SCHOLARS: Journal of Arts & Humanities

List of Reviewers

Editorial Team — 2024-02-16

No Abstract

Facts & Figures

Editorial Team — 2024-02-16

No Abstract

Establishing a University Writing Center: A Lesson Learned from Universities Outside Nepal

Hem Lal Pandey — 2024-02-16

The goal of this article is to characterize the university writing center as a crucial institutional resource for the support of student writers and to advocate for its establishment at Tribhuvan University (TU). To achieve this, it explores the factors that prompted its origin and development in the universities of the United States of America. It also unpacks the underlying philosophy of the center by elucidating its pedagogical approaches, current practices, and administrative mechanisms. Building upon the historical contexts of writing centers, it proposes the establishment of a similar center at TU as a means to address the everyday concerns, needs, support, and assistance of the community of student writers within the university domain. Furthermore, it investigates the types and ways of potential academic opportunities that a writing center can provide to enhance effective writing skills and publishing practices in the university. Through a review of the historical as well as pedagogical practices of writing centers in the United States, the article establishes its argument that introducing a writing center at TU can contribute to various forms of support, such as source identification, audience awareness, review and feedback, documentation, etc., catering to writers of all levels, from novices to experienced, in developing their writing skills, habits, and practices. Additionally, the proposed writing center at TU is positioned not only as a productive student support system for a resourceful learning environment but also as a space offering on-campus employment opportunities for students, ultimately fostering a stronger connection between academia and the job market.

Redefining the Nation and Exploring the Self: Reading Contemporary Kirant Poetry

Tarani Prasad Pokhrel — 2024-02-16

This paper critically analyzes how the poets belonging to the indigenous Kirant ethnic background perceive and interrogate the narratives of Nepali national identities and nationalism in their creative expressions. Six different poets belonging to Rai and Limbu communities––Shrawan Mukarung, Bhupal Rai, Upendra Subba, Swapnil Smriti, Chandrabir Tumbapo, and Heman Yatri–– are purposefully selected for this study who embrace the Kirant as their common identity. Most of the poems selected here are composed against the backdrop of People's Movement II in 2006 and reflect the marginalized ethnic perspectives about nation, nationalism, cultural identity, and indigenous consciousness. The theoretical notion of nationalism is employed in the study, drawing upon theorists like Ernest Renan, Ernest Gellnar, and David Steven. A critical analysis of the selected body of poetry offers the findings that the contemporary Kirant poets attempt to redraw the discourse of Nepali nationalism in two different ways: 1) by exposing the gaps and fissures inherent in the national narratives; and 2) by exploring and incorporating their unique selves in their compositions–– in the forms of local myths, folklore, ritualistic elements, indigenous symbols, socio-cultural values, and ethnic concerns. The study concludes that literature helps redress the crises created by the state in the past, and contemporary Nepali poetry, particularly those composed by the Kirant ethnic community, is a response that voices sentiments of the margin.

Political Demonstrations, Nepali Youths and the Politics of Mourning: A Semiotic Analysis

Shiva Rijal — 2024-02-16

This paper analyses mainly three representative photographs of the spectacles of mourning as displayed in Fig. 1, 2 and 3 that come to surface during political and social demonstrations in Kathmandu and other towns occasionally. Such spectacles used by political parties and social activists include clean-shaved-head, white linen clothes, burial shroud, bamboo bier, and fire. Together, they give a picture that a mock funeral of Hindu order is being staged. My major concern is to answer these questions: Why do Nepali youths stage such semiotics of sad worldview at times when their transitional politics and society is often praised for being dynamic? Why do they bring such religiously subjective and familial spectacles into the public ripened with politics? I argue in the line of argument developed by political philosophers Friedrich Hegel and Slavoj Zizek and psychoanalysts like Sigmund Freud and Carl G. Jung to reach a conclusion that such spectacles evoke the complex state of Nepali youths’ political subjectivity. While staging such mock funerals, they stage their helplessness of being youths of a donor-depended and Hindu patriarchal nation that has been going through transitional politics.

The Golden Hair in Fairy Tales: Metonymy and Shifting Connotations in Cultures and Locations

Mahesh Paudyal — 2024-02-16

This paper makes a close reading of four fairy tales, one each from France, Russia, Armenia and Nepal that feature maidens with golden hair as central characters and examines how the hair, a recurring metonymy in these tales, acquires different meanings in different cultures and locations. These moving tales retain the golden hair as their meme or cultural replicator but the societies that adapt the tales ascribe different meanings to the meme. Taking the golden hair as a metonymy for the personality of the maidens featured in these tales, this study maps the tales across distances by using the Derridian idea of teleiopoiesis. In the process, it demonstrates the shift in the connotations of the metonymy as an outcome of a circular nature of expression that allows an outside reader, both an individual and a culture, to imaginatively reconstruct its structure and meaning by conditioning the shifts to its own value system. The study reveals that the French and the Russian tales depict the golden hair as a symbol of beauty and grace while those in Armenia and Nepal, where golden hair is not a norm, treat it as a symbol of negativities as well. This difference, the study concludes, is because of the difference in the ways these societies ascribe meaning to the hair colour.

