bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Translating Medea’s Infanticide:
Authors: Manzoor Sohana
Published: June 2023

The figure of Medea is indeed one of the most enigmatic and problematic characters of Greek mythology. In Euripides’ Medea, the problem becomes acute because it is not merely a vengeful character that the reader comes across, but a woman who in order to avenge her husband’s betrayal, chooses to kill her own children. And in traditional patriarchal society that is certainly not acceptable. In the recent past, Medea’s actions have presented her as a cruel hearted murderess, a passionate woman bent on revenge, a mortal woman emerging as a goddess through her actions, and even as one of the first feminists to have uttered vengeance against man’s unfair treatment of women. While this paper looks at all those interpretations, it also attempts to analyze and interpret the riddle of Medea from other perspectives. Drawing on the historical background of the Asian sorceress, this paper aims to present Medea as a lost voice of matriarchy that retaliates against the father’s rule that denies a mother to have any hold over her children. In the process, the woman may lose her most precious possessions, she may also be deemed as a monster, but she also just might regain her honor and esteem.
Students’ Practiced Language Policies:
Authors: Akhter Neelima
Published: June 2023

Language policy research has traditionally focused on macro-level policies while language practices have been studied vis-à-vis macro policies to ascertain the success or failure of the policies. Policy as practice has only recently been conceptualized. This new strand of research argues that the real language policy of a community or institution resides in its practice. Language-in-education policies have traditionally advocated keeping learners’ first language separate from the target language fearing cross-contamination and hoping that this makes learning more effective. This “two solitudes” approach largely ignores what really happens in the classroom. Ethnographic research, however, shows that learners switch codes fluidly. The term “translanguaging” has been coined to describe such usual and normal practice of bilingualism without diglossic functional separation. Drawing upon the theories of practiced language policy and translanguaging, and adopting linguistic ethnography as method, I explored the “implicit and deducible” rules of language preference, that is, the practiced language policies of students in two language classes at the University of Dhaka. The findings show that students orient to a practiced language policy in which translanguaging is the norm and boundaries between languages become permeable.
Note to contributors
Authors: Note to contributors
Published: June 2023

CROSSINGS: A Journal of English StudiesDepartment of English and HumanitiesUniversity of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB)crossings@ulab.edu.bdSpecial Volume on Marx 200 | March 2020 | ISSN 2071–1107
Naxalgia and "Madhu Chakra" in Meghnadhbodh Rohoshya:
Authors: Mortuza Shamsad
Published: June 2023

This essay both pits Anik Datta's movie Meghnadhbodh Rohoshya against other literary works dealing with the Naxal question and examines its intertextuality to understand the multifaceted theme of political betrayal that subsumes the armed insurgency. On May 25, 1967, a group of trival sharecroppers in an Indian village called Naxalbari under the state of West Bengal resisted landowners from getting their yield. The protest got 11 villagers killed and spun off into a violent insurgency aimed at the annihilation of the people's enemy, and eventually exposed the Marxist/Maoist divide in the Communist Party of India. Released on the fiftieth year of the Naxalbari Movement, Anik Datta's movie tackles some of the unresolved conflicts of the past by giving them human faces. He uses the genre of mystery films to attempt an "objective" analysis of nuanced truth behind one symbolic betrayal that failed the movement. Datta narrates the story of a defector who left his idealist activism to settle for a comfortable and successful life abroad. The protagonist's defection serves as a parallel to the way the Bengali renaissance figure Michael Madhusudan Dutt left his religion, country and language for Europe and wrote in English. Anik Datta, however, focuses on Madhusudan on Meghnadhbodh Kavya , where the heroic code of a warrior clan is betrayed, and uses it as a temporal frame to negotiate with the present. This article critiques the multiplicity of exchanges between Madhusudan's epic and a contemporary tale of betrayal as found in the Anik Datta's film to comment on the culture and political components of the Naxalite movement and the nostalgia assiciated with it.
The Gender Politics of Viraha:
Authors: Barua Bashabi
Published: June 2023

Viraha in high literature is constituted on the idea of separation, or “loss,” the pining to get back to the primordial relationship with the supreme. This sacred “emotion” is operationalized through de-transcendentalization of divinity in a novel affective economy in both Bhakti and Sufi traditions. Though this new devotional sect sets forth a direct communion with the divine, the absolute other, the mainstream Bhakti traditions introduce the symbol of Radha and the High Sufi theology envisions an ideal Beauty realized in the body of the unique Woman as the medium or intermediary to the path of attaining the divine. This female other is considered to be the source of psycho-sexual plenitude necessary for the experience of union with the divine. Alongside this proposition, the new norm gets new dimension with the feminization of worship, i.e., the male devotee taking up the role of the female. Thus, the gendered phenomena takes on a new impetus in this mode of expression characterized as the female voice. Such an inversion of gender envisages a new Female Body which obliterates the flesh-bodied woman. Through a new presence, woman becomes absent in this symbolism through denial of their sexual difference.
"Out of Death of Slavery":
Authors: Wendland-Liu Joel
Published: June 2023

