Culture, Transformation and Identity: Travel, Fiction, Autobiography

Book Details

• Author: Urmil Talwar

• Binding: Hardcover

• Publisher: Rawat Publications

• ISBN: 9788131606742

• Language: English

• Release Date: 2015

• Pages: 224

• Package Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches

About the Book

Culture, Transformation and Identity is a collection of nineteen essays that delve into journeys—both physical and psychological—in search of knowledge, spiritual peace, identity, and a new beginning. The book explores various themes such as adventure, business, trade, and self-discovery, all through the lens of cultural transformation and identity crises. These essays open up conversations on the constructs of identity and nation, community, and belonging, challenging the boundaries of confined spaces and thought.

The essays explore various perspectives, including the relationship between travel and history in Vedic texts, the transformation brought about by Buddhism, postcolonial views on China, and the intellectual shifts in the lives of figures like Gandhi, Iqbal, and Naipaul. Other subjects include Hemingway's love for Spain and bullfighting, Imtiaz Dharker's multicultural experiences, and more. Traversing subjects like religion, politics, memory, home, and power, the essays explore the dynamics of human mind, cultural transformations, and interpersonal strategies at play.

This work brings together renowned creative writers and critics who address the enormous possibilities within human experiences, from the deeply personal to the national scale.

Contents

1. Transformations – Eunice de Souza

2. Passing on Travel Lessons – Karen Swenson

3. Time and Space Travel in Ancient Vedic Texts – Divya Joshi

4. The Pilgrimage of Buddhist Epistemology in the Asian Space – Ranjana Jaitly

5. The Memsahibs – Bandana Chakrabarty

6. Gandhi’s Journey – S. Asha

7. Dynamics of Evolutionary Reflections – Samina Khan

8. Northrop Frye – Pooja Joshi

9. The Essence of Spain in Hemingway’s Work – Shahla Ghauri

10. Microcosms in R.K. Narayan’s My Days and My Dateless Diary – Prerna Vanjani

11. Geoscapes of the Mind – Jasbir Jain

12. From Behind the Veil and Beyond – Rimika Singhvi

13. Global Politics of Contemporary Travel Writing in Vassanji’s A Place Within – Sangeeta Handa

14. Journeys to her Homeland – Preeti Bhatt & Manju Nemad

15. Travelling Subjectivities and Bridging Discourses in Ghosh’s The Glass Palace – Urmil Talwar

16. Reviewing the Orient – Santosh Gupta

17. Sojourns in the Geoscapes of the Mind – Rama Hirawat

18. The Self in Transit – Namita Singh

19. Travel and Transformation of the Self – Akansha Kaushik

About the Author / Editor

Urmil Talwar has been teaching English at various government colleges in Rajasthan since 1982. Currently, she is working on her postdoctoral thesis on Border Poetics in the fiction of Amitav Ghosh. She has authored and co-edited books and has contributed papers to national and international seminars in India, France, and Spain.

Bandana Chakrabarty is the Principal of Rajasthan School of Art, Jaipur. She has taught English at various government colleges and is the author of Fictions of the Self: Alice Munro. She has presented papers in national and international conferences, with interests in Canadian literature, Indian English fiction, and comparative literature.