English Literature and Cultural Studies
This research domain works on categorizing and disseminating research on English literature, its impact on society and its relation to cultural studies.INTEREST(S)
Life, Literature and CultureLiterary Theory, Criticism and AnalysisComparative LiteratureDiaspora, Postcoloniality and Global LiteratureGender and Queer Studies in English LiteratureModernism and Postmodernism in English LiteratureLiterature and Language Teaching
VISION
To formalize the study of literature and cultural studies making academecians and policy makers realize the domain's necessity in developing a morally and ethically strong society as a better place to live.
MISSION
To promote the research based study of literature and establish its links with the cultural studies contextualizing it with our evryday life and living.
The Way of Water: An elemental-ecocritical reading of the selected works of Rabindranath Tagore and Amitav Gosh
One of the signature marks of the Anthropocene is the systemic exclusion and negligence of the agency of nonhuman beings and things. Blue ecocriticism, a recent addition to the environmental humanitie...
Learners’ perception about and assessment of inter/multi-cultural awareness through Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) of English fiction in Bangladesh
English literature occupies a substantial space in undergraduate English programs in Bangladeshi university curriculum. To teach literature in a foreign/second language classroom context, Cultural Mod...
Sexual behavior and socio-political conditioning in micro/macrocosmic characters of Greco-Roman literature
Sex and politics had frequently been in a complementary relationship in developing the personality of different microcosmic and macrocosmic characters and agents in ancient Greco-Roman literature. Her...
Magical Realism and Chilekothar Sepai by Akhtaruzzaman Elias
The kaleidoscopic refraction and recurrence of events in Chilekothar Sepai (The Soldier in an Attic) of Akhtaruzzaman Ilias gives the novel a magic realistic essence combining the unexpected and the e...
Modernism and predicament of outsiderism in the puppet protagonists of Manik Bandopadhya’s novels
Sense and experience of isolation and alienation, detachment and separation, loss and destruction are some of the integral characteristics of modernism in literature which instigates rebellion in indi...
Of Nature: A Comparative Study of Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s আরণ্যক (Of the Forest) and Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (Life in the Woods)
Lakoff and Johnson's "Theory of Conceptual Metaphor" posits that metaphors are fundamental to human cognition, shaping our perception of the world and influencing our understanding of abstract concept...
Male-diction of/to ‘Free’ Black Man: A Critical Reading of Cholly Breedlove based on Sartre’s Concept of free will
This paper offers a critical reading of the character Cholly Breedlove in Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye. The paper will evaluate Cholly as a ‘Free’ Black Man, born and bred in a white space whe...
Spacio-temporal memory Vs. de/re-construction of identity: A case study of the characters in The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh
Memory is a complementary component of time. Time as a linear and irreversible phenomenon of the universe has a significant role in the making of someone’s or something’s identity. Memory provides us with an opportunity to visit the past. The past memory works as the building block of one’s identity because identity does not exist without the acknowledgement or testimony by someone else from contemporary or the past. By challenging the linearity of time, The Shadow Lines of Amitav Ghosh attempts to undo the unequivocal and traditional sense of identity and re-do it aided by memory. The aim of this paper is to substantiate that memory does not only provide provisions for nostalgia, but rather it facilitates the reconstruction of existing identity by manipulating and deconstructing the past one. Only shared experience can help understand the meaning of this identity which exists beyond corporeal belongings where space and time appear to be merely subsidiary phenomena. For this paper, a qualitative methodology is used to collect data from The Shadow Lines as primary source and scholarly criticisms as secondary sources. A thematic analysis of the novel and its characters from a spacio-temporal perspective supports the claim that The Shadow Line acknowledges identity as unsolidified and dependent on memory which is in continuous process of de/reconstructing it.
Social impositions and trauma in Bengali female immigrants: A case study from Monica Ali’s Brick Lane
Monica Ali’s Brick Lane depicts the protagonist Nazneen’s silent acceptance of what comes in her life and exposes her exasperated angst which insidiously wriggles its way out through her inner trauma in silence. The lack of expression intensifies the impact of the trauma which goes unwitnessed, unspoken and unclaimed. Only her grieving daughter is instrumental to healing the mother’s incomprehensible trauma by combining her dissociated self and showing an escape to freedom. This paper aims at exploring the traits of a Bangladeshi poor female immigrant Nazneen’s disassociated self, and of the struggle and dilemma leading to subsequent trauma in her. A qualitative analysis of the novel is done to trace and thematically analyze the struggles of immigrant characters who are in the quest for and formation of their essential identity breaking through the essentialized role, specifically, imposed on women by the chauvinist Bengali society. Scholarly articles are also consulted as secondary sources for this research. This is evident that the dislocated female immigrant’s multifold trauma becomes incomprehensible, subsided under layers of social impositions created by nationality, ethnicity, religion, culture, gender, and economic status.