The goal of this essay is to offer a return to Marx, specifically to Marx's writings on the US Civil War, in order to consider their role in the development of Merxian materialist conception of history. To that end, this reading of Marx's writings on the civil war elicits a definition of class as 1) An objective, dynamic systematic process of expolitation in global capitalism 2) defined concretely in a given space and time by the content, shape and limits, and necessities of political-economic struggle and 3) a contested, fluide ideological and cultural structure rooted in social institutions contrive to reproduce existing social relations of production. In order to, establish this multidimensional definition, I contextualize this reading of Marx's Civil War writings within his extensive investigations of events in Asia and Africa.
“Things can change in a day”:
Authors: Islam Khandakar Ashraful , Akter Shirin
Published: June 2023

In both of her novels, Arundhati Roy focuses on specific fatal incidents – either deliberate or accidental – which have catastrophically changed the lives of the major characters, including the children. In The God of Small Things, the unexpected death of Sophie Mol and brutal killing of Velutha exposed those matrices of oppression which, lying unchallenged apart from jeopardizing Ammu and Velutha, problematized the psychic development of Rahel and Estha. Likewise, in The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Anjum’s deadly experience in the Gujarat massacre, the brutal rape of Revathy, and the killing of Miss Jebeen in Kashmir shed light on those dreadful socio-political extremities, which ostensibly beckon an endangered future for the generation to come. Focusing on Roy’s novels, this paper attempts to exhibit how the predominance of the socio-political upheavals has not only changed the lived experience of the child characters in a cataclysmic way, but also exposed them to a world of cruelty, injustice, and futurelessness.
Influences and Individualities:
Authors: Shafiqul Islam Mohammad
Published: June 2023

Nissim Ezekiel, recognized as the pioneering figure of Indian poetry in English, was influenced by a great many poets of the western literary tradition, subsequently influencing numerous poets of his succeeding generations. Having brought modernity into the literary scene of the Indian subcontinent, he made an immense contribution to English writing, initiating a new poetic trend in this region. Before him, Indian poetry had been charged with high romantic and mystic ideals, but he first began to present everyday life in poetry, abandoning the past trend. Well informed of the western tradition of the twentieth-century poetry, Ezekiel brought something new to Indian poetry in English. In his formative years, several poetic voices of the west and their works made an impact on his work, but like great poets of the world, he was able to set a new trend, create an individual style, and become influential to later generations of poets in India and beyond. This paper, therefore, explores how western tradition of modern and romantic poetry contributed to the shaping of Ezekiel’s poetic world. The paper also argues that Ezekiel’s arrival in the realm of Indian poetry in English gives birth to a new era of poetic tradition in India in particular and the whole subcontinent in general.
The Water Ethic:
Authors: Mridha Shibaji
Published: June 2023

The recent scholarship has evidently established the nexus between modernism and ecocriticism which reinforces modernist writers’ anxiety of humans’ changing relationship with nature. T S Eliot, one of the high priests of modernism, not only displays the evolving urban landscape but also cautions us about an imminent diseased and dysfunctional world. To further the burgeoning ecocritical discussion for understanding Eliot’s poetry, this paper explores the depiction of one crucial elemental matter – water – in his literary masterpiece The Waste Land, and argues how water is presented as a dynamic entity in contrast to being a passive and fixed matter. Referring to some of the recent scholarship of elemental ecocriticism, eco materialism, and environmental ethics, it aims to discuss how humanity’s failure to recognize water’s agency has wrecked the earth, forcing us to live in a waste land. Thus, this paper is an attempt to read The Waste Land as a water ethic that recognizes a world of reciprocity and cautions us not to treat the non-human world as a commodity
The Struggle of Memory against Forgetting in Kamila Shamsie’s Salt and Saffron
Authors: Osman Khan Touseef
Published: June 2023

This article studies the ethics of remembrance and its transformative potential through the reading of the postmemorial narrative of Kamila Shamsie’s Salt and Saffron. While it is the story of a particular individual’s journey of memory transformation, it speaks to a shared experience of rupture in the wake of Partition violence and what it might mean to confront and transform the powerful impact that this collective memory has on everyday lives. The analysis of the central character’s evolution seeks to demonstrate the way in which memories of Partition violence are connected to the continuation of an oppressive class system in Pakistan and how transforming these memories also implies transforming a worldview that maintains class prejudices. In so doing, the article offers broader insights for understanding the nature of intergenerational memory, mourning, and transformation in the wake of historical violence.
“The best in this kind are but shadows”:
Authors: Shoilee Nishat Atiya
Published: June 2023

