The Culture of Speed and The Counter Culture of Slow movement

 Hello everyone

I am Student of the English department at MKBU. In this blog given by our prof. Dr. Dilip Barad sir. This blog is based on Paul Virilio Dromology, the study of speed and Honore on Slow movement.

TEDTalk on 'In Praise of Slowness':- 

Journalist Carl Honore believes the Western world's emphasis on speed erodes health, productivity and quality of life. But there's a backlash brewing, as everyday people start putting the brakes on their all-too-modern lives.

Today's time we have to leave faster. We have to live a speedy life. Everyday we are busy with work and less time and it feels like a race. If we have to work when we have to speak speedily. Culture of speed that we almost fail to notice the toll it takes on every aspect of our lives, on our health, our diet ect.. 

Honore asked questions like, How did we get so fast? And second, is it possible, or even desirable to slow down? In here we live urbanization, workplace, technology surrounding. We have a lot of time to listen to 'Time is Money'. And looking around, there is a global backlash against this culture that tells us that faster is always better. 

If you slow down,your road is killed by others. people find that they do everything better, eat better ect.. let's have looked up the slow food movement. 

The Slow food movement started in Italy but nowadays many countries are part of them. This movement is about the Renaissance of the farmer's markets. People are desperate to get away from eating and cooking and cultivating their food on an industrial timetable. 

Slow food movement is also known as the slow cities movement. We believe that in the 21st century slowness has a role to play. If we have to slow that give to label of dump or stupid so and so. Slow is a dirty word in our culture. It's a byword for lazy slackers for being somebody who gives up. The purpose of slow movement is to tackle that taboo, and to say that yes, something slow is not the answer that there is such a thing as bad slowness. 

Let's look at Paul Virilio Dromology, the study of speed.

Dromology Term:-

Dromology term coined by the French philosopher Paul Virilio to discuss the importance of speed in warfare and communication. Equivalent to dromo- +‎ -logy.

Speed and Politics (first published in France in 1977) is the matrix of Virilio's entire work. Building on the works of Morand, Marinetti, and McLuhan, Virilio presents a vision more radically political than that of any of his French contemporaries: speed as the engine of destruction. Speed and Politics presents a topological account of the entire history of humanity, honing in on the technological advances made possible through the militarization of society. 

Virilio's vision sees speed—not class or wealth—as the primary force shaping civilization. speed, with the consequence that time and light (the ultimate speed) become the key ideas of the epoch. Although we are to understand that this kind of activity and organisation has been present in the life of humanity since time immemorial, it is the modern and postmodern periods – that is, from the eighteenth to the twentieth century and beyond – that become the particular focus of Virilio’s theorising. 

Virilio had limited his interest in speed to military technology and warfare; he might have been of interest only to military historians and strategic studies. 

Speed is central to transportation and communication, and communication at the speed of light is as integral to world warfare as it is to global capitalism. Speed is fabricated by the machinery of culture; the techniques for handling, recording, storing and transmitting information induces speed.

Virilio’s liberal humanism is anchored in Christianity and phenomenology but he is a “realist” when it comes to science and the human body. He also has described himself as ‘urbanist’, a ‘democrat’ and ‘citizen of the world’. Although he was not linked with new left activism and did not believe in Revolution, he deemed it urgent to analyze the military institution or risk “failing (voluntarily or not) to effect the most necessary de-institutionalization of all: that of the military. 

Speed of technicalture is very harmful to democracy also. When we enter the 3rd decade of the 21st Century, the century of technology, we have already started to experience this undermining of democratic value systems by democracy itself.

Thinking Activity:- The Curse of Karna

 Hello everyone!

I am Hinaba Sarvaiya student of the English department MKBU this blog based on "The Curse of Karna" play written by T.P. Kailasam.

What is the meaning of Curse?

According to Cambridge dictionary,

"to use a word or an expression that is not polite and shows that you are very angry"

"to say magic words that are intended to bring bad luck to someone" 

You are thinking why I am showing the meaning of Curse because here is one reason to show the meaning of Curse and that is based on Play "The Curse of Karna" written by T.P.Kailasama. here i have discussed some questions regarding this play. 

