Editor

R N Rai


Journal of the Department of English
Banaras Hindu University
Varanasi

Editorial
vii

1. Conceptual Space for Julia Kristeva:
Mary Douglas on Women, Bodies, and Anxiety
Sarah Whylly
9

2. Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 and the
Rise of Deconstruction
Massih Zekavat
16

3. Derrida’s Tympan: Mourning, Philosophy, Literature
Saitya Brata Das
23

4. Witnessing the Fall of the House of
Weston in August: Osage Country
Vicky Sue Gilpin
35

5. Contouring Identities through ‘Noise’ and
‘Signal’ in Hari Kunzru’s Transmission
Susmita Paul
42

6. The Poetics of Social Consciousness:
Feminist Voices from Contemporary South Asia
Madhu Singh
52

7. Contextualising Postcolonial Studies
P.C. Pradhan
64

8. The Polemics of Tradition and Modernity in
R K Narayan’s The Vendor of Sweets
Meena Sodhi
81

9. The Memoir as Quest: Sara Suleri’s Meatless Days
Rachel.J. Tudor
87

10. From Nietzschean Enunciation to Structuralist Progress
Zinia Mitra
97

11. Saleem in Search of his Identity Card: A Study of
Family-Nation Interface in Salman
Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children
Sajalkumar Bhattacharya
105

12. Defining Selves through Nomenclature:
Reading Select Diasporic Fiction of
Bharati Mukherjee and Jhumpa Lahiri?
Amit Shankar Saha
117

13. Female Dis-ease in That Long Silence
Dhriti Ray Dalai
124

14. Women, Disease, and Literary Texts:
A Story of ‘The Poison Girl’
Panchanan Dalai
133

15. The Other Space: Cultural Politics of Identity and
Performance of the Post-Black
C.S.Biju
142

16. The Postmodernist Self and Feminism
Rajesh Babu Sharma
148

Forest of Tigers: People, Politics and Environment in the
Sundarbans by Annu Jalais
Banibrata Mahanta
152

The White Tiger by Aravind adiga
A.N. Dwivedi
154

How to Read a Poem by Terry Eagleton
Guru Charan Behera
156

Passage to Manhattan: Critical Essays on Meena Alexander
Edited by Lopamudra Basu and Cynthia Leenerts
Maya Shanker Pandey
158

Contributors
160

Since time immemorial there has been a serious debate over the issue as to what comes first – precept or example, theory or practice. In his Poetics Aristotle, the Father of Western literary criticism, formulated his theory of tragedy on the basis of the extant Greek plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. In his monumental work Natyasastra, Bharata, the originator of Indian dramaturgy, however, enunciated the norms without making any reference to the Sanskrit plays. There is an interesting story related to the mythical origin of Natyasastra. At the request of gods under the leadership of Lord Indra, Brahma went into yogic meditation and created the fifth veda which is known as Natyaveda or Natyasastra. The debate between theory and practice is still going on, though its dimension has drastically changed. Interrelationship or interdependence between theory and practice is debated every now and then. We very often try to ascertain whether theory conditions the growth of literature or literature leads to the emergence of multiple theories. In the last few decades there has been a more or less constant dispute over the purpose of theory and the meaning of literature. With special focus on contemporary literature and theory the present volume provides an opportunity to researchers of India and abroad to throw some further light on this issue.

         Research and Criticism, the journal of the Department of English, Banaras Hindu University, began its journey way back in the 1960s and since then it is being published at intervals. After a decade the present issue is being brought out with the active cooperation of the colleagues and the untiring efforts of the members of the Editorial Board. Prof. Anita Singh deserves my special thanks as it is but on account of her serious commitment that we could publish the present issue well in time.

R N Rai

A.N. Dwivedi, Former Professor, University of Allahabad,Allahabad dropdwivedi@gmail.com

Amit Shankar Saha, Department of English, Calcutta University.

Banibrata Mahanta,Department of English,,Banaras Hindu University,Varanasi, India .mahanta_bhu @yahoo.co.in

C.S.Biju, Associate Professor, Department of English, St.Thomas College, Thrissur, Kerala, India.

Dhriti Ray Dalai,Assistant Professor,Department of English,Banaras Hindu University,Varanasi< dhritiray79@yahoo.com>

Guru Charan Behera, Professor of English,Banaras Hindu University,Varanasi.< gurucharanb@yahoo.com>

Zinia Mitra, Deptt of English, Nakshalbari College, North Bengal University,Nakshalbari, Darjeeling.

Meena Sodhi,Professor of English,Banaras Hindu University .

Maya Shanker Pandey, Professor, Department of English,Banaras Hindu University.< mspdy@rediffmail.com>

Madhu Singh, Associate Professor,Department of English and MEL,University of Lucknow,Lucknow.

Massih Zekavat, Department of English, The University of Shiraz, Iran.

P.C. Pradhan,Associate Professor,Deptt. of English,Banaras Hindu University Varanasi (U.P.)

Panchanan Dalai, Assistant Professor in English,Department of English, Banaras Hindu University,Varanasi.

Rajesh Babu Sharma, Asst. Professor, Dept of English and Modern European Languages, University of Lucknow.

Rachel Tudor, Dept of English, Humanities & Languages,Southeastern Oklahoma State University,1405 North 4th Ave.Durant, OK 74701,580.745.2588.

Susmita Paul, Vildgåsvägen 15C,22735,Lund,Sweden,

Sajalkumar Bhattacharya, Associate Professor, Ramakrishna Mission Residential College, Narendrapur, Kolkata 700 103, West Bengal.

Saitya Brata Das, Department of English at Sri Venkateswara College (Delhi University), presently fellow at IIAS, Shimla.

Sarah Whylly, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Florida State University, 151 Dodd Hall, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1500.

Vicky Sue Gilpin, Department of English, Millikin University, Illinois. < vgilpin@mail.millikin.edu>


Research and Criticism is a refereed journal of the Department of English, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. The journal provides a forum for interdisciplinary engagements with language, literature and culture. It is published annually.


Advisory Board
Gayatri C.Spivak, Columbia University
Harish Trivedi, University of Delhi
Tsu-Chung Su, Taiwan Normal University
Claudia Orenstein, Hunter College, City University of New York
Pushpa N. Parekh, Spelman College, Atlanta
Tabish Khair, Aarhus University, Denmark
A.N. Dwivedi, University of Allahabad
Amitav Roy, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata
Padmini Mongia, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi


Editor
R N Rai, Professor and Head, Department of English, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi

Editorial Board
Surya Nath Pandey
Maya Shanker Pandey
Guru Charan Behera
Anita Singh
Banibrata Mahanta

Publisher: Pencraft International, Head Office: B-1/41, Ashok Vihar II, New Delhi-110052, Sales Office, 4262/3, Ansari Road, Darya Ganj, New Delhi-110002 Phones: 27120156, 23277084, Email: pencraft@nda.vsnl.net.in

Printed at D.K. Fine Art Press (P) Ltd., A-6 Nimri Commercial Centre, Ashok Vihar IV, New Delhi-110052

Research and Criticism invites contributions that are original work not published elsewhere conforming to the latest MLA handbook and following stylistic guidelines given below.

All papers are peer reviewed blindly by independent reviewers and the results are communicated in three months’ time to the author.

Editing requirements