Aesthesia or the art of perception involves an awareness of human tendencies and the Greek origin of the word, aisthesis stands for “one who perceives.” As much as an author might or might not find it significant to observe their surroundings and then fictionalize them to be able to emulate a lived reality, seen and heard all too well – one cannot disagree that once the vision they try to communicate achieves a heightened focus and is given a shape of words – the writer finds themselves in a mode of paradoxical nonexistence, in other words, aesthetic alienation. This paper aims to identify the very process through which a writerly vision comes true as an author decidedly chooses creative sincerity over domestic comfort as seen in George Gissing’s 1891 novel, New Grub Street, and Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, a DC Vertigo comic series (1993). Closely examining the dramatis personae and their intimate imitation of the respective authors’ aesthetic beliefs, the article makes use of both primary and secondary data and discovers that the domain of creative genesis is always separated from the finished literary products, autonomous and distant.
Understanding Deviant Space:
Authors: Uddin Kazi Ashraf
Published: June 2023

This paper, preoccupied with intersectionality in spatial criticism and broadly portraying the visual representation of urban space in popular culture (film), critically looks into the lived experiences around the Delhi neighborhood, Paharganj, as illustrated in Rakesh Ranjan Kumar’s 2019 film Paharganj. Theoretically grounding on Henri Lefebvre’s spatial triad and production of space, and on Michel Foucault’s “panopticon” and “heterotopia,” this paper investigates (a) ways in which Paharganj turns into a deviant and dangerous space with its countercultural brooding and camouflaged criminality and how such deviant “lived space” negates or adds dimension to the “conceived space,” and (b) how such subversive space (Paharganj) challenges territorial jurisdiction by creating an alternative and resistant power nexus which sometimes leads to its denomination as the “Republic of Paharganj,” a status as “dangerous” or desired space in the film. As a part of its spatial reading of popular cultural texts, this paper primarily takes on Paharganj. However, to substantiate Paharganj’s spatial representation in popular culture, this paper also secondarily makes reference to two other films: Holy Smoke! (1999) and Dev. D (2009).
Confusion as an Ideological Tool in Malaysian Newspaper Op-Eds
Authors: Khan Mahmud Hasan , Samuel Moses Stephens Gunams
Published: June 2023

This paper offers an analysis of the lexical item confusion in opinion-editorials published by a Malaysian newspaper. The data was collected from The Star, a Malaysian English daily, between 1 January 2009 and 30 June 2010. To contextualize, in April 2009, the previous Prime Minister departs and the country welcomes a new leader with an apparently nationalist identity discourse of 1Malaysia (Malaysia as an inclusive nation). This is also when religious debates surfaced regularly in the country’s courtrooms and media. The findings of the study reveal that the authors of op-eds used the lexical item, confusion, to articulate normative and non-normative positions regarding various religious issues in Malaysia (e.g., Allah controversy, Islamic jurisprudence and religious conversion). Those who argued for the normative view, confusion arose within the discursive space of the religion of Islam; while for those who argued against the normative view, confusion arose due to the differences between the religious and the secular positions. It is important to note that the construction of meaning depended on both the semantic field of the lexical item and the context of utterance. However, what is more crucial to follow is that the term confusion served as an ideological tool in the Malaysian context to further the agenda of those individuals who are representatives or spokespersons for specific ideological groups within a contested polity.
Not Winnin’ Anymore:
Authors: Brooker Joseph
Published: June 2023

This article addresses representations of working-class life in Britain during the1980s; specifically, experiences of recession, unemployment, and difficulty in theworkplace. The primary text considered is the television drama series Boys fromthe Blackstuff (1982), written by Alan Bleasdale; more briefly this is linked toJames Kelman’s novel The Busconductor Hines (1984), and to the post-industriallandscape of the poetry of Sean O’Brien. In the wake of the socialist criticismof Raymond Williams, the article explores how the “Industrial Novel” of the1840s may be succeeded, in the Thatcher years, by the literature of recession anddeindustrialization.
Allegorizing Neoliberalism:
Authors: Hasan Al Zayed Sarker
Published: June 2023

What is neoliberalism? This essay tries to answer this question by drawing upontwo sources: theoretical discussions and literary representations. Michel Foucaultand Wendy Brown argue that neoliberalism is best understood as a new logic ofgovernmentality which has brought into being a new economic subject, homoœconomicus. This article, positioning itself against the main tenets of Foucauldiantheories of neoliberalism, argues that a normative logic of governmentality is aninadequate frame for understanding neoliberal capitalism. In order to understandthe contemporary moment better, we need to historicize neoliberalism and lookcarefully into its relationship with capitalism and class. What we also need tofactor in is how a monetized consumerist worldview has normalized itself inneoliberal culture. When we read contemporary South Asian fictions allegorically,these normalized worldviews and masked relationships begin to come into view.Allegorical presentations of neoliberalism in fictions, this essay hypothesizes,have often taken two different paths: representation of it as a structure of feeling,and parody and critique. A number of contemporary fictions including SamratUpadhyay’s “The Good Shopkeeper” and Amitav Ghosh’s the Ibis trilogy can beread as neoliberal allegories thematizing not only the material alterations thatneoliberalism has ushered in but also the cultural transformations that havebecome parts of our everyday life.
Metaphors and Metamorphosis:
Authors: Das Shantanu
Published: June 2023