About author:-

Tyagraj Paramasiva Iyer Kailasam was a playwright and prominent writer of Kannada literature. His contribution to Kannada theatrical comedy earned him the title Prahasana Prapitamaha, "the father of humorous plays" and later he was also called "Kannadakke Obbane Kailasam" meaning "One and Only Kailasam for Kannada".

Three Curses of Karna:-

Mother Earth’s Curse:- 

Karna once helped a little girl who had split Milk (or Ghee) on the ground and feared retribution from her mother. A kind Karna helped the girl retrieve the Milk by squeezing and twisting the ground; in essence, Mother Earth herself. So unbearable was the pain, that Mother Earth cursed Karna that she would be of no assistance to him whatsoever and would even try to make him vulnerable in battle. This resulted in the untimely incident of Karna’s Chariot Wheel getting stuck in mud.

The Teacher’s Curse:-

On the final day of the lessons from Parashurama, Karna unflinchingly bears a scorpion bite, when Parashurama is resting upon his lap. A bewildered Parashurama realizes that Karna can be none but a Warrior and curses Karna that he will forget the knowledge of the weapons, especially the Brahmastra, when he needs them the most. This curse came into effect when Karna forgot the mantra to invoke the Brahmastra while fighting against Arjun on his last day on the battlefield.

A Brahman’s Curse:-

Karna, once when practicing the Shabd Bhedi Arrow, mistook a Cow for a wild animal and shot it down. The Brahman to whom the cow belongs is distraught. He curses Karna that he will be killed by his enemy when his attention is diverted in the middle of a combat. This curse materializes when Karna is busy removing the chariot wheel from the mud and is shot by Arjuna, on the advice of Krishna.

Is moral conflict and hamartia there in karna's character?

Yes we can see the moral conflict and hamartia in karna's character because karna was the most tragic and unfortunate character of The Mahabharata and at the same time, he was the most powerful of all. He was even stronger than Arjuna. The qualities that were distributed among the five Pandavas were possessed by him. He was intelligent, a great archer, powerful, a man of moral values as well as handsome. Then Karna got nothing but utter humiliation and insults. Everyone cast scornful eye on him due to his low descent. Karna never got an opportunity to prove himself as the best. Even Draupadi did not allow him to participate in her ‘Swayamvar’ and insulted him in front of all.

Karna’s tragedy is neither completely Aristotelian nor wholly ancient Greek but an amalgamation of both. Like the other Classical Greek tragic heroes, Karna too is a mere puppet in the hands of destiny. But at the same time, like Aristotelian tragic heroes, he has some faults of his own or some tragic flows (hamartia) which heighten the effects of his tragedy. It was his misfortune that his mother abandoned him at the very moment of his birth and although royal blood was flowing in his vein, he was always condemned by people as a suta. From this standpoint, one can admit that Karna’s misfortune was brought upon him not because of his hamartia but purely for his fate. But at the same time, viewing his character from Aristotelian perspective, we can state that Karna, being a man of morality and ethics, could have chosen the side of Dharma. But by helping and supporting Duryodhana, he indirectly supported adharma, which ultimately led him to his fatal doom. Hence Karna suffered partly for his fate and partly for his hamartia. Nevertheless, his fate including the curse that he had received from his Guru Parsurama is mainly responsible for his misfortune.

Karna-The Voice of Subaltern:-

Karna’s character can also be viewed from the post-colonial perspective of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s ‘subalternism’. A subaltern is a person from ‘an inferior rank’ living at the edge of society. Karna, though in reality was born in the lineage of the royal family, was known as suta-putra to the external world because of his suta parentage. Throughout his life, Karna was never given due respect because everyone regarded him as a person from an inferior rank. Everyone refused and rejected him due to his low origin.

Karna has all the potentialities to shine in life and to make an identity of his own but he could not achieve this because of his subaltern origin. He could not elevate himself from that position nor was he ever allowed to rise by the privilege society. Being a subaltern, he did not have any voice to rise or even if he raised his voice, it is unheard by all because his voice was hindered by the element of noise. Only after meeting Duryodhana, he was able to receive a little honour with the title ‘Anga-Raj’ as the former accepted him as his friend and offered him the anga rajya.

