Papers by Liju Jacob Kuriakose
Journal of graphic novels & comics/Journal of graphic novels & comics (Online), May 24, 2024
Situated at the crossroads of scholarly inquiry in gender studies and counter-cultural studies, t... more Situated at the crossroads of scholarly inquiry in gender studies and counter-cultural studies, this paper analyses how the two zines by the multimodal platform Agents of Ishq viz. What is normal? AKA Heteronormativity Kya Hai? and The Political Power of Pleasure, ‘perform’ as a space for sexuality-studies sensitisation and create a platform for inclusive and intersectional sex education. The use of handmade illustrations, intermingled languages, ‘cut-and-paste’ collage style aesthetic, nonlinear narrative, and nonconformist content pose compelling questions related to erotic subcultures, cultural taboos, heteronormativity, and discrimination. The analysis focuses on how the visual-verbal format of zines contribute to the need for narratives that focus on differences in experiences, instead of imposing single-axis ideas and representations, to explore how these texts represent the voices that lie at intersections by opposing homogenisation of identities and cultures. It highlights the need to acknowledge the intersectionality of sexual identities to practice a more inclusive and sensitised social activism.
JOURNAL OF GRAPHIC NOVELS AND COMICS, 2024
Situated at the crossroads of scholarly inquiry in gender studies and
counter-cultural studies, ... more Situated at the crossroads of scholarly inquiry in gender studies and
counter-cultural studies, this paper analyses how the two zines by
the multimodal platform Agents of Ishq viz. What is normal? AKA
Heteronormativity Kya Hai? and The Political Power of Pleasure, ‘perform’ as a space for sexuality-studies sensitisation and create
a platform for inclusive and intersectional sex education. The use
of handmade illustrations, intermingled languages, ‘cut-and-paste’
collage style aesthetic, nonlinear narrative, and nonconformist content pose compelling questions related to erotic subcultures, cultural taboos, heteronormativity, and discrimination. The analysis
focuses on how the visual-verbal format of zines contribute to the
need for narratives that focus on differences in experiences, instead
of imposing single-axis ideas and representations, to explore how
these texts represent the voices that lie at intersections by opposing homogenisation of identities and cultures. It highlights the
need to acknowledge the intersectionality of sexual identities to
practice a more inclusive and sensitised social activism.
Contemporary Voice of Dalit
This article attempts to read the paratextual elements in Mayilamma: The Life of a Tribal Eco-war... more This article attempts to read the paratextual elements in Mayilamma: The Life of a Tribal Eco-warrior (2018), the translated autobiography of Mayilamma, a tribal activist from Kerala, India, who led the protest against a Coca-Cola plant in their village. This study also attempts to analyse how translations work to shape and control marginalized life narratives, within an academic framework that caters to predominantly Western imaginings of the marginal exotic. It further questions how a marginalized life narrative is conceived and processed within the larger academia, as well as by the publishing industry. It provides a detailed discourse analysis of the paratextual elements in Mayilamma: The Life of a Tribal Eco-warrior to bring out its market politics and the process of exoticizing the marginalized. This article argues that through paratexts, there is an attempt to formulate a subject–object out of Mayilamma, within the academic imaginings of a marginal exotic rebel tribeswoman.
Contemporary Voice of Dalit, 2022
This article attempts to read the paratextual elements in Mayilamma: The Life of a Tribal Eco-war... more This article attempts to read the paratextual elements in Mayilamma: The Life of a Tribal Eco-warrior (2018), the translated autobiography of Mayilamma, a tribal activist from Kerala, India, who led the protest against a Coca-Cola plant in their village. This study also attempts to analyse how translations work to shape and control marginalized life narratives, within an academic framework that caters to predominantly Western imaginings of the marginal exotic. It further questions how a marginalized life narrative is conceived and processed within the larger academia, as well as by the publishing industry. It provides a detailed discourse analysis of the paratextual elements in Mayilamma: The Life of a Tribal Eco-warrior to bring out its market politics and the process of exoticizing the marginalized. This article argues that through paratexts, there is an attempt to formulate a subject-object out of Mayilamma, within the academic imaginings of a marginal exotic rebel tribeswoman.
Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, 2021
The study draws upon Lawrence Venuti’s concept of foreignization as a strategic tool employed in ... more The study draws upon Lawrence Venuti’s concept of foreignization as a strategic tool employed in the translation of CK Janu’s Mother Forest: An Unfinished Autobiography. The translation works to mould an ethnic autobiography and represent a subaltern subject through explicit signifiers of subalternity, masqueraded as an attempt to “retain the flavour of Janu’s intonation and the sing-song nature of her speech in translation”. As a mode of representation, this study identifies the text as catering to a transnational publishing industry and the global academic marketplace, transforming the cultural value of an ethnic subaltern text into what Graham Huggan describes as “tawdry ethnic goods” in the late capitalist supermarket.
Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, 2021
The study draws upon Lawrence Venuti’s concept of foreignization as a strategic tool employed in ... more The study draws upon Lawrence Venuti’s concept of foreignization as a strategic tool employed in the translation of CK Janu’s Mother Forest: An Unfinished Autobiography. The translation works to mould an ethnic autobiography and represent a subaltern subject through explicit signifiers of subalternity, masqueraded as an attempt to “retain the flavour of Janu’s intonation and the sing-song nature of her speech in translation”. As a mode of representation, this study identifies the text as catering to a transnational publishing industry and the global academic marketplace, transforming the cultural value of an ethnic subaltern text into what Graham Huggan describes as “tawdry ethnic goods” in the late capitalist supermarket.
IUP Journal of English Studies, 2021
This paper argues that the rise of Collaborative autobiographies from Kerala entails a misreprese... more This paper argues that the rise of Collaborative autobiographies from Kerala entails a misrepresentation rooted in a conception of the marginal exotic triggered by capitalist interests which help produce and disseminate these narratives across the globe especially in their English translations. Authenticity, as construed by the collaborator-translator nexus, manifests itself explicitly through para-textual addendums. They exist solely as interpolative superfluities, artistic or critical, which serve to severely limit the epistemological possibilities and subtexts that the life-narrative houses. In this study, Mayilamma’s collaborative autobiography titled Mayilamma: Oru Jeevitham2 (hereafter MOJ) and its translation, Mayilamma: The Life of a Tribal Eco-Warrior (hereafter MLTEW) are looked at in detail, exploring the politics of market and authenticity at play in the production and dissemination of the said texts. The paratextual elements, specifically in MLTEW, are analyzed as examples for the production of a Marginal exotic tailored to suit the literary framework envisaged by the western liberal literati and the vernacular elite renderings of authentic tribal culture.
Drishti: The Sight, 2020
Autobiographies of individuals from marginalized communities have often been sites of epistemolog... more Autobiographies of individuals from marginalized communities have often been sites of epistemological resistances placed against the
mainstream narratives of history that sideline and denigrate the former. Marginalized autobiographies thus become a recording of collective counter memories. Autobiographies of the marginalized communities are, in that sense, ethnographies that document the collective experiences of that particular community. It is in this context that Kallen Pokkudan’s Kandalkkadukalkkidayile Ente Jeevitham (My Life Amidst the Mangroves) is analysed here. The study takes a two-pronged approach towards the subject. Firstly, this study looks at the emergence of a renewed
socio-literary consciousness, which emerged after the Muthanga struggle of 2002, which resulted in a renewed interest in the life narratives of marginalized communities within Kerala. Secondly, the study posits that while Malayalam literature has a dearth of auto-ethnographies, marginalized autobiographies of the post-Muthanga phase are
at once, an expression of the individual’s life, and also the recording, response, and celebration of his/her community’s struggles against a
discriminatory system. Therefore, Kallen Pokkudan’s Kandalk kadukalkkidayile Ente Jeevitham can be taken as an activist’s autoethnographic writing that documents the fragmented lived experiences of the Dalit
community in Kerala.
Talks by Liju Jacob Kuriakose
Anukarsh, 2021
Ravi Shankar aka Ra Sh is a renowned poet-translator from Palakkad, Kerala. His poetry departs fr... more Ravi Shankar aka Ra Sh is a renowned poet-translator from Palakkad, Kerala. His poetry departs from traditional poetic imagery and cliched diction to articulate a critique of the pseudo-morality of society in a distinct tongue that is boldly carnal. Ra Sh has published several volumes of poetry
including The Bullet Train and other loaded poems, Kintsugi by Hadni, and Architecture of Flesh. His works have been translated into German, French, and other global languages. Most recently, his poem ‘Silent Farewell’ has been translated over 150 times into various Indian and world languages and is slated to be published as an anthology.