Ismat Chughtai, a prominent feminist writer of twentieth century India, has often been criticized for her iconoclastic stand on the treatment of female sexuality in her stories though she has always used strong metaphors to subtly express such boldness in her heroines. In “The Homemaker,” she presents the characters, Lajo and Mirza, in a relationship that involves a certain pattern of sexual politics. Mirza, driven by Lajo’s sexuality, falls in love with her, and, bugged by his sense of religiosity and patriarchy, attempts to make a “decent” woman out of her. Chughtai’s brilliant narrative establishes here two strong metaphors, lehnga (a long skirt worn by Indian women) and pyjamas (trousers worn by Indian women), to capture two phases of metamorphosis that Lajo goes through from being a maid to becoming a homemaker first, and then from a maid to a wife, followed by a retreat to being a homemaker again. Drawing from Simon de Beauvoir’s theoretical reflections on sexual politics, this paper will show how Lajo’s journey from lehnga to pyjamas, and her retreat from pyjamas to lehnga metaphorically tell the story of her metamorphosis within the sexual politics of her relationship with Mirza.
Postcolonial Disillusionment:
Authors: Hossain Elham
Published: June 2023

The primary purpose of Chinua Achebe’s writing was to help the Nigerian people retrieve what they lost due to years of colonial exploitation. To construct a sense of dignity for African communities and nations, that educative purpose inspired him to reexamine social, political, economic, and historical realities of Africa. That concern obviously worked as a stimulus behind the production of A Man of the People in which Achebe pictured the failure of postcolonial leadership in a fictional country which in many ways coincided with post-independence Nigeria. The incident of the military coup at the end of the novel due to the failure of political leadership prophetically coincided with a similar incident in Nigeria only six years after its independence. This was mostly because of the politicians’ indulgence in euphoria and self-interest. Due to the lack of a vantage political vision, the country experienced a disastrous collapse of economic, moral, and social values. National consciousness went through a vulnerability in the face of rival tribal consciousness in a multi-ethnic state. In A Man of the People Achebe explores how the so-called man of the people fails to uphold the public interest for his indulgence in sexual motives and private politics. This paper seeks to approach Achebe’s A Man of the People from a historicist perspective and examines how the author depicts the disillusionment of a postcolonial nation
Classroom Interaction as a Way of Developing Students’ Speaking Skill at the Tertiary Level EFL Classroom:
Authors: Patwary Md. Nurullah , Chowdhury Swarna
Published: June 2023

Teaching speaking skills through classroom interaction is usually a neglected program at the tertiary EFL education in Bangladesh. This study primarily aims at discovering the current scenario of the practices and problems of classroom interaction at a Bangladeshi tertiary EFL classroom. This study further proposes some strategies for developing speaking skills through classroom interaction. The data were collected from 110 student respondents and 11 teacher respondents of 4 universities based on the stratified random sampling. For collecting and analyzing data, a mixed-methods approach (QUAN-QUAL) was applied. The data collection methods were a questionnaire survey on the tertiary EFL students and a semi-structured interview of the tertiary EFL teachers. The results show that though students and teachers were aware of classroom interaction, very little communication actually took place in the classroom because of teachers’ monopolizing the talk time and learners’ getting little to no talk time at all. The study also exposes that most of the students did not interact spontaneously and teachers used a great deal of Bangla in the EFL classroom. These hampered students’ speaking skills development. Finally, this paper presents some pedagogical implications and offers some recommendations for the considerations of the tertiary EFL teachers, learners, and policymakers
Language, Chronotope, Other Spaces and Times, and Identity
Authors: Sultana Shaila , Dovchin Sender
Published: June 2023

The purpose of this paper is to explore the intricate relationship between the spatial dynamics of real and imagined spaces, and to understand how language and identity evolve and emerge within these spaces. To do so, both face-to-face and digital conversations from an intensive three-month-long ethnographic research in Bangladesh, in which 29 participants took part, are analyzed with reference to Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope. The analysis reveals that while participants engage in conversation within the contextual realities and spatial dynamics, they also equally refer to other spaces and times. These spaces work as reference points that enable the participants to bring extra layers of meaning to the meaning-making processes of their language practices. The participants also approximate or transgress the linguistic and cultural boundaries within the social and spatial realities of the present with reference to the socially and culturally appropriate norms and propriety of other spaces. The paper hence concludes that the spatial contextualization of language and the negotiation of identity are relational, very much in an organic relationship with other spaces and times, both imaginary and concrete, and fluid and fixed. Thus, the paper contributes to the recent development in sociolinguistics research that strongly suggests including space as an important dynamic of language, its meaning-making processes, and individual and collective identity.
Note to Contributors
Authors: Note to contributors
Published: June 2023

