forest. After mapping the different visual-verbal narrative technique and its implications in representing ecological concerns, the paper will show how Aranyaka triggers the ‘ecological thought’ of human and non-human entanglement in aranya, the ‘contact zone’ of multispecies. It further aims to reveal how the ‘transmedial’ narrative with its two tracks of narratology, involving image-narrative on one hand and word-narrative on the other, revives the life of aranya before the post-millennial city dwellers who are increasingly being removed from ‘ecological awareness’ in their highly mechanised world. The sketches accompanied by word bubbles render tactility to the entire narrative and bring together two apparently disparate entities, the human and the non-human, in the network of narratology.

Journal of Gender Studies, 2021

Asian Journal of Women's Studies, 2021

ABSTRACT Qurratulain Hyder is a major stalwart of the new generation of Urdu fiction writers. In ... more ABSTRACT Qurratulain Hyder is a major stalwart of the new generation of Urdu fiction writers. In her book Naya Afsana, she discusses psychologized realism wherein the past gives way to the present. She also depicts how a human being becomes a representation of the collective past via writings of his/her community's collective past. Blurring every possible binary of past/present, home/world, private/public, Hyder’s neo-historical writings not only expose the limitation of her fictional world but also give it a new dimension, unlike contemporary writers who choose to focus on the external realities of the existential crisis of humanity during the early part of the twentieth century. She shows her skill by uncovering the internal realities of human experience. While giving her narratives a historical grounding, she has also made a sensorial reading of the holocaust in her narratives by focusing on the psychological interiors of affected human beings. This paper seeks to study two such fictional expositions of Hyder’s oeuvre—Sita Betrayed and Fireflies in the Mist—in order to understand how these two works help to explore the issues of trauma and memory in the context of the wounded history of partition.

Routledge eBooks, Oct 25, 2022

Journal of Environmental Planning and Management

This research article will discuss the manner in which multi-modal narratology anchors ecological... more This research article will discuss the manner in which multi-modal narratology anchors ecological consciousness in Indian literary and visual practices with special reference to Amruta Patil and Devdutt Pattanaik's <i>Aranyaka: Book of the Forest</i>. After mapping the different visual-verbal narrative technique and its implications in representing ecological concerns, the paper will show how <i>Aranyaka</i> triggers the 'ecological thought' of human and non-human entanglement in <i>aranya</i>, the 'contact zone' of multispecies. It further aims to reveal how the 'transmedial' narrative with its two tracks of narratology, involving image-narrative on one hand and word-narrative on the other, revives the life of <i>aranya</i> before the post-millennial city dwellers who are increasingly being removed from 'ecological awareness' in their highly mechanised world. The sketches accompanied by word bubbles...

Quarterly Review of Film and Video

Comparative Literature: East & West

South Asia Research

The contested identity of Kashmir and Kashmiris and their intrinsic pain of hoping for freedom [ ... more The contested identity of Kashmir and Kashmiris and their intrinsic pain of hoping for freedom [ Azadi] have found expression through The Srinagar Conspiracy, a novel by Vikram A. Chandra (2000). The article highlights how, through the fractured friendship between a Muslim and a Kashmiri Pandit boy, Chandra traces the upsurge of militant insurgency in Kashmir in the late 1980s and 1990s. The article also examines how the changing dynamics of identity were manipulated by the politics of ethnic and religious nationalism in Kashmir, leading to the 1989 insurgency and its drastic implications. The article also shows how the ethos of Kashmiriyat has been compromised, while the call for azad [free] Kashmir has remained an unrealised dream.