Food as a Healing Space for a Diasporic Identity in Grace M. Cho’s Tastes Like War: A Memoir

Purna Chandra Bhusal — 2024-02-16

This paper aims to explore a connection between diasporic identity and culinary choice revolving around the life of the principal character Koonja in Grace M. Cho’s Tastes Like War: A Memoir (2021). It investigates how Koonja performs her culinary choices as a tool to heal and nurture her abjected diasporic identity. To do so, drawing upon the theoretical insights from diaspora and culinary identity, the paper employs the method of qualitative content analysis while analyzing and interpreting the memoir. The paper tracks Koonja’s sense of being displaced and dislocated for various reasons: Japanese and American violence in South Korea, the trauma of losing her family members, rejection and stigma in South Korea as a Yankee whore, giving birth to a son whose father was a mystery, marrying an American man in South Korea and immigrating to the United States (US) and discriminations in the US, and all these turmoils finally causing schizophrenia. The analysis and interpretation of the memoir reveal a finding: amidst Koonja’s sense of diasporic displacement and worthlessness, culinary kinship functions as a means of assimilation, and her culinary choices, which have been saturated by nostalgia for and memory of Korean food, reunite her with an emotional and a gustatory home. The finding implies a therapeutic connection between diaspora and culinary choices revealing food as a healing space in the life of Koonja. Hence, the paper not only offers a fresh perspective to look at the memoir but also creates avenues for critical dialogues in the discourse of diaspora and culinary identity.

The Rhetoric of Origin: American National Ethos in Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father

Mahendra Bhusal — 2024-02-16

This paper examines how Barack Obama ruminates on trials and tribulations from his past and ponders over his root in terms of biracial identity to explore his American ethos in his first memoir Dreams from My Father (1995). The paper argues that Obama struggles hard to locate his ethos out of the complexities of the relationships that his parents underwent in terms of their mixed marriages. Eventually he settles to his American identity, which is essentially biracial. From the perspective of Kenneth Burke's notion of 'identification', Obama evokes an awareness of American national ethos identifying with the American character as such and with this he explores his sense of purpose in life to be a public figure. He asserts that one of the fundamental characters of American national ethos is the biracial or multiracial that emanates from the contemporary American mixed society.

Pandemic Poetry and Interventions in World on the Brinks: An Anthology of Covid-19 Pandemic: A Postcolonial Reading

Kayode Niyi Afolayan — 2024-02-16

Unarguably, the Covid-19 pandemic has remained a global experience that has altered aspects of life in all spaces. As global citizens adjust to the “new normal” protocols of living, most engagements of critics with literary works on the pandemic have found ecocriticism as a veritable theoretical tool in harnessing mirrored ordeals of the pandemic. However, this paper adopts the postcolonial theory to engage with the pandemic verses in Ikechukwu Otuu Egbuta and Nnenna Vivien Chukwu’s World on the Brinks: An Anthology of Covid-19 Pandemic. The paper contextualises the studied text within the evolution of the anthology genre in modern Nigerian poetry and harnesses the critical perspectives on the expediency of poetry as intervening tool in crisis situations. After its rigorous analyses of the selected poems which slant the impacts of the pandemic into universal and domestic domains, the conclusion of the paper harps on the urgency to re-awake humane values for a better universe. However, for Third World nations, where the pandemic exposed vulnerability and dystopias, the urgent call remains the recovery of leadership and institutions which are in the throes of total collapse.

Ethical Tourism Development: An Ecotourism Perspective in Jamaica Kincaid’s Travel Narrative

Toya Nath Upadhyay — 2024-02-16

This study reads Jamaica Kincaid’s travel narrative A Small Place (1988) from the ecotourism perspective. The narrative paints a bleak portrait of the post-independent Antigua that has been promoting capitalism vis-a-vis the government ministers and foreign traders consequently engulfing the gap between the rich and the poor, and the tourists and the hosts. The author deplores the way the government has fostered tourism, which, bourgeoned along with the rise of capitalism, has sustained neocolonialism by adversely disrupting the environmental, economic, and social aspects of Antigua. Due to the deleterious consequences of tourism, the author expresses her vile rant on the tourists (who belong to the white race) relegating them to ugly human things. She describes them as choosy to see certain things. Here, this raises a question: why does the author dehumanize the tourists as ugly things who see only certain things not others? The study resolves this question that the author reduces the tourists to that position because they perpetuate their forefathers’ masterly position in gazing the native Antiguans as servants. They see only those things that they like to see from the perspective of the tourist gaze. For the analytic purpose, the study engages theoretical insights from scholars in the ecotourism perspective such as Martha Honey, Robert Fletcher and others, which as propounded by these scholars, promotes responsible and ethical tourism by underscoring environmental conservation, economic development, and respect to native peoples and their cultures. Finally, the study concludes that Kincaid denounces the ongoing trends in tourism that are thoroughly adverse for Antiguan environment and people. She urges the tourists to get transformed from ugly human things to human beings by discarding their self-proclaimed master’s yoke. The study expects to add a critical reading into Kincaid’s narrative, as well as into the area of ecotourism.