CROSSINGS: A Journal of English StudiesDepartment of English and HumanitiesUniversity of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB)crossings@ulab.edu.bdVolume 13, No. 1 | Special Issue on Entangled Englishes | June 2022 | ISSN 2071–1107
Love as Water:
Authors: Mridha Shibaji
Published: June 2023

Analyzing two films, Ponyo by Hayao Miyazaki and The Shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro, this paper studies the portrayal of humanity’s complex relationship with water that refuses to present itself as static, simple, and reducible. Attending to water as a dynamic entity, it investigates the dynamics of value and agency of water in its manifested ally, rebel, and love. Engaging in the discussion of reciprocity as a way forward to a world of harmony, the paper argues how water as an equalizer can inform humans to shun their anthropocentric hubris and can help recognize the shared materiality between the human and the non-human world. Drawing on references from the recent scholarship on elemental ecocriticism, material ecocriticism, and environmental ethics, the eco-aesthetics of the films will be studied to evoke an ethical position about water’s fluidity and omnipresence that demand our respect and our recognition of the agency of the non-human world.
Virtual Connectivity through Creativity:
Authors: Shameem Musarrat
Published: June 2023

This article involves a popular Facebook group named Pencil that features creative productions from Bangladeshi people from around the world. While its basic focus is on writing, it also creates room for audio-visual productions such as songs, poetry recitation, dance, and photography. Among the contributors, a modest number is from diasporic Bangladeshi women who represent Bangladeshi culture through their artistic endeavors. The purpose of this research is to study how diasporic Bangladeshi women writers make use of the virtual platform of Pencil to express their kinship to Bangladeshi culture, as well as to carve an identity to endorse it. The prevalent discussion here is theoretical with a limited close reading of texts. While discussing the process of identity formation, this research refers to Stuart Hall’s concept of “cultural identity” to create its theoretical background. Another predominant idea of the research is the “cyberspace” provided by the Internet to diasporic subjects. The final concept is “digital diaspora” which is integral to the study of cyberspace and diaspora. Considering the debate on the ambiguous role of cyberspaces in women’s emancipation, this article argues in favor of cyberspaces by perceiving that the virtual platform promotes women’s resourcefulness.
Some Thoughts on Tagore as a Thinker
Authors: Haq Kaiser
Published: June 2023

This paper compares Tagore’s thoughts on truth and nationhood with those of Nietzsche and Einstein. As against Einstein’s definition of truth independent of human agencies, Tagore opines that truth is defined and interpreted by human exigencies, and, otherwise, truth cannot prevail. Likewise Tagore’s sense of nationhood ls based on a comprehensive realization of the human potentialities, which is different from Nietzsche’s Eurocentric critique of nationalism. It also deals critically with Tagore’s mysticism.
The Daughters in Shakespeare’s Plays
Authors: Mohit Ul Alam Mohit Ul Alam
Published: June 2023

This paper is a study of the daughters’ choice of husbands in Shakespeare’s plays in relation to their fathers’ reaction. I’ve shown that in Shakespeare’s plays his heroines in tragedies and comedies are given a freedom to choose their lovers-to-be-turned-husbands, but when it comes to seeking the consent of the parents (the father actually), in most plays, the father disagrees, and then complications arise with dire consequences for the daughter in tragedies and forced solutions in comedies. Bringing into discussion a number of plays where a daughter’s choice of a lover/husband clashes with the father’s prerogatives, I’ve indicated that Shakespeare has supported the larger male paradigm in which a daughter can be said as most happily married when her father gives his consent to her marriage.
Language Problems in Singapore and Hong Kong
Authors: Nasrin Mahmuda
Published: June 2023

The focus of this article is particularly on the development of Singaporean language policy. In Singapore, they follow a complicated language policy. As the language policy is to move towards English, and the emphasis is on bilingualism, this article will look at the mismatch between policy and what actually happens resulting from a mixture of Chinese, Malays and Indians who speak their respective languages. The context of Hong Kong will also be considered to support the central idea of the article–languages cannot always be planned.
Meursault:
Authors: Islam Nasrin
Published: June 2023

The Outsider (1942) is an explication of Camus’s idea of the absurdity of human existence. Here we find a protagonist who has no specific goal or aim in life not because he is undirected or unsure of himself but because he knows that life is meaningless. This knowledge results in an acute stoicism in Meursault and seems to make him an outsider not only to his surrounding world but also to his own life. But if we judge him through the incidents he narrates, we don’t get the real Meursault. We can rather understand him perfectly if we analyse his confrontation with the sun. The way he constantly faces the hot sun instead of taking refuge under any shade shows his stubbornness, his challenge to the benign indifference of this world towards human existence. The way he faces all his misfortunes shows him as a man who has resolved not to be hurt or distressed in any way. But if we examine his character closely, we don’t fail to trace his emotion and attachment which he mentions very briefly and casually. Thus it should not be overlooked that in his utter loneliness during his prison life he thinks of his mother over and over again, and it is Marie, his girlfriend, who makes him painfully aware of how stagnant his life has become. In fact, we can say that these sudden paroxysms overshadow his apathy for life. Therefore, we can reach a conclusion that this detachment and indifference are his deliberate impositions which tend to hide his real self, but only unsuccessfully.
Formatting in Forster’s A Passage to India
Authors: Abdullah Al Mamun Abdullah Al Mamun
Published: June 2023