Pedagogies: An International Journal

Routledge India eBooks, Aug 11, 2022

Virus and Visible Reality: Biopolitics, Crime, and Disability in Peter May's Lockdown, 2022

This paper examines Peter May's crime novel Lockdown (2020) to explain how a bioengineered virus ... more This paper examines Peter May's crime novel Lockdown (2020) to explain how a bioengineered virus cripples London and results in a crime, the denouement of which reveals a nefarious, capitalist purpose that is a stark reflection of the world we live in. The plan to use an artificially engineered virus as a bioweapon to profit wreaks havoc in London, resulting in several deaths, fear, panic, civil disorder, a spike in crime, and a string of anarchy throughout the city. By examining Michel Foucault's concept of biopower and Giorgio Agamben and Slavoj Žižek's perspectives on the ethics and politics of the virus, the paper aims to demonstrate how a virus transforms London into the centre of a global pandemic, compelling the officials to implement a lockdown. The paper also discusses how Lockdown (2020) can be viewed as a hard-boiled crime narrative due to the urban setting of London, the sensational and violent crime, the true-to-life description of events, and the male protagonist's visible dominance. Additionally, the paper endeavours to depict how the disabilities of certain characters are inextricably linked to the frozen state of the city under lockdown.

Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 2021

ABSTRACT This research article will discuss the manner in which multi-modal narratology anchors e... more ABSTRACT This research article will discuss the manner in which multi-modal narratology anchors ecological consciousness in Indian literary and visual practices with special reference to Amruta Patil and Devdutt Pattanaik’s Aranyaka: Book of the Forest. After mapping the different visual-verbal narrative technique and its implications in representing ecological concerns, the paper will show how Aranyaka triggers the ‘ecological thought’ of human and non-human entanglement in aranya, the ‘contact zone’ of multispecies. It further aims to reveal how the ‘transmedial’ narrative with its two tracks of narratology, involving image-narrative on one hand and word-narrative on the other, revives the life of aranya before the post-millennial city dwellers who are increasingly being removed from ‘ecological awareness’ in their highly mechanised world. The sketches accompanied by word bubbles render tactility to the entire narrative and bring together two apparently disparate entities, the human and the non-human, in the network of narratology.

Journal of Gender Studies, 2021

Asian Journal of Women's Studies, 2021

ABSTRACT Qurratulain Hyder is a major stalwart of the new generation of Urdu fiction writers. In ... more ABSTRACT Qurratulain Hyder is a major stalwart of the new generation of Urdu fiction writers. In her book Naya Afsana, she discusses psychologized realism wherein the past gives way to the present. She also depicts how a human being becomes a representation of the collective past via writings of his/her community's collective past. Blurring every possible binary of past/present, home/world, private/public, Hyder’s neo-historical writings not only expose the limitation of her fictional world but also give it a new dimension, unlike contemporary writers who choose to focus on the external realities of the existential crisis of humanity during the early part of the twentieth century. She shows her skill by uncovering the internal realities of human experience. While giving her narratives a historical grounding, she has also made a sensorial reading of the holocaust in her narratives by focusing on the psychological interiors of affected human beings. This paper seeks to study two such fictional expositions of Hyder’s oeuvre—Sita Betrayed and Fireflies in the Mist—in order to understand how these two works help to explore the issues of trauma and memory in the context of the wounded history of partition.

Interdisciplinary Literary Studies, 2021

Mohammad A. Quayum is a well-known Tagore scholar and translator who has published several books ... more Mohammad A. Quayum is a well-known Tagore scholar and translator
who has published several books and articles on this myriad-minded
genius, including an article in this particular journal in 2005. The present
anthology, Tagore, Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism, is Quayum’s fifth
book on the writer. It addresses two significant aspects of Tagore’s imagination, nationalism and cosmopolitanism, and the paradoxes and ambiguities associated with them. The book has a mix of eminent and young contributors from different academic and cultural backgrounds, and various parts of the world: Bangladesh, Canada, India, the U.K. and the U.S. Some of the contributors are of South Asian origin who are currently based in the West, working in western academia. The editor has deliberately planned the book in this way to maximize its comparative perspective and gauge how Tagore is perceived by critics of different cultural–intellectual orientations.