Samyukta: A Journal of Gender and Culture

The Culture of the Pandemic: The Spectre of the Literary and the Afterlife of the Plague Narratives in Orhan Pamuk's Nights of Plague

2025-12-31T14:53:50+00:00

The article analyses the discourses on the first, second, and third bubonic plague pandemics to reveal the contingencies associated with their interpretation, reinterpretation, and the revisionist literature on these events that have emerged across different time periods, framing a culture of the pandemic. The paper draws on the ideas of William Viney, Felicity Callard, and Angela Woods to argue that disciplinary boundaries, such as those between the arts, humanities, and social sciences, undermine the entangled web of knowledge systems that constitute biomedical culture. The critical scholarship in the modern era has been concerned with the encroachment of literary imagination in the narrativisations of plague in the pre-modern era. By the Enlightenment period, the narrative norm for describing an empirical and scientific phenomenon as a disease was perceived as a matter-of-fact descriptive account. The article analyses how the cultural imaginary of the plague pandemic is constructed between the interstices of disciplines. It examines how Orhan Pamuk’s Nights of Plague (2022), in a self-reflexive fashion, foregrounds the constructionality of plague narratives and exposes their modern cultural politics, which were intricately tied to the colonial agenda by initiating a resignification of the disease once described as the Oriental plague.

What Will They Think: A Choreography of Feminine Surveillance

2026-01-09T09:17:32+00:00

This article theorizes feminine surveillance as a choreography of internalized ideology, where Indian womanhood is regulated not through overt discipline but through emotional scripts, sartorial cues, and social whispers. Drawing on Louis Althusser’s Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs), Judith Butler’s gender performativity, and Sara Ahmed’s feminist killjoy, the essay maps how everyday acts—dressing, thanking, menstruating, walking at night—become ideological performances. Through cinematic critique (Mrs., 2024), personal anecdotes, and cultural rituals, the article explores how the “bad girl” archetype resists normative femininity by refusing apology, embracing visibility, and disrupting ideological rhythms. It proposes a feminist methodology rooted in emotional resonance, aesthetic resistance, and lived witnessing

Necropolitical Landscapes: Queer Death and Resistance in My Government Means to Kill Me

2025-12-31T14:21:33+00:00

This article presents a queer necropolitical re-reading of Rasheed Newson’s My Government Means to Kill Me by placing the novel within the framework of state-sanctioned abandonment, racialized queer vulnerability, and resistance. Even though the novel is often looked at and read as a work of historical or LGBTQ fiction, this article tries to reread it through the lens of queer, drawing from the theoretical contributions of scholars like Michel Foucault, Achille Mbembe, and Jasbir Puar. It tries to analyse how institutions like the state, the prison-industrial complex, the medical system, and even certain segments of the queer community participate in regulating life and orchestrating slow death for marginalized queer subjects, especially poor and Black individuals. The analysis demonstrates how the novel exposes mechanisms of biopolitical neglect. This article argues that My Government Means to Kill Me does not simply document the AIDS crisis, or gay history in America. Rather, it offers a way to look at the necropolitical logic that continues to determine which lives are grievable and which are rendered disposable.

Reverberations of Caste & Gender in Select Novels of Contemporary Literature

2026-01-07T10:24:05+00:00

This paper attempts a comparative study of the novels Pyre by Perumal Murugan and Sangati by Bama in terms of Caste and Gender Oppression found in rural India. It aims at bringing out the nature of the two extreme ends of an Oppressive society.

Pyre is an insightful narrative to be analysed on the basis of inter- caste marriage and its brutalities in a casteist society. The reverberations of honour killings are echoed in a reverse perspective. Tragic realism is a tool used in analysing this novel. Sangati is a plural narrative focusing on the lives of women in the society and the harsh realities they endure both within their caste, and overarching hierarchical structure of the society. The concept of Double Oppression is highly vital in analysing this text.

Kiri in Avatar: The Way of Water: Disability, Difference, and Posthuman Embodiment in a Cinematic Ecosystem

2026-01-02T10:13:50+00:00

This paper explores the character of Kiri in Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) through a disability studies lens, engaging with concepts of posthuman embodiment, crip ecologies, and the medical vs. social models of disability. Though not explicitly categorized as disabled, Kiri’s portrayal as neurologically and physically “othered” resonates with disability narratives of misunderstood difference, embodied nonconformity, and a spiritual reimagining of the body. Her seizure-like episodes and profound connection with Eywa position her outside normative frameworks of ability, evoking both medicalization and reverence. Using theoretical insights from Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Donna Haraway, and Alison Kafer, this paper argues that Kiri’s hybrid identity challenges ableist narratives and offers a posthuman, eco-spiritual vision of interdependence. The study concludes that Avatar: The Way of Water subtly celebrates embodied difference, offering a radical rethinking of ability through cinematic storytelling.

