Search results for ""author ashis sengupta""

Islam in Performance brings together six contemporary plays from Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan that highlight the political performance of Islam in South Asia, especially since the 1947 partition of the subcontinent. The plays invite comparison with one another, engaging with the issue from perspectives of the three countries concerned: Hindutva politics in India othering the Muslim population for electoral gains, radical Islamization of Pakistan paralyzing political governance and encouraging jihadi violence, and the ever-increasing Islamist threat to Bangladesh’s founding secular ethos. Finally, this anthology focuses on the suffering such exclusionary politics of religious nationalism has piled upon minorities across the region. Widely performed but largely unpublished, the plays with their geographic and stylistic range provide a good spectrum of some of the best writing in contemporary South Asian drama. The editor’s scholarly introduction offers a framework for studying the plays as both texts and performance pieces.

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This edited volume critically assesses different aspects of five literary genres novels, poetry, short-stories, drama, and non-fictional prose contributed to by the Indian diasporic writers settled principally in North America and Europe. Films made by or on members of the Indian diaspora have been also checked out. The predominant approach in the anthology is not only a feminist one, although special emphasis is given on assessing the writings by females. The emphasis of the anthology is on: (a) critical analyses of themes, styles, diction, and relevance of the writings; (b) assessment of the research potentialities of these writings; (c) examining how literary theories could be used for explaining and assessing the writings; (d) proper contextualization of the writings; and (e) finding out the historical roots and suggesting the future prospects of such writings. The essays included in the book re-read Indian diasporic writings for their appreciable points as well as those which need development. The collection fills in lacuna of critical approaches to Indian diasporic writings presently available in the market. In fact, there is scarcely any book presently available that covers critical approaches to all the five literary genres of Indian diasporic writings.

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