NEW ACADEMIA: An International Journal of English Language, Literature and Literary Theory

1

Authors: Anna Wing Bo Tso

The gentle motion of constellations Is the element starring every petal Beyond the silhouette of morning dews The brilliance of stardust dances in the scent of the corolla Against the dark Splashes of starlight strokes through the delicacies of the blossom Lovingly As a stream might feel for its stones

5

Authors: Dr. Swati Samantaray

The universal element of all dystopian fiction is the utter bleakness of the worlds delineated. This paper presents the theme of dystopia as represented in Arthur Asher Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1949). The playwright portrays characters of postwar era of America who resort to manners of escapism into illusionary realities in order to free themselves from their harsh and frustrated existence. Their predicaments result from their failure to reach a reasonable adjustment to their contemporary life, lack of fruitful communication among the family members in addition to their inner conflicts. Therefore, they all share discontent with their realities, a sense of boredom and frustration. They hang their hopes on the concept of the American Dream which turns to be a nightmare. The world of dystopia is the counterpart of utopia. Dystopia challenges utopia's (ideal societies) assumption of human perfectibility and perfect society.

6

Authors: Dr. Khem Raj Sharma

Julius Caesar (1599) projects the decline of the ideals of republic and the consequent destruction of Rome. In this play, Brutus and Cassius attempt to create a utopian republican society in the wake of the assassination of the so-called tyrant. Shakespeare believed that the Republic should be a place where equality, fraternity, and liberty reigned. This is what the second triumvirate – Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus, in Julius Caesar hope to achieve, but their reasons for believing in the Republic are neither convincing nor the same. While Lepidus believes in the Republic, and works diligently towards achieving it; Antony uses the concept of the Republic as a carrot for Lepidus and makes him do the hard work. What Antony does is sheer exploitation. By depicting Antony in this manner, the playwright questions the motives of people who sell dreams of Republic to the public. This paper seeks to look at this facet of Antony’s character, as depicted in Julius Caesar, keeping in mind Shakespeare’s condemnation of him in the approximated continuation to Julius Caesar – i.e. Antony and Cleopatra. It also seeks to show why Shakespeare does this, and what one can garner about his ideas about the Republic alongside his appropriation of the same in the context of the Renaissance.

6

Authors: Dr Panayiota Chrysochou

My paper will focus on two plays, Sophocles’Oedipus Rex and Shakespeare’s Macbeth, in an effort to show how they structure and subvert traditional and stereotypical genderized roles of heteronormativity, even heterosexuality. By closely examining the main female characters in the two aforementioned plays, Jocasta and Lady Macbeth, I should like to show how they not only function as a complementary Other to the male psyche or Self, but also rewrite Judith Butler’s notion of a heterosexual matrix on their own terms. For example, although traditionally – and pace Freud – the character of Oedipus has almost always been accorded primacy in Western philosophy and theory, hence marginalizing the position Jocasta occupies in the play as both mother and sexual partner, this paper attempts to show how she reclaims agency through the very real potency of her sexual power and dynamic relationship to her son-cum-lover-cum husband Oedipus. In a similar vein, it argues that Lady Macbeth does not simply subvert the typical gender-specific position of the oppressed female subject in patriarchal discourse by masculinizing herself, but also creates a potentially new space or symbolic realm with its own structuring processes, affording us with another reading where the female’s role is wrested away from the maternal and notions of nurturance as a naturally feminine construct in phallic binarism and accorded its own agency. By drawing on theatrical conventions, as well as Amber Jacobs’ formulation of a matriarchal law and a maternal structure with its own logic and structuring power that can also coexist within the Symbolic order, this paper seeks to examine how these female characters resist assimilation into the oppressive, dyadic binary of Lacanianphallogocentrism by opening up the interpretative field and laying claim to the possibilities of other discursive sites and symbolic structures within gender discourse analysis and on the stage.

7

Authors: Dr. Chung Chin-Yi

Lessing has thus written a compelling critique of marriage as an institution in the Fifth child. Indeed with Ben Lovatt it is seen that not all children will bring you marital bliss and harmony, they could be the very reason the marriage falls apart. Harrier suffers all the blame and responsibility for the freak that Ben turns out to be with David hardly suffering any such liability.It is thus shown that marriage is the ultimate burden for women- they are tasked with the painful act of childbirth and then the entire journey of bringing up children becomes almost solely theirs with their husbands taking on minimal responsibilities and burdens for bringing up the children. It is shown that women take on a burden beyond their husbands while they are expected at the same time to manage their careers and contribute financially. The modern marriage thus seems to be a plight for women- they are first burdened with painful childbirth and almost total responsibilities for bringing up and answering for the well being and outcomes of their children- whether or not these children’s defects are their fault at all. Lessing is thus feminist to the extent that she does not paint a utopian view of marriage- viewing it as an unequal partnership with a suffocation of women’s autonomy and rights- in her novels the women seem to be victims of their marriages. The women in Lessings’ novels marry although they do not really see a need to and subsequently suffer heavily from the marriages as they are burdened financially, emotionally and psychologically beyond the mens’ share of burden.

10

Authors: Elizabeth Lambert

This paper focuses on notions of madness as found in the works of American authors Gwendolyn Brooks and Sylvia Plath. The author considers Brooks’ Maud Martha and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar for instances of madness as it is expressed by both anger and rage and by mental psychosis. The paper argues that the female protagonists, though separated by race, region, and age, both experience forms of madness that result from the social climates in which they live. Ultimately, each of these novels serve as cautionary tales for the effects of repressed madness in women.

22

Authors: Francesco Levato

Semi-peripheral: Spaces of Deviation, Abjection, Madness; is a mash up of critical theory, poetry, science, and an examination of the works of H.P. Lovecraft as an (other)world-system, through the theoretical frames of world-systems analysis (Immanuel Wallerstein), heterotopic spaces (Michel Foucault), and abjection (Julia Kristeva). The work is a move towards blending my creative and critical texts in a more seamless whole; creating resonances between different texts, paratexts, practices and entities, while simultaneously attending to creative, critical, and materialist concerns. The poems are based on chance operations (a variation/combination of Bernstein’s Acrostic Chance method and John Cage’s Mesostics) that use (other)world texts (fictional books located in Lovecraft’s mythological system) as a seed text, and a series of source texts including the Collected Works of H. P. Lovecraft, and a combination of obscure books referenced in Lovecraft’s stories. Language from the source texts is collected via procedure, then reworked to shape the final poems. The prose sections blend critical theory with quotations from Lovecraft’s short story, The Call of Cthulhu.