Digital Déjà vu: The Enduring Presence of Gender Stereotypes in Memes

Adhra Sreoshi Athoi — 2024-02-16

Memes are a crucial cultural unit for exploring and understanding the dynamics of the digital society in which examining the gender balance is a key pathway for measuring where it states. It is very important for any social science researcher to read and see if the new generation is rewriting the sexist behavior composed by the culture over the past ages and that too in a platform, which is extensively dominated by them. Hence, the main purpose of this study is to explore gender communication and gender construction in new media through memes. The study was conducted by analyzing 152 memes collected from Facebook. Theoretically it attempts to read gender from a gender-constructionist perspective. Thematic analysis was used as the method of going through these memes and the major themes were pointed out and an overall analysis was presented. The main finding from the analysis is that despite the expectation of progressive views, memes continue to reinforce traditional gender stereotypes, with a predominant focus on men narrating content that perpetuates established roles, overshadowing limited challenges to patriarchal norms. This study attempts to decode the influence of memes as cultural artifacts on the portrayal and reinterpretation of gender roles in the digital era. By scrutinizing the interplay between the new generation's expressions and prevailing cultural norms, the study unravels the transformative potential of memes in reshaping societal attitudes towards gender.

Patriarchy, Religion and Women’s Subjugation in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus

Raj Kishor Singh — 2024-02-16

This paper explores the intricate portrayal and symbolic nuances of patriarchy and religion as fervent sources of intolerance within Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus (2003). The study transcends the binary view of these forces, scrutinizing their dynamic interplay and discerning their nuanced expressions within the depicted characters and broader societal constructs. The examination traverses beyond the surface-level manifestations, rummaging into the intricate fabric of power dynamics, gender roles and cultural norms to unravel their profound impact on individual conduct and the structural foundations of society. Drawing on theoretical frameworks, this study invokes John Locke's Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration (2003) and Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish (1995) to dissect patriarchy and religious practices as intricate manifestations of intolerance. By situating the analysis within these theoretical underpinnings, the study unveils the multifaceted layers of control, discipline and ideological enforcement inherent in these forces. The culmination of this exploration propels beyond a mere diagnosis of the issues at hand. It advocates for a transformative shift, contending that the perpetuation of patriarchy and religious fanaticism must be dismantled for the collective well-being of families and society at large. This call for cessation transcends mere condemnation, urging a profound reevaluation of ingrained societal structures and norms. Beyond its contribution to literary discourse, this study seeks to offer a deeper comprehension of the pervasive influence of intolerance, shedding light on its contemporary relevance. By pushing the boundaries of traditional analyses, this paper aspires to be a catalyst for transformative discussions on the dismantling of oppressive forces, paving the way for a more enlightened and inclusive future.

Women under the Panchayat Regime: Parijat’s Under the Sleepless Mountain as a Feminist Project

Mani Bhadra Gautam — 2024-02-16

The representation of the female in Nepali fiction has been a fascinating subject for critics. This paper examines the representational position of the women as projected in Parijat’s Under the Sleepless Mountain. In this novel, the novelist critiques the patriarchal society’s treatment to women in a different social structure. Parijat’s female characters are projected as suffering and marginalized people of the Nepali society around the student’s revolution of the early 1980s. Other issues raised in this paper focus on students and subaltern characters who are treated badly as they raise voice against the oppressive Panchayat system and other kinds of dominance. She writes against social wrongs and ill intended human activities. She exposes the character’s desire for freedom, individuality and equal rights. Thus, the objective of this study is to find out the answers to whether the suffering of women, laborers and students are concretely represented in her novel or not. In this paper, this researcher explores the issues around the plight of the female, which are interpreted from the feminist perspective. The relevant feminist notions developed by the feminist critics such as Sidonie Smith, Julia Watson, Catherine Belsey and Susan Bassnett have been adopted for textual analysis as a methodological tool. This paper concludes that the gender discrimination and political disharmony are the major obstacles to women upliftment.

The Antecedents of Media Capture in Experiential Texts in Nepal: A Critical Review

Binod Bhattarai — 2024-02-16

Based on literature review and analysis of a corpus of documents with references to the evolution of journalism in Nepal, the paper has eclectically and purposively selected publications that referred to the study period, roughly 1950-2000, and had insights on periodicals/ newspapers and the operational environment of the period that was marked by little or no readership and advertising. The paper argues that the unprofessionalism and partisanship evident in media in Nepal reflect its failure to fully transition to independent, impartial content production, the normative expectation of citizens from journalism in democracies. Nepal’s newspapers began exercising formal freedoms in the 1950s but have never been fully independent in practice. The country had low literacy, low readership, and a largely traditional economy when newspaper journalism began, and the early publications sought support from partisan interests and/or government to remain viable.