This paper highlights the complicated relationship between the colonizer and the colonized in a typical colonial context as manifested in Forster’s masterpiece, A Passage to India. It also exposes the stereotypes which the Orientals are depicted with and the constant process of ‘formatting’ or brainwashing by the British. This article pursues Albert Memmi’s theory as promoted in his book The Colonizer and the Colonized as well as those of other cultural philosophers. The concept of difference in resemblance observed by Homi Bhabha as working in this novel shows how desperately Forster struggles to reconcile the differences between the nomenclature ‘English’ and the other one, known as, ‘Anglicised’. This paper by applying post colonial concept of formatting to A Passage to India attempts to study the complex web of human relationships ramified through identity crisis, racial conflict and the complexities of colonial discourse in a hybrid context.
Things Fall Apart:
Authors: Islam Nasrin
Published: June 2023

Things Fall Apart has mostly been regarded as a ‘sexist’ text in that it portrays a phallocentric society where women are regarded as mere ‘objects’ or ‘property’ of their husbands, and we cannot but say that the portrayal is a true and honest representation of Igbo society. But an undercurrent of the writer’s endeavour to present women as individual human beings and important members of society is deducible from the very beginning of the novel, which runs in parallel with the patriarchal ideology prevalent in the society at large. One of the vital points to be argued in this regard is his portrayal of two female characters Ekwefi and Ezinma who possess strong personality and have their own ways of doing things and who even play a significant role in sustaining the family and social values. Moreover, this portrayal has further been fortified by the hero’s response towards these two women, which Achebe has conjoined with the structural design of the novel. So it is important to note how Achebe has made Okonkwo, one of the chief adherents of phallocentric ideology. recognize and appreciate the wisdom and courage of his second wife and her daughter and rely on them in his sheer needs. Similarly important is the fact that he is sustained by the female power during the most critical phase of his life–his exile to his motherland in the second part of the novel.
Plagiarism in Graduate Research:
Authors: Haque Muhammed Shahriar
Published: June 2023

Empirical work on plagiarism in graduate research, particularly in English studies, in the Bangladeshi institutions of higher learning (private and public), is so scarce that it could be considered as almost negligible. Plagiarism is a crime and a violation of intellectual property, and needs to be addressed; but it seems to be overlooked and or neglected by the University Grants Commission (UGC) as well as the concerned universities. Moreover, when plagiarism is detected in graduate research, the blame predominantly falls on the plagiarists/students, who are held accountable for their actions. However, are the plagiarists completely responsible for their acts of negligence–conscious or unconscious? Should they shoulder all the blame or should others, directly or indirectly, responsible for guiding them in their academic research/studies be held accountable as well? This study intends to shed light on plagiarism in graduate research, especially in English studies in private and public universities in Bangladesh, from a critical discourse analysis (CDA) perspective.
The Notion of Eternal Return in Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Authors: Kabir Shahnewaz
Published: June 2023

Milan Kundera, in his most popular and critically acclaimed novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), contemplates on the idea of eternal return devised by Friedrich Nietzsche and the idea of binary opposition between lightness and weight proposed by Parmenides. The novel sets in motion a set of complicated relationships mostly between Tomas, Tereza and Sabina, which are juxtaposed with the duality of lightness and weight based upon the idea of eternal return. Although Parmenides posits that lightness is positive and weight negative, Milan Kundera, in favor of Nietzsche, observes that the heaviest of weights, such as eternal returns, designates the most intense fulfillment in human life. This paper attempts to show that in spite of the deliberate ambiguity we observe in the novel the attainment of meaning can be compared to weight in the terms of Parmenides. Lightness, the binary opposition of weight, is suggestively denounced by the way the novel is developed along with the narratives, being guided by explanatory digressions. The illustration of Tomas designates a gradual shift from the course of lightness to weight and thus attains the Nietzschean doctrine of human greatness through embracing fate even at the cost of severe sufferings. The portrayal of Sabina in contrast with that of Tomas and Tereza implies Kundera’s denouncement of lightness to make a full circle. This essay presents the philosophical backgrou4d of the idea of eternal recurrence followed by a brief sketch of the story. Then it attempts to show how Kundera explores the Nieatzean ideas through the three central characters and their inter–relationships in The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
Opportunities and Challenges in Teaching ESP in Private University of Bangladesh
Authors: Huq ATM Sajedul
Published: June 2023

With new television channels, media firms, and telecoms coming out in Bangladegh every day, there is now, more than ever, a need for graduates who possess competent communication and language skills. Students’ future prospects’*e increasingly becoming contingent not only upon academic success at the tertiary level but also upon their level of English proficiency.