Karna is a man of morals and values. Because he not only remained in the side of his friend, Duryodhana but also kept his promise throughout the battle, which he had made to his mother, Kunti, that he would not harm the Pandavas other than Arjuna. But at last, Karna was unable to defeat Arjuna and met his tragic end at the hands of his opponent, Arjuna, his soul enemy. Hence, no other character in Mahabharata is as morally strong as the Maharathi Karna. He is the most powerful, heroic, inexhaustible, enduring, and unbeatable of all characters.

Suyodhana logic:-

 Duryodhana also known as Suyodhana, is the primary antagonist in the Hindu epic Mahabharata. He was the eldest of the Kauravas, the hundred sons of the blind king Dhritarashtra and his queen Gandhari. Being the first-born son of the blind king, he was the crown prince of the Kuru Kingdom and its capital of Hastinapura, often forced into ceding the title to his cousin Yudhishthira, who was older than him. Karna was the prince's closest friend. Notably, Duryodhana, with significant assistance from Karna, performs the Vaishnava Yagna when the Pandavas are in exile. Duryodhana used his greater skill in wielding the mace to defeat his opponents. He was also an extremely courageous warrior and was said to be a good ruler. Duryodhana's greed and arrogance were the two qualities said to have led to his downfall in the Mahabharata.

Duryodhana, who treated karna as an equal and a friend. It was Duryodhana, who gifted him a whole kingdom, realizing his true potential. It was Duryodhana,who never considered him a sutraputra.

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Thinking Activity: J.M. Couetzee's novel Foe

 Hello Everyone!

I am Hinaba Sarvaiya, a student of the English department at MKBU. This blog is part of my academic activities and this task given by our Yesha ma'am. This task is based on J.M. Couetzee's novel "Foe".

About Author (J.M. Coetzee):-

John Maxwell Coetzee is a white novelist, literary critic, translator and university professor in South Africa. He moved to Australia in 2002. He is the first writer who twice won the Booker Prize, the highest prize in British literature. In 2003, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He is one of the most complex, innovative and intelligent novelists in contemporary writing. Coetzee’s creation includes thinking and trying on reality, history, philosophy, language, culture and many other aspects.

Coetzee’s identity of a descendant of the colonists, the postcolonial features in his works have become one of the hot spots in the study of his works. Coetzee in the context of postcolonial culture, explains in detail how Coetzee created his works in the context of postcolonial culture to solve the problems between history and the present, between history and novels.

About Novel:-

Foe is a novel by J.M. Coetzee was written in 1986, 267 years after the publication of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Foe was written in response to DeFoe’s Robinson Crusoe and, through the words of J.M. Coetzee. Woven around the existing plot of Robinson Crusoe, Foe is written from the perspective of Susan Barton, a castaway who landed on the same island inhabited by "Cruso" and Friday as their adventures were already underway. Like Robinson Crusoe, it is a frame story, unfolding as Barton's narrative while in England attempting to convince the writer Daniel Foe to help transform her tale into popular fiction.

Friday's Characteristics and persona in for and in Robinson Crusoe.

Friday's is one of the main characters in Daniel Defoe’s novel. The man was a savage from the cannibal tribe. He was rescued by Robinson Crusoe on the twenty-fourth year of living on the island and named after the day it happened.

Robinson describes him as a man of twenty-six years with a pleasant appearance and kind look. From the pages of the book, we learn that he was a Caribbean native with dark eyes, hair, and tone of skin. Crusoe teaches him English and makes him a loyal servant for himself. Robinson treats his like his own child, who needs to be taught how to speak, behave and be obedient. 

The image of Friday became one of the most popular among writers of that time. He learns fast and helps Crusoe in everyday life, solving many problems, that are hard to cope with alone.

Indeed, Friday is a vibrant character in the novel, who is even more charismatic and colorful than his master. Though Robinson doesn’t appreciate intimacy with other human beings, he shows sympathy to his servant, who, in his turn, demonstrates his devotion to the rescuer.

At the end of the story, Robinson takes Friday with him, and they both leave the island. Though Crusoe left him alive and gave him clothes and food, Friday rewarded him with his loyalty, emotional warmth and vitality of spirit.

