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Editorial
Prof. Sreetanwi Chakraborty
Editor – in – Chief
Litinfinite Journal
Assistant Professor
Amity Institute of English Studies and Research
Amity University Kolkata, WB, India

There has been much speculation over the last few decades regarding the recent trends and developments in the field of postcolonial studies. With the study of various cultures and social backgrounds in several segments of Humanities and Social Sciences, newer perspectives keep emerging as part of reading the trends in postcolonial studies. Questions about the dominant cultures, a set pattern of understanding the postcolonial resistance and angst are rampant, that has led to an all-new study of what constitutes crisis in terms of postcolonial impact. There is a huge impact of understanding the set hierarchy in terms of giving birth to newer hegemonies. Western nationalism and mythology, power structures, struggles in terms of religion, culture and economy have been quite successful in enunciating newer avenues to studying and understanding postcolonialism. What we see now is an experiment with language, dialect, social and political norms, an insight into the larger trajectory of the anomalies and the normalcy conflict that the earlier studies of postcolonialism displayed. The realization of the ‘otherness’ has been strong, often detrimental to the majoritarian forces that studied nations, borders, migration, settlement and colonization under a strict regime. Hence, it becomes essential how and where we study the theoretical framework of otherness that is longlasting, and that has a serious role to play in negotiating the boundaries of culture, caste, subjugation, intolerance and often the enigma surrounding the occident.

            As Janet Wilson, Cristina Sandru, and Sarah Lawson Welsh point out in their major work Rerouting the Postcolonial: New Directions for the New Millennium:

“…the postcolonial has moved in recent years from being a historical marker to a more globally inflected term applicable to a variety of regions.” (Wilson, 2)

In this volume III, issue II of Litinfinite Journal, we therefore, came up with few questions that were mostly targeted to this understanding of the contemporary trends in postcolonial studies. Studying cityscapes and narratives that regularly question the themes of rooted and rootlessness are made part of the study. Films, literary theory, studies on short stories, studies in globalization, everything point out to new discursive formations that go a long way in re-reading postcolonialism from a contemporary perspective. Prakash Chandra Pradhan’s paper highlights how can we assign a multicultural perspective to the study of the Indian diasporic consciousness. Reading the roots and cultures of migrant communities settled across distant locations, treading across the fields of their homeland, and unearthing the complications of place, time, soil, and alienation get filled with difficulty when we tend to study the paper. Numerous references have been made to the erstwhile colonized countries of the world, and the new nations coming to wield power on a greater scale.

            This surely brings us to the concept of how to study the theme of travel and understand the Postcolonial subject within the Neo-Liberal spaces. IsuruAyeshmantha Rathnayake’s paper attempts to study the role of travel in contemporary Postcolonial novels. The researcher has tried to locate the origins and development of parallel postcolonial narratives as represented through a global manifestation of cartography. Undertaking plans for travel across colonial nations and unearthing colonial legacy through an acceptance of the supremacy of the colonial powers have been studied under much critical contradictions. The next paper, Dr. Kanak Kanti Bera’sExploration of Postcolonial Subaltern World in the literary works of Maya Angelou and Mukhtar Mai question the age-old restrictions and traditions of acceptance and subversion. The double forms of postcolonial marginality in case of women who are made subservient is studied and questioned by the two authors. Spanning across diverse geopolitical spaces including Pakistan, and an African-American society where the fear of estrangement, female isolation and resistance through silence also take major forms to study postcolonial impact in a new age. There is also another paper that inquires deeper into the layers of understanding the condition of the postcolonial woman from an Apollo-Dionysus conflict in the Modern Narratives. The paper investigates several exemplary texts, finds out the nuances about how to read a pattern that is found in case of the rising issues in the multilayered contexts of understanding women’s narratives.

            Several layers of postcolonial studies have a dendritic significance. A curious blend in underlining the postcolonial ecocritical impact is highlighted by Sami Hossain Chisty who takes up a new critical angle to the reading of Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant. With pure critical insights into translational impacts, capitalism and Green Orientalism, the paper attempts at studying the biophysical environments and texts. The next paper, Somdatta Halder’s study is an inquiry about the identity of Anglo-Indian women in Shyam Benegal’s Junoon. From the perspective of film studies, acknowledging the dualities in the self-other paradigm and locating a subject-object reading, the author has tried to define the newer goals of underlining the contemporary trends in postconolial studies. Global movements have diversified the narratives of structuring postcolonialism, and simultaneously, they have also given birth to a celebration of traditional cultural roots. Stanley Ordu’s paper titled Womanism and Patriarchy in Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus highlights the larger tendencies of studying racial issues, patriarchal cultures and connectivity through an identification of the subjugated. He locates the female novel, as a protest book against patriarchy, depicts inequalities and injustices done on women by patriarchal traditions, whether Christian, Islamic, or indigenous. These books are both a protest against patriarchal power and a representation of a self-sufficient woman.

Finally, we have two book reviews in this issue, one focusing on multiple angles to studying vernacularism among Iranian anthropologists, and another on The Visceral Logics of Decolonization.

So, here goes Litinfinite Journal Volume III, Issue II for our readers.

I express my sincerest gratitude to all my respected editorial and advisory board members and contributors. I extend my sincere thanks to Nandita Samanta for an exquisite piece of cover design for this issue.

I take this opportunity to thank Penprints Publication, for assisting us with all kinds of technical support for the journal.

Thanking you,

Sreetanwi Chakraborty

Editor-in-Chief

Litinfinite Journal

Kolkata

References:

Wilson, J., Sandru, C., & Welsh, S. L. (2009). Re-routing the Postcolonial: New Directions for the New Millennium. Routledge.