Humour As A Competence Inherent In All Human Beings Defies Description. Its Variety Of Manifetations, In Contrast, The Countless Faces And Forms Of Humour Have Always Engendered Curiosity. For Centuries They Have Inspired People To Attempt To Pinpoint The Essence Of Humour. The Contributors To This Volume, However, Are Somewhat More Modest In Their Endeavors. Their Topic Is Humour In The Written And Oral Literatures Of South Asia. This Volume Contains A Broad Spectre Of Essays On Humour In Modern And Pre-Modern, In Classical And Folk, And In Written And Oral Literatures From Almost All Corners Of The Subcontinent. The Essays Treat The Subject From A Multitute Of Perspectives And Before The Background Of Different Theories Of Humour. Besides Promising An Enjoyable And Informative Reading, This Volume Is Also Expected To Draw More Attention To An Hitherto Neglected Field In South Asian Studies, And To Stimulate Further Research.

Humour As A Competence Inherent In All Human Beings Defies Description. Its Variety Of Manifetations, In Contrast, The Countless Faces And Forms Of Humour Have Always Engendered Curiosity. For Centuries They Have Inspired People To Attempt To Pinpoint The Essence Of Humour. The Contributors To This Volume, However, Are Somewhat More Modest In Their Endeavors. Their Topic Is Humour In The Written And Oral Literatures Of South Asia. This Volume Contains A Broad Spectre Of Essays On Humour In Modern And Pre-Modern, In Classical And Folk, And In Written And Oral Literatures From Almost All Corners Of The Subcontinent. The Essays Treat The Subject From A Multitute Of Perspectives And Before The Background Of Different Theories Of Humour. Besides Promising An Enjoyable And Informative Reading, This Volume Is Also Expected To Draw More Attention To An Hitherto Neglected Field In South Asian Studies, And To Stimulate Further Research.

This Festschrift engages in the richness and variety of literatures and cultures of the Malay world, and goes beyond its shores to encounters between different cultures and traditions, and to the relationship between literary and other disciplines. Rainbows of Malay Literature and Beyond communicates the absorbing richness of inter-disciplinary study and knowledge.

This book critically examines the role and politics of humour and the performance of power in South Asia. What does humour do and how does it manifest when lived political circumstances experience ruptures or instability? Can humour that emerges in such circumstances be viewed as a specific narrative on the nature of democracy in the region? Drawing upon essays from India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, this volume discusses many crucial historical and contemporary themes, including dance-drama performances in northern India; caste and stand-up comedy in India; cartoon narratives of citizens’ anxieties; civic participation through social media memes in Sri Lanka; media, politics and humorous public in Bangladesh; the politics of performance in India; and the influence of humour and satire as political commentaries. The volume explores the impact of humour in South Asian folklore, ritual performances, media and journalism, and online technologies. This topical and interdisciplinary book will be essential for scholars and researchers of cultural studies, political science, sociology and social anthropology, media and communication studies, theatre and performance studies, and South Asian studies.

Spanning A Range Of Topics-Print Culture And Oral Tales, Drama And Gender, Library Use And Publishing History, Theatre And Audiences, Detective Fiction And Low-Caste Novels-This Book Will Appeal To Historians, Cultural Theorists, Sociologists And All Interested In Understanding The Multiplicity Of India`S Cultural Traditions And Literary Histories.

During states of emergency, normal rules and rights are suspended, and force can often prevail. In these precarious intervals, when the human potential for violence can be released and rehearsed, images may also emerge. This book asks: what happens to art during a state of emergency? Investigating the uneasy relationship between aesthetics and political history, Emilia Terracciano traces a genealogy of modernism in colonial and postcolonial India; she explores catastrophic turning points in the history of twentieth-century India, via the art works which emerged from them. Art and Emergency reveals how the suspended, diagonal, fugitive lines of Nasreen Mohamedi's abstract compositions echo Partition's traumatic legacy; how the theatrical choreographies of Sunil Janah's photographs document desperate famine; and how Gaganendranath Tagore's lithographs respond to the wake of massacre. Making an innovative, important intervention into current debates on visual culture in South Asia, this book also furthers our understanding of the history of modernism.

Kaustav Chakraborty (PhD) is Assistant Professor, Department of English, Southfield (formerly Loreto) College, Darjeeling, West Bengal. He has authored one book and also edited a volume of critical essays. Dr. Chakraborty has contributed many articles in reputed national journals and anthologies. This edited volume on Indian Drama in English, including Indian plays in English translation, with contributions from experts specializing on the different playwrights, covers the works of major dramatists who have given a distinctive shape to this enormous mass of creative material. This comprehensive and well-researched text, in its second edition, continues to explore the major Indian playwrights in English. It encompasses works like Rabindranath Tagore’s Red Oleanders; Vijay Tendulkar’s Silence! The Court is in Session, Kanyadaan, The Vultures, and Kamala; Girish Karnad’s Hayavadana, Tughlaq, Naga Mandala, and The Fire and the Rain; Mahasweta Devi’s The Mother of 1084; Mahesh Dattani’s Final Solutions, Tara, Dance Like a Man, and Bravely Fought the Queen; Habib Tanvir’s Charandas Chor; Indira Parthasarathy’s Auranzeb; and Badal Sircar’s Evam Indrajit. The book focuses on different aspects of their plays and shows how the Indian Drama in English, while maintaining its relation with the tradition, has made bold innovations and fruitful experiments in terms of both thematic and technical excellence. New to This Edition The new edition incorporates two new essays on very popular plays of all times—one, Manipuri dramatist Ratan Thiyam’s Chakravyuh, and the second, Maharashtrian playwright, Mahesh Elkunchwar‘s Desire in the Rocks. The essays added give a panoramic view of the plays in succinct style and simple language. The book is intended for the undergraduate and postgraduate students of English literature. Besides, it will also be valuable for those who wish to delve deeper into the plays covered and analyzed in the text.