However, it is a matter of concern that even though the demand is there, the majority of the graduates produced every year, fail to fulfil the needs of employers. It is clear that the gap between what is required and what is taught must be addressed.

In fact, in order to bridge this ever widening gap, many major national and multinational companies, banks, NGO’s, telecom’s and software companies have been conducting their own in-house language training programmes (e.g. HSBC, BRAC Bank, Robi, Hotel Sonargao etc ) for quite some time now. They focus on their immediate needs for English without wasting time and effort on teaching irrelevant elements.

This paper will focus on the limitations of General English language courses designed for students of diverse disciplines in private universities in Bangladesh, and examine whether introducing ESP courses would be more effective in raising the proficiency level of the students and at the same time meet the needs of both students as well as prospective employers.
Master of the Line:
Authors: Lslam Syed Manzoorul
Published: June 2023

Rabindranath Tagore emerged as an artist quite late in his life—in the late 1920s—but once he began to seriously pursue his new passion, he produced an astounding number of drawings, paintings and etchings that testify to his greatness as an artist, and his standing as a precursor of modern Indian art. Yet, Tagore did not offer any theory of art, neither did he write extensively on his own art beyond making occasional comments on his style and his satisfying pursuit of art. Still, a careful study of his writings on art does reveal a theoretical underpinning that appears predominantly romantic – with its emphasis on sublimity, beauty, truth, simplicity and universality. His vision of art however, accommodates his constantly evolving perceptions of art, and allows him, at times, to deviate from an earlier view or search for separate nuances within art practices of his time. A close look at Tagore’s art reveals that many of its defining characteristics lie outside the ideas that he propagates in his writings and lectures on art. The paper will examine these differences and try to understand how his art and aesthetics make a fine balance between tradition and innovation, while being sensitive to romantic aspirations and modernistic sensibilities.
Distant Ties and Troubled Bonds in Trans-cultural Family Relations:
Authors: Popy Shirin Akter
Published: June 2023

Jhumpa Lahiri, an Indian-American writer, highly recognized for her exquisite investigation into human relation, vividly pictures the heartbreaking transformation of family ties and loss of traditional bonds in the trans-cultural backdrop of the 21st century global village. Instead of celebrating transnational and multicultural identity, Lahiri poignantly portrays how, losing the traditional family bonds and merely becoming mechanical continuation of companionship, in the migrated land, the diasporic familiesexist and strive to move forward. This paper is an attempt to show the persisting unhappiness in the dismantled relation between husband-wife and parents-children in the light of “Unaccustomed Earth” and “Hell-Heaven.” Delving into the untrodden areas of conjugal lives in a trans-cultural milieu, where echoes of the broken heart die in silence, the paper will also explore the dominant causes responsible for the breakage and transformation of family relations.
Evaluating the Evaluator:
Authors: Ara Shaheen
Published: June 2023

In private universities in Bangladesh, it is very common for talented English language teachers to move on to other academic institutions, other countries or even leave the profession altogether, simply because they were undervalued. This qualitative research examines how inaccurate teacher evaluations are in many ways responsible for the high turnover rate among ELT professionals teaching in private universities in the country. It also focuses on current evaluation practices, as well as their limitations and makes some recommendations on how evaluation techniques for English language teachers could be improved.
Demotivation in English Language Courses:
Authors: Sultana Nasreen
Published: June 2023

The study aims to find out the factors of demotivation, which hinder the learning of the students in English language courses in Bangladesh. Even after learning English as a compulsory subject for twelve years in schools, students enter into university with a poor knowledge of English. Eventually, most of the students are found to be demotivated in the fundamental English language courses at the tertiary level and usually teachers are blamed for the demotivation of the learners. However, teachers might not be the sole reason for making the students unwilling to learn. This study assumes that often students are demotivated to learn because of their own barriers, which is sometimes psychological. They do not learn because of their unwilling nature towards studies. For the purpose of the research, data were obtained through structured long interviews both with the students studying at the tertiary level and the English language teachers teaching them. Afterwards, findings and necessary solutions are offered.
Impact of Personality on English Language Learning in Bangladesh
Authors: Anwar Tahmina
Published: June 2023

This paper is a report on a study which attempts to examine the relationship that exists between personality and English language learning. The Myer-Briggs Personality Type Indicator was used to carry out the research. The study sample was made up of twenty students with varying personality types who were doing their third foundation course in English at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh. Standardized spoken and written tests were used in the research to see if there is any relation between personalt1t type and English language learning. The study shows that variations in the personality traits of students positively or negatively affect English language learning. This paper also investigated what students think about their teachers’ personality and how it affects their personality and English language learning success.
Investigating undergraduate ESL learners’ readiness for autonomous learning
Authors: Bashir Ahmed
Published: June 2023

