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Showing posts from September, 2020

Subaltern Studies

 In the last two decades of the 20th century, Subaltern Studies, postcolonial theory and criticism gained momentum, especially, as a corollary to globalization in the Third World Countries. If postcolonial criticism is taken as an offshoot of postmodernism, subaltern studies derives its force from Marxism, post structuralism and becomes a part of the postcolonial criticism. "Subaltern", meaning " of inferior rank ", is a term adopted by Antonio Gramsci to refer to those working class people in Soviet Union who are subject to the hegemony of the ruling classes. Subaltern classes may include peasants, workers and other groups denied access to hegemonic power. Gramsci was interested in the historiography of the subaltern 'classes'. In Notes on Italian History , he outlined a six-point plan for studying the history of the subaltern classes which include: 1. their objective formation; 2. their active and passive affiliation to the dominant political formations;

Frantz Fanon

 Frantz Fanon - psychiatrist, political theorist,poet, polemicist,diplomat, journalist, soldier, doctor, revolutionary - is one of the foremost writers of the 20th century on the topics of racism, colonialism, and decolonization. In this short lifetime, he produced two enduring books : ' Black Skin, White Masks ', still regarded as the preeminent study of the lived experiences of racism, and ' The Wretched of the Earth ', regarded at the time of its publication as "the handbook of decolonization", and presenting itself to us today as both a clear-eyed prediction of the lasting legacy of Neo- classicism and as a visionary account of a truly post-colonial yet to come. These two books encapsulate, the major themes not only of Fanon's writing but also of his extraordinary life. Black Skin,White Masks  captures Fanon's experience as a native of Martinique and the product of a colonial education who came to experience metropolitan racism upon his arrival in

Feminism

The concept of Feminism, in general, has been concerned to analysis of the trend of male domination in the society; the general attitude of male towards female; the exploitation and discrimination faced by females; the need for and ways of improving the condition of women; and, so on. In concern to literature, this movement has concentrated on the role played by literature to support gender discrimination as well as to oppose it; the reasons for lesser significance of the contribution by female writers in the literary tradition than that of the male writers; the difference in the ways in which works of male writers and female writer respectively, have represented gender discrimination, and, the ways in which social conditions and literary traditions regarding gender discrimination have affected one another. The concept got proper identification in the literary field during 1960s. Before that, feminism was limited to the authorship of female writers and the representation given to a wo