Is Susan reflecting the white mentality of Crusoe? (Robinson Cruseo)

Susan Barton describes her life during and after her time on the desolate island with Cruso. The major difference between the two novels is that Foe assimilates a woman’s voice into the highly masculine story of Robinson Crusoe. Barton’s time on “Cruso’s island” is spent in preoccupation with Cruso’s way of life, and life after her rescue is spent in reflection of her relationships with Cruso, Friday and Foe. 

This female voice is presented through the words of a male author, J.M. Coetzee, who presents Barton as a submissive supporting actress to the extremely dominant character of Robinson Crusoe.

Susan Barton, the narrator in Foe, finds herself shipwrecked on a desolate island with a man named Robinson Cruso. It does not take long for Barton to recognize her status on the island after she tells Cruso her story of being washed ashore. She says, “I presented myself to Cruso, in the days when he still ruled over the island, and became his second subject, the first being his manservant Friday” (Coetzee 11). Throughout the novel, even long after Cruso’s death, she describes the island as “Cruso’s island.” She finds herself as the mere female companion to the king and his manservant, Friday.

Who is the Protagonist in the novel?

Susan Barton is the voice of the novel, she is not the main character because she is most concerned with telling the story of “Cruso’s island.” J.M. Coetzee is a male author who uses the voice of Barton to convey a deeper understanding of Defoe’s male character, Robinson Crusoe. As a woman, she is used as an instrument to further define the characters and story of Robinson Crusoe. 

The beginning of the novel is focused on Cruso and his island, while the end of the novel is focused on Barton defining her relationship with Cruso and also her relationship with Friday. Through her meek subservience and her role as the supporting actress to the ever-present figure of Robinson Cruso, Susan Barton’s voice is lost. Coetzee uses her as merely a device to relay the stories of Cruso and Friday. 

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Thinking Activity:- Critical Theories

 Hello reader,

I am Hinaba Sarvaiya student of English department at MKBU. In this blog I am dealing with the critical theories applyed in to literary peices. This task given by our prof. Dilip Barad sir. 

Feminism Theory:-

The 'women's movement' of the 1960s was not, of course, the start of feminism. Rather, it was a renewal of an old tradition of thought and action already possessing its classic books which had diagnosed the problem of women's inequality in society, and (in some cases) proposed solutions.

What feminist critics do:-

1. Rethink the canon, aiming at the rediscovery of texts written by women. 

2. Revalue women's experience. 

3. Examine representations of women in literature by men and women. 

4. Challenge representations of women as 'Other', as 'lack', as part of 'nature'. 

5. Examine power relations which are obtained in texts and in life, with a view to breaking them down, seeing reading as a political act, and showing the extent of patriarchy. 

6. Recognise the role of language in making what is social and constructed seem transparent and 'natural'. 

7. Raise the question of whether men and women are 'essentially' different because of biology, or are socially constructed as different. 

8. Explore the question of whether there is a female language, an ecriture feminine, and whether this is also available to men. 

9. 'Re-read' psychoanalysis to further explore the issue of female and male identity. 

10. Question the popular notion of the death of the author, asking whether there are only 'subject positions ... constructed in discourse', or whether, on the contrary, the experience (e.g. of a black or lesbian writer) is central. 

11. Make clear the ideological base of supposedly 'neutral' or 'mainstream' literary interpretations. 

A number of feminists have concentrated, not on the woman as reader, but on what Elaine Showalter named gynocriticism—that is, a criticism which concerns itself with developing a specifically female framework for dealing with works written by women, in all aspects of their production, motivation, analysis, and interpretation, and in all literary forms, including journals and letters.

The Madwoman in the Attic by Susan Gubat and Sandra M. Gilbert:-

“It would not be too much to say that Anglo-American feminist criticism barely existed before [Gilbert and Gubar] rocked literary studies.”

-Deborah D. Rogers, The Times Higher Education.

In 1979, Susan Gubar and Sandra M. Gilbert published The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination, a hallmark of second-wave feminist criticism. Over 700 pages long, The Madwoman in the Attic presents an analysis of a trope found in 19th-century literature. Gilbert and Gubar proposed that all female characters in male-authored novels can be categorised as either an angel or a monster; women in fiction were either pure and submissive or sensual, rebellious, and uncontrollable.

