This issue of the journal serves as a worthwhile reminder of the notably extensive purview of the Research Journal of Language and Literature. The issue spans a number of on-going and evolving theoretical and critical undertakings that supplement our understandings of English language and literature. The articles take up paradigms that are current and historic, and I am predominantly delighted with the techniques the authors in this issue intend for literary theory. Even as the articles under concern are drawn from a widespread range of areas and eras, the issue as a whole reminds us that literature works in, on, and through society and culture.
“Memory as Palimpsest in Tehmima Anam’s The Good Muslim and The Bones of Grace” takes Anam’s celebrated work as a case to study palimpsest as a social practice that is continual through joint meaning-making and collaboration. The article thus observes several ways of persistence and as a technique of directing and generating innovative methods of and empathies with time and space. The article notably employs the texts through narrative criticism that opens theoretical deliberations of perseverance, political input, and cohesion. This work sits in dialogue with “Body as Narrative: Narratives of Maternal Disability (Agenesis) and Reproductive/Abortive Rights of Subaltern American Women in Leni Zumas’ Red Clocks.” The article discourses critical protests that reaffirm the prime significance of plot and calls us to rather replicate on the implication of the matter of maternal rights on abortion. Such material unbolts communal discussions permitting us to contemplate through and with each other in the existing American milieu.
We are very happy to offer two comparative studies in this issue, and we reiterate our request for further contributions of this kind. “The Power of Illusion: An Analysis of Existing Order of Freedom v/s Global Slavery in the Perspective of Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West (2017) and Muhammad Hanif’s Red Birds(2018)” has presented a suitable paradigm of the traditions that articles can add up to the literature of literary theory and criticism. “Children’s Experience of Subalternity and Power Dynamics Shaped by Feelings of Alienation and Social Rejection: A Comparative Analysis of Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend and Hosseini’s The Kite Runner” studies history and Marxism, centring on children’s experience of subalternity. The article arranges the platform for a talk that spans the politics of representation and history.
This issue also features an article on “Manipulation of Political Discourse of Pakistan on Social Media.” The article is appropriate and bangs into fundamental trepidations for someone working in and thoughtful of literature and politics. This moment urges solemn reckoning with the past as well as the future. How have memes become normalized in the existing times and what might the world look like without them?
Undeniably, the authors in this journal issue have theorized several practices that are evolving in the field, whereas criticising those that have been preserved notwithstanding the ways they might advance bigoted, chauvinist, and capitalist schemas. The authors have instrumentally moved these discussions toward critical inquiries. These negotiations, which essentially comprise both language and literature, should continue, and RJLL very much welcomes contributions for forthcoming issues that retort to and develop our thinking and practices linked to these matters.
The journal is extremely appreciative of articles such as “Hindi-film, Angoor: an Indigenized and Transcultural Adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors,” “Love, Death, and Thermodynamics: The Entropy of Myth in The Only Jealousy of Emer by W. B. Yeats”, and “Transformation of Arabian Nights through process of cultural Translation: Selected tales from Richard Francis Burton and Husain Haddawy.” The authors have used the articles to focus on innovative and advanced work in cinema, performance studies, poetry, and short stories.