Goutam Karmakar – författare

This volume studies the representation of religion in South Asian Anglophone literature of the twentieth and twenty-first century. It traces the contours of South Asian writing through the consequences of the complex contesting forces of blasphemy and secularization. Employing a cross-disciplinary approach, it discusses various key issues such as religious fundamentalism, Islamophobia, religious majoritarianism, nationalism, and secularism. It also provides an account of the reception of this writing within the changing conceptions of racial "Others" and cultural difference, particularly with respect to minority writers, in terms of ethnic background and lack of access to social mobility. The volume features chapters on key texts, including The Hungry Tide, The Enchantress of Florence, In Times of Seige, One Part Woman, Anil’s Ghost, The Book of Gold Leaves, Red Earth and Pouring Rain, The Black Coat and Swarnalata, among others.An important contribution to the study of South Asian literature, the book will be indispensable for students and researchers of literary studies, religious studies, cultural studies, literary criticism, and South Asian studies.

This volume studies the representation of religion in South Asian Anglophone literature of the twentieth and twenty-first century. It traces the contours of South Asian writing through the consequences of the complex contesting forces of blasphemy and secularization. Employing a cross-disciplinary approach, it discusses various key issues such as religious fundamentalism, Islamophobia, religious majoritarianism, nationalism, and secularism. It also provides an account of the reception of this writing within the changing conceptions of racial "Others" and cultural difference, particularly with respect to minority writers, in terms of ethnic background and lack of access to social mobility. The volume features chapters on key texts, including The Hungry Tide, The Enchantress of Florence, In Times of Seige, One Part Woman, Anil’s Ghost, The Book of Gold Leaves, Red Earth and Pouring Rain, The Black Coat and Swarnalata, among others.An important contribution to the study of South Asian literature, the book will be indispensable for students and researchers of literary studies, religious studies, cultural studies, literary criticism, and South Asian studies.

This book studies the significance and representation of the ‘city’ in the writings of Indian poets, graphic novelists, and dramatists. It demonstrates how cities give birth to social images, perspectives, and complexities, and explores the ways in which cities and the characters in Indian literature coexist to form a larger literary framework of interpretations. Drawing on the theoretical concepts of Western urban thinkers such as Henri Lefebvre, Georg Simmel, Walter Benjamin, Edward Soja, David Harvey, and Diane Levy, as well as South Asian thinkers such as Ashis Nandy, Arjun Appadurai, Vinay Lal, and Ravi Sundaram, the book projects against a seemingly monolithic and homogenous Western qualification of urban literatures and offers a truly unique and contentious presentation of Indian literature.Unfolding the urban-literary landscape of India, the volume lays the groundwork for an urban studies approach to Indian literature. It will be of great interest to scholars and students of literature, especially Indian writing in English, urban studies, and South Asian studies.

This volume addresses cultural and literary narratives of trauma in South Asian literature. Presenting a novel cross-cultural perspective on trauma theory, the essays within this volume study the divergent cultural responses to trauma and violence in various parts of South Asia, including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Afghanistan, which have received little attention in literary writings on trauma in their specific circumstances. Through comprehensive sociocultural understanding of the region, this book creates an approachable space where trauma engages with themes like racial identity, ethnicity, nationality, religious dogma, and cultural environment.With case studies from Kashmir, the 1971 liberation war of Bangladesh, and armed conflict in Nepal and Afghanistan, the volume will be of interest to scholars, students and researchers of literature, history, politics, conflict studies, and South Asian studies.