Colonial Legacies and Ecofeminist Resistance in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Novels
Colonial exploitations, wars, deforestation, and socioeconomic destitution of many of the world’s women challenge all who hope for a more humane world. Increased violence during colonial and post-colonial third-world countries, ecological crises, and gender concerns draw the attention of some recent academics. Abdulrazak Gurnah, a Tanzanian-born author, is known for his insightful exploration of post-colonial themes and his focus on the experiences of marginalized individuals. This essay projects the resilience and agency of women in the face of adversity.
The seascape as a site of materiality and memory: Intimacy with the elemental in The Old Man and the Sea
The scholarship on Ernest Hemingway’s last major fictional work The Old Man and the Sea has been reinvigorated in the recent decades with the development of ecocritical studies across the globe. While hailed by many scholars as a potential text for environmental criticism in the way it foregrounds nature and portrays an intricate nexus between humans and the nonhuman world, the short novel has also invited criticism from a section of critics for its traditional trope of man’s victory over nature. However, The Old Man and the Sea, reading through a lens of material-elemental ecocriticism, can offer an environmental ethics that celebrates the agency and materiality of the ocean, often overshadowed in the holistic discourse of nature and often neglected in land-based ecocriticism. The seascape portrayed in the novella inculcates this ethics in the protagonist Santiago, an old Cuban fisherman, through its overwhelmingly dynamic material and non-material presence. Santiago’s human hubris slowly gives in to the power of the seascape, making him acknowledge the limitations of humans as a species. His growing intimacy with the elementality of the ocean can be read as a call to understanding water bodies as a site of materiality and memory. This paper intends to situate the novel in the broader framework of blue humanities and material ecocriticism in order to unleash its potential to disrupt the anthropocentric, land-based worldview.
Re-hearing the heard: The role of sounds in the making of Wuthering Heights
In her novel Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë employs both indoor and outdoor settings to reflect the complexities of human nature and emotion. The gothic mansion of Wuthering Heights reveals the darker aspects of the human psyche, while the untamed natural elements and weather reflect human passion and energy. This paper re-examines Brontë’s manipulation of sound within the novel to create an atmosphere that complements both stormy and serene moods. It argues that the individuality of a novel is significantly influenced by the novelist’s ability to craft both audible and inaudible sounds, which enhances the reader’s imaginative experience. The study focuses on how aural imagery in Wuthering Heights serves a dual purpose. On one hand, sound images evoke apprehension, terror, and disgust, aligning with the gothic ambiance essential to the narrative. On the other hand, the paper contends that understanding sound imagery is crucial for appreciating its empathic impact on readers’ senses and emotions, thereby enriching their comprehension of the novel. Furthermore, the paper addresses the ideological and phenomenological dimensions of aurality, challenging the assumption that sensory perceptions are merely natural and automatic. Drawing on Voegelin’s notion that senses have pre-existing ideological and cultural functions, this paper explores how Brontë’s use of sound, silence, and hearing in Wuthering Heights successfully generates the intended emotional and cognitive effects among readers.
Living, not Leaving; Exploring Place Attachment in Mrs. Dalloway and Agunpakhi
This paper offers a critical reading of the female protagonists of Virginia Wollf’s Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and Hasan Azizul Huq’s Agunpakhi (2006) respectively with a view to underscoring how place attachment is integrated in them, offering roots for survival. Set in different spatiotemporal contexts, both texts encompass protagonists who are deeply attached to their respective places. Applying the person-place bonding model and exploring Yi Fu Tuan’s theory of Topophilia, the construction of place bonding leading to place attachment can be qualitatively studied. This helps to identify the dimensions within which the protagonists’ memories, experience, beliefs and values revolve around. In doing so this paper intends to understand and explore the person-process-place dimensions of place attachment. Focusing on these two texts the paper investigates how rural, and city environments work in producing attachment and maintaining roots for the protagonist. Though rural and city consist of different spectrum of environment, both could offer a sense of safety and continuity. Furthermore, this paper includes research between environmental and personal experience, to understand how emotive attachment with place can be both passionately personal and profoundly universal.