The paper reports on a study which investigated undergraduate ESL (English as a Second Language) students’ readiness for autonomous learning of English. The main objectives of the study were to get a better understanding of Bangladeshi undergraduate ESL learners’ perceptions about autonomous learning and teacher-centered learning, and to identify whether they are ready for autonomous learning. The study is based on a five-point Likert Scale questionnaire survey followed by a semi-structured interview conducted with the first year students of a major public university in Bangladesh. Quantitative data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 16.0). Descriptive statistics were calculated for each variable in the questionnaire in order to describe the respondents’ perceptions about autonomous learning and teacher[1]centered learning. Paired-samples t tests were calculated to identify any significant difference (p>0.05) in the respondents’ preference for autonomous learning to teacher-centered learning. The results show that the participants in the study prefer autonomous learning to teacher’ centered learning which may imply their readiness for autonomous learning. Though it is a commonly-held belief that teaching in Bangladesh is teacher-centered and students are heavily dependent on teachers at all levels, the study suggests the potential for implementing autonomy in undergraduate English language classes in Bangladesh.
K. Anis Ahmed's The World in My Hands:
Authors: Chowdhury Golam Sarwar
Published: June 2023

K. Anis Ahmed,The World in My HandsRandom House India, 2013Rs. 299, pp.316.

K. Anis Ahmed’s The World in My Hands is indeed a powerful novel containing satire, humor laced with bitterness, and characters that are no strangers to readers living in Bangladesh…
Banglaphone Fiction:
Authors: Chambers Claire
Published: June 2023

Around the time the Raj was disintegrating, Bengalis, many of them from Sylhet, were coming to Britain in large numbers. Settling in areas such as London’s Spitalfields, these Sylhetis pioneered Britain’s emerging curry restaurant trade, labored for long hours and with few rights in the garment industry, and worked as mechanics. Sylhetis’ inestimable contribution to the fabric of British life is recognized, for example, in their association with Brick Lane, a popular road of curry houses in East London. However, too often their contribution to literature is reduced to one novel, Brick Lane, Monica Ali’s novel about the famous street and its denizens. This paper seeks to broaden the debate about English-language literature from Londoni writers across the Bengaliyat. In 1793, Sake Dean Mahomed published his The Travels of Dean Mahomet. What is unique about this text is that it was originally written in English to give European readers a glimpse of India. Its creation was probably part of the author’s attempt to integrate in Ireland, where he was living. Two centuries later, we are witnessing an efflorescence of Anglophone writing from the two Bengals about Britain. I discuss Amitav Ghosh’s portrayals of Brick Lane in his 1988 novel The Shadow Lines as an early precursor to fellow Indian novelists Neel Mukherjee’s A Life Apart (2010) and Amit Chaudhuri’s Odysseus Abroad (2014), which also demonstrate a fascination with Sylhetis in London and their material culture. From Bangladesh and its diaspora, Manzu Islam’s Burrow (2004) and Zia Haider Rahman’s novel In the Light of What We Know (2013) come under the spotlight. What we might call “Banglaphone fiction” is, I argue, currently experiencing a boom, and portrayals of Sylhetis in London, their cuisine, and other aspects of popular culture form an enduring fascination among the male writers of this fiction, at least.
The Theme of Duality and Epiphanic Moments in the Works of Emily Brontë
Authors: Manzoor Sohana
Published: June 2023

“Navigating through Dublin in1904, Dickens would have lost his way, but trying to read Ulysses, he would have thought he had lost his mind,” (3) says Stephen Kern while distinguishing between Victorian writers and the modernists. He further adds, “Modernism is about a new way of interpreting the world more than the substance of that world” (3). Little wonder that while looking at the realist novels of H. G. Wells, John Galsworthy, and Arnold Bennett, Virginia Woolf ponders over the purpose of their characters. She admits that their novels are well-made, and yet she accuses them of “making the trivial and the transitory appear the true and the enduring” (Common Reader 210). Rather than branding something as tragic or comic, Woolf’s focus is on an artist’s capability of making life appear as it truly is, as she proposes with Emily Brontë’s characters that are filled with “such a gust of life that they transcend reality” (227). Using Woolf’s argument as the basis, I argue that in both her novel and poems Emily Brontë depicts that spirit of transcendence that aligns her with modernist writers. The nature of Emily’s power lies in her ability to thematize the metaphor of duality. In both her poetic works and novel she explores the dualistic aspects of life as fundamental. For her it was not a matter of choice, and she embraced both as can be seen through the struggles of her characters who continually strive to find a gap between love and the self. The sense of duality that is introduced in the Gondal poems is explored in a much more complex manner in Wuthering Heights, and Brontë “saw these dualities as cosmic” (Chitham 203). This paper examines some of the motifs of Emily Brontë’s art that I would claim make her a precursor to the Modernists.