This book studies the significance and representation of the ‘city’ in the writings of Indian poets, graphic novelists, and dramatists. It demonstrates how cities give birth to social images, perspectives, and complexities, and explores the ways in which cities and the characters in Indian literature coexist to form a larger literary framework of interpretations. Drawing on the theoretical concepts of Western urban thinkers such as Henri Lefebvre, Georg Simmel, Walter Benjamin, Edward Soja, David Harvey, and Diane Levy, as well as South Asian thinkers such as Ashis Nandy, Arjun Appadurai, Vinay Lal, and Ravi Sundaram, the book projects against a seemingly monolithic and homogenous Western qualification of urban literatures and offers a truly unique and contentious presentation of Indian literature.Unfolding the urban-literary landscape of India, the volume lays the groundwork for an urban studies approach to Indian literature. It will be of great interest to scholars and students of literature, especially Indian writing in English, urban studies, and South Asian studies.

This volume addresses cultural and literary narratives of trauma in South Asian literature. Presenting a novel cross-cultural perspective on trauma theory, the essays within this volume study the divergent cultural responses to trauma and violence in various parts of South Asia, including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Afghanistan, which have received little attention in literary writings on trauma in their specific circumstances. Through comprehensive sociocultural understanding of the region, this book creates an approachable space where trauma engages with themes like racial identity, ethnicity, nationality, religious dogma, and cultural environment.With case studies from Kashmir, the 1971 liberation war of Bangladesh, and armed conflict in Nepal and Afghanistan, the volume will be of interest to scholars, students and researchers of literature, history, politics, conflict studies, and South Asian studies.

This book explores the complex relationship between Indian nationalism and Hindi cinema, examining how film serves as a crucial medium due to its visual narrative power and connections to traditional cultural forms including Parsi theatre, folk traditions, and mythological storytelling.While Hindi films have often been positioned as embodiments of nationalism, they simultaneously present alternative, more inclusive, and liberal conceptions of national belonging. This collection investigates the multifaceted construction, dissemination, and reception of Indian nationalism across four decades of Hindi cinema, from the 1980s through the 2020s. The contributors analyze how Hindi cinema, as both a discursive and popular medium, not only portrays various forms of nationalism but also shapes the politics of film production through nation-building narratives and industry power dynamics. This volume demonstrates how films have served as mouthpieces for those in power, showcasing both majoritarian perspectives and critical challenges to hegemonic thinking. Covering a deliberately broad timeline and diverse genres—from war epics and sports dramas that exemplify muscular nationalism to biopics, comedy-dramas, and spy thrillers—this collection offers a nuanced examination of nationalist messaging across different periods of India's socio-economic development and political leadership.This book is essential reading for academics, researchers, and students in film studies, cultural studies, regional studies, and nationalism studies focused on Indian cultural landscapes.The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of National Identities.

This volume explores the ways in which religion in the South Asian literary landscape play a significant role in the creation of political structures and secular democracies in South Asia. It highlights how the concepts of nation, nationalism, and secularism in South Asia is frequently determined by the rhetoric of racism, fundamentalism and religious fanaticism, minority politics, issues of caste, class, and ethnic identity, border politics, diaspora, among other factors. This edited volume investigates the extent to which national identities are regarded as potent dimensions of social participation in South Asian literature. It studies key works of many South Asian writers to explicate how the rich national and secular dynamics of the South Asian context remain entwined with questions such as: - How could democratic processes be implemented in independent states by separating politics from religion? - How do certain literary texts depict the notion of nationalism expanding beyond the concept of a single nation due to its intricate ethnic, regional, and cultural offshoots? - How does religious mobilisation in South Asian literary narratives become a carrier of secularism within and beyond South Asian countries? - How can (mis)conceptions regarding religious fundamentalism be understood through the policies and politics of secularism and postcolonial nationalism? Taking readers through literary and cultural analysis of diverse literary productions, this volume will be of immense interest to scholars and researchers in the fields of literature, cultural studies, post-colonial studies, identity politics and political philosophy, modern history, and South Asia studies.

