Contagion Narratives: The Society, Culture and Ecology of the Global South

Description

This volume is a collection of ten essays that direct their gaze to the unfolding of contagions in the non-classical contexts of Asia and Africa. Or, to borrow from the title of one of Partha Chatterjee’s books, they are reflections on the pandemic in most of the world. Featuring many scholars (of the humanities and social sciences) in the Global South, these chapters take as their intellectual focus the political-social as well as the ethical challenges posed by the contagions in the "East." Through analyses of literary narratives/films/video games, this Contagion Narratives traces the manufactured narratives of victimization by majority-communities and the lethal divides consequently being drawn between a reconstituted "authentic majority" and the more vulnerable minority ‘other’ in these societies. The essays in this collection are animated by imaginations of liveable alternatives on a planet on the brink. This volume traces lineages to Buchi Emecheta and Rabindranath Tagore rather than Albert Camus, to Satyajit Ray and the indie traditions rather than Hollywood, and to Buddhism rather than Christianity, to track the historic journeys of "modernity." Using an eclectic set of analytical tools and strategies of textual criticism, this volume argues that ideas of "democracy," even while they carry echoes of other societies, are markedly different as they travel from Gaddafi’s Libya to Wuhan under lockdown to colonial Bengal. Cover Half Title Series Information Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Illustrations Acknowledgments Notes on Contributors Introduction Notes 1 Environmental Humanities, Medical Humanities and Pandemic Futures Notes Works Cited 2 Re-Seeing Animal Research Ethics in Light of COVID-19 Introduction How Some Animals Have Fared During the Pandemic A Quick Outline of Standard Animal Research Ethics A Buddhist-Infused Animal Research Ethics Conclusions Works Cited 3 Remembering That Which Is Yet to Pass I II III IV V Notes Works Cited 4 COVID-19, Migrant Crisis and Social Contagion of Good Life: A Case Study From Indian Sundarbans Noticing the Unnoticed The Drivers of Migration Indian Sundarbans: An Introduction An Attempt to Delineate a New Way of Life A Renewed Definition of Good Life Vulnerabilities of Migrants in Cities Post-Lockdown Coping Strategy Social Contagion and Its Rippling Effects Acknowledgement Works Cited 5 Cognition of Contagion: A Study of Video Games Works Cited 6 The Postcolonial Afterlife in South Africa: AIDS, Xenophobia and Healing in Phaswane Mpe’s Welcome to Our Hillbrow Note Work Cited 7 Pathologizing Otherness: Theorizing Parallelisms Between COVID-19 Restrictions and Strands of Otherness in Contemporary … Introduction Political Otherness and Madness: Otherized Characters and Victims of COVID-19 Restrictions Cultural Otherness and Insanity: Violation of Traditional Norms in African Fiction and COVID-19 Season Conclusion Works Cited 8 Rabindranath Tagore’s Chaturanga and the Calcutta Plague: Medicine, Modernity and Culture Notes Works Cited 9 Narrativizing Disease and Famine On Screen: A Contemporary Reading of Satyajit Ray’s Enemy of the People and Distant ... Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography 10 Agricultural Insecurity, Contagion and Rural Adivasi Women: A Consideration of Mahasweta Devi’s “Douloti the Bountiful” Introduction Adivasis, Agriculture and Food Insecurity in India Land, Food and Contagion as Storied Matter Conclusion Works Cited Index