Cristina M. Gámez-Fernández

Miriam Fernández-Santiago

Embodied VulnerAbilities in Literature and Film includes a collection of essays exploring the ways in which recent literary and filmic representations of vulnerability depict embodied forms of vulnerability across languages, media, genres, countries, and traditions in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The volume gathers 12 chapters penned by scholars from Japan, the USA, Canada, and Spain which look into the representation of vulnerability in human bodies and subjectivities. Not only is the array of genres covered in this volume significant— from narrative, drama, poetry, (auto)documentary, or film— in fiction and nonfiction, but also the varied cultural and linguistic coordinates of the literary and filmic texts scrutinized—from the USA, Canada, Spain, France, the Middle East, to Japan. Readers who decide to open the cover of this volume will benefit from becoming familiar with a relatively old topic— that of vulnerability— from a new perspective, so that they can consider the great potential of this critical concept anew.

Embodied VulnerAbilities in Literature and Film

Representing Vulnerabilities in Contemporary Literature includes a collection of essays exploring the ways in which recent literary representations of vulnerability may problematize its visibilization from an ethical and aesthetic perspective. Recent technological and scientific developments have accentuated human vulnerability in many and different ways at a cross-national, and even cross-species level. Disability, technological, and ecological vulnerabilities are new foci of interest that add up to gender, precarity and trauma, among others, as forms of vulnerability in this volume. The literary visualization of these vulnerabilities might help raise social awareness of one’s own vulnerabilities as well as those of others so as to bring about global solidarity based on affinity and affect. However, the literary representation of forms of vulnerability might also deepen stigmatization phenomena and trivialize the spectacularization of vulnerability by blunting readers’ affective response towards those products that strive to hold their attention and interest in an information-saturated, global entertainment market.

Representing Vulnerabilities in Contemporary Literature

Om Prakash Dwivedi

This volume approaches Tabish Khair’s writings (both his theoretical proposals and his novels) from numerous different perspectives. Contributors engage from varied critical stances with Khair’s academic writings in a fruitful dialogue, analyze his social, political and religious concerns, and elucidate his characteristics as a novelist and his literary powers. Furthermore, this volume is highly enriched by the presence of a hitherto unpublished play by Khair, entitled The One Percent Agency, which focuses on a tourism agency specializing in bringing “Bollywood”-style Indian weddings to foreign tourists. In the process, it becomes a satirical commentary on the packaging of international tourism as well as the ability of common Indians to adapt and thrive. It depicts the “metropolitan” India of the new millennium and inter-community relations in subtle and powerful ways.

Critical Perspectives

Tabish Khair

This volume uniquely gathers scholarly articles dealing with very dissimilar and kaleidoscopic perspectives on India. It provides an informative overview of the country, which has wide-ranging influences reaching far from India itself, since it has criss-crossed connections with many countries around the world. If read as a collection, this volume is witness to an interlocking network of ideas, attitudes and ideologies that emerge from the contemporary social and political world. The book, thus, highlights a variety of issues and the chapters promise to treat them with adequate justice. These features mean that this book can be approached by any person interested in India, given that it offers a diverse range of interesting topics related to the country. The reader glancing through the book will find themes spanning from the analysis of postcolonial literature written in English by Indian women, to sociological reflections on several diasporic situations, and from crossed influences between Indian culture and that of other countries, to the latest discussion topics in ancient Indian history, to mention a few.

Cristina M. Gámez-Fernández

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