This book addresses the pressing issues of environmentalism and its representations in African literature. It emphasizes how African writers articulate the consequences of ecological degradation while engaging with decolonial thought that underscores the epistemic importance of the enslaved and colonized quest for humanity and challenges Western narratives' exclusivity.The chapters in this volume underscore the necessity to preserve the ecosystem of the oppressed, an ecology upholding connection with Indigenous people shaped by modernity's constraints. They validate perspectives of colonized, marginalized individuals, linking to geopolitical histories of anticolonialism and environmentalism. The focus refutes colonial-capitalist ecological notions while integrating local and indigenous ecosystem models, advocating communal living. This book assesses how literary interventions in Africa align with ethical reorientation and ecological reimagining beyond colonial modernity and capitalism, advancing hope in the Anthropocene. The work transcends academic collaboration by cultivating soil and sowing seeds to co-create foundations for collective thinking and action towards a just, decolonial future, establishing mutual respect and equality, enabling integration of ecological, social, and economic dimensions of sustainable development.This interdisciplinary volume sits at the intersection of environmental humanities, postcolonial studies, African literature, and decolonial theory and will be valuable to scholars and students in fields including literary criticism, environmental studies, cultural studies, Indigenous knowledge systems, and sustainable development. The book will particularly appeal to researchers focused on Global South perspectives, decolonial methodologies, and ecological justice movementsThe chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Scrutiny2: Issues in English Studies in Southern Africa.

This book illustrates how literary narratives can function as a type of activism, spanning socio-cultural, cognitive, intellectual, and political components within and beyond many communities, generations, and nations. These efforts promote ideals such as advancing the cause of social justice, facilitating social transformation, and safeguarding human values, rights, and the integrity of the environment.This book emphasizes that activism includes literary narratives in which people, communities, or nations foster personal and societal reform, advocate for equity, and reinforce shared values. The intrinsic performativity of activism and the diverse forms of social engagement capable of transformative change render them relevant to the analysis of literary narratives. The ten chapters explore various facets of activism through literary narratives and the notion of social change at the grassroots level. They emphasize the importance of learning and the actions necessary for transforming education towards sustainable development through capacities such as multidisciplinary deliberation, problem-solving, and critical and holistic thinking. This volume cultivates a specific form of epistemic and social responsibility among authors, thereby facilitating a meaningful existence for all, while underscoring how literary activism embodies the endeavors of individuals and communities to interrogate, critique, and oppose varied interpretations of vulnerability, precarity, and injustice through conscious actions aimed at preserving collective well-being.This volume will be of particular interest to scholars and students in literary studies, cultural studies, sociology, political science, environmental humanities, and education. It offers valuable insights for activists, community organizers, and policymakers engaged in social justice work. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa.

This book advances the cultivation of decolonial hope as a transformative framework for reimagining development through kinship, accountability, and ecological care. Positioning decolonial hope as both concept and praxis, it offers a critical intervention that challenges imperial legacies while advocating for just and equitable societies that honor human and non-human agencies alike. Central to this vision is the recognition that ethics, rights, and morals must be foundational to any sustainable future. The book foregrounds ecologies of care as integral to decolonial hope, bringing visibility to marginalized and unacknowledged ecological knowledge systems that sustain planetary well-being. By affirming plural epistemologies of the ecosystem in an era of polycrisis, it resists universal or utopian futures in favor of polyphonic narratives that emerge from diverse intellectual, epistemological, social, and pedagogical practices. These convergent approaches enable an unrestricted decolonial praxis oriented toward planetary justice and sustainability across cultures. Through carefully curated contributions, the editors present multiple perspectives and expressions of activism, solidarity, and justice within literary works, offering multifaceted conceptual frameworks that illuminate the significance of cultivating relationships with the natural world and provide constructive pathways toward sustainable, inclusive, and coexistence-oriented futures.This book is intended for students, academics, independent scholars and researchers in postcolonial literature, decolonial studies, environmental humanities, ecocriticism, and related interdisciplinary fields. It will also appeal to those engaged with climate justice, ecological philosophy, and alternative epistemologies seeking to understand how literary and cultural practices can contribute to transformative social and environmental change.The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Journal of Postcolonial Writing.