Negotiating Culture: Writings from Mizoram

by Margaret L. Pachuau (Editor)

Overview

In these phenomenal essays, 14 scholars take stock of the effects and response to identity, and culture studies within Mizo literary narratives. The essays address issues that contextualize the development of subaltern and postcolonial studies and the quest for identity within the Mizo perspective. This book offers a multidisciplinary perspective, with insights from history, memory studies, cultural studies and attempt to locate and situate dynamics that are related to orality, history and narrative.
Linking the concern with identity to popular literature, individualism, and the need to draw borderlines, the essays identify the most important topics in individual and collective identities in the Mizo. The illuminating essays contextualize developments within Mizo intellectual history, and display aspects that relate to the continuing force in the ongoing study of the relationship between literature, ethnography, and ethnic and cultural studies.
From orality, colonial, and postcolonial parameters, the book analyzes the ways in which colonial struggles have continued to contribute to postcolonial discourse in the Mizo, by producing fundamental ideas about the relationship between non-western and western cultures.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789356400191
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	01/30/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	300
File size:	791 KB

About the Author

Margaret L. Pachuau is a professor at the Department of English and Culture Studies, Mizoram University, India. An alumni of JNU New Delhi, her areas of interest include fiction, creative writing, translation and culture studies. She has completed 2 UGC major research projects, 'Rewriting Identity: A Discourse on Select Mizo Narratives' and 'Situating Religion and Power in Select Mizo Narratives', as principal investigator and has coordinated a departmental project under UGC SAP DRS II: 'Situating the Mizo/Zohnahthlak in Mizoram and Manipur: A Study of the Historical and Socio-Cultural Processes of Emergent Identities from Orality to Writing'. Apart from her articles in reputed journals, her works have been published in The Oxford Anthology of Writings from North-East India and Modern Practices in North East India: History, Culture, Representation. She has also edited Lockdown Literature from Mizoram and co-edited the Anthology of English Prose and Poetry. Her translations from Mizo to English have been published in The Heart of the Matter and Handpicked Tales from Mizoram and Folklore from Mizoram. She won the first prize for fiction in translation for The Jackfruit Tree (Lamkhuang) in a competition organised by Muse India, a literary e-journal.
Margaret L. Pachuau is a professor at the Department of English and Culture Studies, Mizoram University. An alumni of JNU New Delhi, her areas of interest include fiction, creative writing, translation and culture studies. She has completed two UGC major research projects, 'Rewriting Identity: A Discourse on Select Mizo Narratives' and 'Situating Religion and Power in Select Mizo Narratives', as principal investigator and has coordinated a departmental project under UGC SAP DRS II: 'Situating the Mizo/Zohnahthlak in Mizoram and Manipur: A Study of the Historical and Socio-Cultural Processes of Emergent Identities from Orality to Writing'. Apart from her articles in reputed journals, her works have been published in The Oxford Anthology of Writings from North-East India (Oxford University Press), and Modern Practices in North East India: History, Culture, Representation (Routledge). She has also edited Lockdown Literature from Mizoram (Writers Workshop) and co-edited the Anthology of English Prose and Poetry (Cambridge University Press). Her translations from Mizo to English have been published in The Heart of the Matter (Katha) and Handpicked Tales from Mizoram and Folklore from Mizoram (Writers Workshop). She won the first prize for fiction in translation for The Jackfruit Tree (Lamkhuang) in a competition organised by Muse India, a literary e-journal.

Table of Contents

Foreword by G.J.V. Prasad
Acknowledgements
Introduction by Margaret L. Pachuau
Part I: Boundaries and Narratives
1. Remembering Rambuai: Trauma, Memory and Narrative by C. Lalrinfeli
2. Territoriality: Its Concept and Relevance in the Mizo Worldview by Catherine Laldinpuii Fanai
3. Colonial Encounters: Traces of Empire in Mizo Fiction by Hannah Lalhlanpuii
Part II: Systems, Ethos and Perspective
4. Exploring the Tribal Justice System in Mizo Folk Tales by Lalrinsangi Nghinglova
5. Patriarchy and Gender Inequality in Mizo Society by Z.D. Lalhmangaihzauva
6. Satire and the Mizo: Narrating the Zephyr Drama Club by Immanuel Lalramenkima
7. Performing Madness: Laltheri's Narrative by Lydia Lalduhawmi
Part III: Lores and Culture
8. Narrating Mizo Literature for Children by Z.D. Lalhmangaihi
9. Mizo Folklore as a Pedagogic Device by Judy Lalparmawii Khiangte
10. Telling Our Stories: Reflecting upon Oral Narratives in Mizo by Margaret L. Pachuau
11. Grotesque Aesthetics in 'Hlawndawhthanga' by Hmingsangzuali
Part IV: Home and Identity
12. Conceptualising Cultural Identity and Hybridisation in Mizo Magazines by L.V. Lalrintluangi
13. Home, Roots and Ethnic Identity: Portrayal of the Natural Picturesque in Mizo Poetry by Lalthansangi Ralte
14. Writing the Self: Voices of Young Mizo Women by Lalsangliani Ralte
About the Editor and Contributors
Index