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Papers by Liju Jacob Kuriakose
counter-cultural studies, this paper analyses how the two zines by
the multimodal platform Agents of Ishq viz. What is normal? AKA
Heteronormativity Kya Hai? and The Political Power of Pleasure, ‘perform’ as a space for sexuality-studies sensitisation and create
a platform for inclusive and intersectional sex education. The use
of handmade illustrations, intermingled languages, ‘cut-and-paste’
collage style aesthetic, nonlinear narrative, and nonconformist content pose compelling questions related to erotic subcultures, cultural taboos, heteronormativity, and discrimination. The analysis
focuses on how the visual-verbal format of zines contribute to the
need for narratives that focus on differences in experiences, instead
of imposing single-axis ideas and representations, to explore how
these texts represent the voices that lie at intersections by opposing homogenisation of identities and cultures. It highlights the
need to acknowledge the intersectionality of sexual identities to
practice a more inclusive and sensitised social activism.
mainstream narratives of history that sideline and denigrate the former. Marginalized autobiographies thus become a recording of collective counter memories. Autobiographies of the marginalized communities are, in that sense, ethnographies that document the collective experiences of that particular community. It is in this context that Kallen Pokkudan’s Kandalkkadukalkkidayile Ente Jeevitham (My Life Amidst the Mangroves) is analysed here. The study takes a two-pronged approach towards the subject. Firstly, this study looks at the emergence of a renewed
socio-literary consciousness, which emerged after the Muthanga struggle of 2002, which resulted in a renewed interest in the life narratives of marginalized communities within Kerala. Secondly, the study posits that while Malayalam literature has a dearth of auto-ethnographies, marginalized autobiographies of the post-Muthanga phase are
at once, an expression of the individual’s life, and also the recording, response, and celebration of his/her community’s struggles against a
discriminatory system. Therefore, Kallen Pokkudan’s Kandalk kadukalkkidayile Ente Jeevitham can be taken as an activist’s autoethnographic writing that documents the fragmented lived experiences of the Dalit
community in Kerala.
Talks by Liju Jacob Kuriakose
including The Bullet Train and other loaded poems, Kintsugi by Hadni, and Architecture of Flesh. His works have been translated into German, French, and other global languages. Most recently, his poem ‘Silent Farewell’ has been translated over 150 times into various Indian and world languages and is slated to be published as an anthology.
counter-cultural studies, this paper analyses how the two zines by
the multimodal platform Agents of Ishq viz. What is normal? AKA
Heteronormativity Kya Hai? and The Political Power of Pleasure, ‘perform’ as a space for sexuality-studies sensitisation and create
a platform for inclusive and intersectional sex education. The use
of handmade illustrations, intermingled languages, ‘cut-and-paste’
collage style aesthetic, nonlinear narrative, and nonconformist content pose compelling questions related to erotic subcultures, cultural taboos, heteronormativity, and discrimination. The analysis
focuses on how the visual-verbal format of zines contribute to the
need for narratives that focus on differences in experiences, instead
of imposing single-axis ideas and representations, to explore how
these texts represent the voices that lie at intersections by opposing homogenisation of identities and cultures. It highlights the
need to acknowledge the intersectionality of sexual identities to
practice a more inclusive and sensitised social activism.
mainstream narratives of history that sideline and denigrate the former. Marginalized autobiographies thus become a recording of collective counter memories. Autobiographies of the marginalized communities are, in that sense, ethnographies that document the collective experiences of that particular community. It is in this context that Kallen Pokkudan’s Kandalkkadukalkkidayile Ente Jeevitham (My Life Amidst the Mangroves) is analysed here. The study takes a two-pronged approach towards the subject. Firstly, this study looks at the emergence of a renewed
socio-literary consciousness, which emerged after the Muthanga struggle of 2002, which resulted in a renewed interest in the life narratives of marginalized communities within Kerala. Secondly, the study posits that while Malayalam literature has a dearth of auto-ethnographies, marginalized autobiographies of the post-Muthanga phase are
at once, an expression of the individual’s life, and also the recording, response, and celebration of his/her community’s struggles against a
discriminatory system. Therefore, Kallen Pokkudan’s Kandalk kadukalkkidayile Ente Jeevitham can be taken as an activist’s autoethnographic writing that documents the fragmented lived experiences of the Dalit
community in Kerala.
including The Bullet Train and other loaded poems, Kintsugi by Hadni, and Architecture of Flesh. His works have been translated into German, French, and other global languages. Most recently, his poem ‘Silent Farewell’ has been translated over 150 times into various Indian and world languages and is slated to be published as an anthology.