In their book, Gilbert and Gubar discuss the angel/monster trope in novels written by women, covering the works of Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, George Eliot, Emily Dickinson, and the Brontës. They claim that 19th-century female writers carried a lot of rage and frustration about the misogynistic world they lived in and the predominantly male literary tradition they tried to enter, and that this gender-specific frustration influenced these writers’ creative output. According to Gilbert and Gubar, their rage was often shown through the figure of the mad woman. They conclude by urging female writers to break out of this patriarchal dichotomy and not to let themselves be limited by its impositions.

The Madwoman in the Attic was revolutionary because Gilbert and Gubar showed that literature written by women is not an anomaly, but that there is, in fact, a distinct female literary tradition to be found. 

Queer Theory:- 

Queer theory is often used to designate the combined area of gay and lesbian studies, together with the theoretical and critical writings about all modes of variance—such as cross-dressing, bisexuality, and transsexuality— from society’s normative model of sexual identity, orientation, and activities. The term “queer” was originally derogatory, used to stigmatize male and female same-sex love as deviant and unnatural; since the early 1990s, however, it has been adopted by gays and lesbians themselves as a noninvidious term to identify a way of life and an area for scholarly inquiry.

I have to taken one an American poet Andrea Gibson who known for the queer poet under the activist banner and I picked up to understand of queer study in his poem “Swing-Set”, Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns. 

Andrea Gibson, an American, gender-queer poet under the activist banner, 

constantly makes visible and disputes the normative aspects of gender identity in the specific socio-cultural context in which they are writing (Pansy 119).

Gibson’s poetry both deals with sexuality 

and also illustrates the complexities and problems that occur when sexuality and gender identity both function according to the norm. 

The poem “Swing-Set,” from Gibson’s 2006 collection, Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns, raises questions regarding gender identity that can be examined through Bornstein’s concept of “gender attribution”. In this poem the speaker , who is a The child introduces the poem with a simple question: "Are you a boy or a girl?" In the poem, it is precisely this confusion that results in the child’s question “Are you a boy or a girl?” The voice in these lines indicates that there are only two 

alternatives of gender that one can identify with.

In this line we can see the adult is yet again faced with a child reflecting their parents’ understanding 

of gender:

"Uh…my mom says that even though you got hairs that grow from your legs and the hairs on your head grow short and poky and that you smell really bad like my dad"

Gibson uses formal devices in order to put emphasis on the physical characteristics that are used to define gender. The mother figure seems to have taught her child what attributes constitute a man (hairy legs, short hair and smelling bad) and what constitutes a woman (shaved legs, long hair and smelling good).

The next line of “gender attribution” is introduced in a dialogue between the 

gender-queer figure and a woman at a public restroom, where the woman says: 

"Sir! Sir, do you realize this is the ladies’ room?!"

This line also tells the addressee that they are not accepted in the 

category of "woman". The addressee replies by saying, "Yes, ma’am, I do. / It’s just I didn’t feel 

comfortable". The lines indicate that the woman-speaker’s had failed.

In the poem “Swing-Set,” Gibson deals with the notion of “gender attribution,” 

revealing that there are normative expectations of gender, such as hairy legs and short hair that are typically associated with being a man. However, by contradicting this belief, and by 

projecting these physical attributes on a body that is not assigned male at birth, Gibson also shows how gender can indeed be indefinable, ambiguous and indeed queer.

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Teachers' Day Celebration

 

Hello everyone, as we know 5th September is celebrated as Techers' day. on this day generally students enact their teacher and take their place in class (in Schools). we students of Department of English celebrate it in unique way. (suggested and guided by our Head of Department Dr. Dilip Barad Sir.

We celebrate Teachers' day virtually. For the celebration of this day we are supposed to create whole content. we make a small lecture video, a google quiz and provide an auto- generated certificate to all to respond to quiz. a way of future teacher, teacher for digital world is being shaped in this process. This year we are also adding our video on a ed. ted platform as an educator.

I am participating in Teachers' day and making a video on play Mahesh Dattani "Final Solutions".

Here is my Short Video lecture.

Please attempt a small Google quize link is given below..

https://forms.gle/FZaZWwaYzEGTDLCDA