Kaavu theendal and Bharanipattu: A Sacred Manifestation of Drama Therapy

2025-12-31T15:23:07+00:00

Kodungalloor Sree Kurumba Bhagavathy Temple is world-renowned for its annual Meena Bharani festival. It traditionally involves multiple rituals like Kozhikallu moodal (sacrifice of roosters), Kaavu Theendal (frenzied dance of oracles), Revathi Vilakku, Bharanipattu (singing of libellous ballads) and Chandanapottu Charthal. Because of its aesthetic vibrancy, cultural significance, and symbolic prominence, this festival has always grabbed the attention of academia. There exist numerous legends and stories associated with the chief deity, Bhadrakali or Kannagi, and the rituals of Meenabharani. Placing a lesser-known myth of Nalachan as a pivot point of understanding, the paper attempts to read the ritual performance of Kaavu theendal and Bharanipattu through the lens of a modern theatre approach called Drama therapy. With the use of therapeutic empathy, role-playing, dramatic projection and embodiment of intangible emotion, the devotees achieve a catharsis very similar to the one achieved in Drama therapy. Drawing from existing literature and discourse analysis, the study examines how these traditional performative practices, essentially used to appease the deity, also function as a form of therapeutic release for the participants. The study aims to identify the ritual performance of Kaavu theendal and Bharanipattu as a sacred and traditional guise of modern drama therapy.

Insights into evolving patient-caregiver-provider dynamics within Indian healthcare: A critical perspective

2025-12-31T14:38:33+00:00

In the Indian healthcare context, the triadic relationship between patient, caregiver, and physician is evolving amid diverse and ever-changing socio-cultural dynamics. Patients rely heavily on their caregivers to navigate complex healthcare systems. However, illnesses can profoundly impact these relationships, frequently shifting away from an egalitarian bond to one where caregiving responsibilities can strain emotional and physical resources. Additionally, the changing structure of families is altering how patients receive support and how the patient-caregiver dyad interacts with physicians and other healthcare professionals. In the past decade, there has been growing recognition of the need to incorporate supportive care that addresses the emotional, social, and practical aspects of healthcare management. As the healthcare landscape continues to evolve, fostering trust, effective communication, and mutual respect among all parties remains essential for improving patient outcomes and overall healthcare delivery in India, especially in formulating culturally sensitive policies. This progress, however, requires evidence-based assessments of needs and the participation of allied healthcare professionals.

This critical perspective study explores the present dynamics of the patient-caregiver-healthcare provider relationship through existing literature and attempts to outline potential gaps in supportive care provision, examining Indian healthcare research through a socio-cultural lens. It also aims to highlight the possible interventions that can bridge these gaps, integrating tools and professionals to elevate the standards of care.

Role of Narrative-Memory Synergy in Memoirs Discussing Mental Illness

2026-01-07T10:52:45+00:00

Life narratives have gained significant traction lately with the influx of different types of literary forms within them. Autobiographical memory plays a pivotal role in formulating life narratives, imparting insight into the way memory encapsulates life and embodies experiences. Narrative and medicine come at a crossroads in the medical humanities that aim to enhance the interdisciplinary network between medicine and the humanities. Narratives offer a salient space for articulating the sufferings and embodying the inextricable conditions of an individual’s life. By allowing a vent to the bottled-up emotions and memories of hallowing experiences, autobiographical narratives like memoirs aid in distancing oneself from those unsettling experiences and embodying and encapsulating them authentically and effectively. The interdisciplinarity of the emerging medical and health humanities disciplines primarily stems from the illness narratives that aim to counter and interrogate the dominant voices of the biomedical approach. The present study qualitatively approach first person narratives of mental illness in the framework of Mad Studies, which is an emerging, activism-oriented theoretical framework, that rethinks madness by challenging prevailing understandings around it by It is a This paper explores how pertinent it is to integrate narrative-memory synergy into the field of medicine and specifically the mental health discipline to reiterate the power of narratives to bolster the subjectivity of those individuals often deemed as marginal and passive recipients in the discourse of medicine.

Status of women in higher education in nagaland

2026-01-07T09:57:45+00:00

Women constitute almost half of the total population and play a substantial part not only in upbringing a child but also in the overall development of a country. For the progress of any nation, the higher education of women is important as it is through higher education that women can be empowered and significantly contribute to the alleviation of poverty, reducing inequality thereby, bridging the gender gaps, leading to a more balanced socio-economic disparity between genders and various social groups. The participation of women in higher education is indispensable for the growth of any country or nation. Depriving them of education would mean depriving half of the population of the right to education, adversely affecting the nation’s economy and hindering its progress and development. Today, women are excelling in every field, and even in higher education, women have made a progressive development both in terms of enrollment and participation. The present study aims to find out the status of women in higher education in Nagaland with regard to the number of teachers, students enrollment, Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR), academic performance, Gender Parity Index (GPI), and Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER).

‘A Revisit to The Journey of Contemporary Indian Women’s Movement Through the Lens of Local Governance’

2026-01-02T10:03:57+00:00

The contemporary Indian women's movement has undergone significant developments over the past several decades. This study aims to examine the journey of the contemporary Indian feminist ideas and movements from the time frame 1970-1990, specifically focusing on the trajectory of intersectional feminist campaigns, in the context of local governance. It will critically examine the maturity and challenges faced by the movements, particularly the issues of gender inequality and the need for substantive representation of women in governance, which is often linked with caste, class, urban, rural and community factors. Furthermore, the study will provide a brief and critical overview of the current status of local governance in India and look into a future perspective on the way forward. Overall, the study aims to contribute to the literature on contemporary Indian women's movements and explore the ways in which local governance can serve as a platform for advancing gender equality and women's empowerment in India.