Siddharth Chauhan

    Introduction Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) and J. M. Coetzee’s Foe (1986) are separated by more than two centuries, yet the two novels are deeply connected. Coetzee’s Foe can be read as a rewriting, questioning, and deconstruction of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. While Defoe presents the story of an Englishman who survives on a deserted island and transforms his surroundings through labour, discipline, religion, and practical knowledge, Coetzee revisits the same colonial world from the perspective of Susan Barton, a woman whose voice and experience challenge the authority of the traditional Robinson Crusoe narrative. The difference between the two novels is therefore not simply a difference between two versions of an island adventure. It is a difference between telling a story and questioning who has the authority to tell it. Defoe’s novel can be examined in relation to colonialism, economic individualism, Christianity, slavery, and European ideas of civilisation. ...

  Violence and Manichaeism in Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth Understanding Colonial Oppression and the Struggle for Decolonization Introduction Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth ( Les Damnés de la Terre , 1961) is one of the most influential texts of anti-colonial and postcolonial thought. Written in the context of the Algerian struggle against French colonial rule, the book examines colonialism not simply as a political system but as a structure that affects the social, psychological, cultural, and economic life of the colonized. Two important concepts in Fanon’s first chapter, “On Violence,” are violence and Manichaeism . Fanon argues that colonialism itself is established and maintained through violence. At the same time, colonial society is organized according to a rigid binary opposition between the colonizer and the colonized, which Fanon describes as a “Manichaean world.” Therefore, to understand Fanon, violence should not be considered only as physical c...

  Literary Criticism and GenAI: Reading Frankenstein Through Four Critical Lenses Understanding Marxist, Feminist/Gender, Ecocritical and Queer Criticism through Generative AI Introduction Generative Artificial Intelligence has become an increasingly useful tool in literary studies. It can provide explanations, suggest interpretations, compare theoretical approaches, and help students approach a literary text from different critical perspectives. However, using GenAI for literary criticism should not mean simply asking for definitions of theories. The more useful approach is to ask AI to demonstrate how a literary critic actually reads and interprets a text . For this activity, I explored four important approaches to literary criticism: Marxist Criticism, Feminist/Gender Criticism, Ecocriticism, and Queer Criticism . The primary source for understanding these approaches was Dilip Barad's “On Marxist, Feminist, Ecocritical, and Queer Criticism.” The source explains the major conce...

  Frankenstein: From Revolutionary Birth to Cultural Phenomenon A Cultural Studies Reading of Mary Shelley’s Creature, Science, Empire, and Popular Culture Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) is often remembered as a Gothic story about a scientist who creates a monster. Yet, from the perspective of Cultural Studies, reducing the novel to a simple horror narrative overlooks its deeper engagement with class, revolution, race, imperialism, scientific modernity, social exclusion, gender, and the cultural anxieties of its historical moment . The Creature is not merely a frightening monster; he is also an outsider produced by society, a figure through whom Shelley explores what happens when an individual is denied recognition, affection, education, and belonging. Written in the aftermath of the French Revolution and during a period of rapid intellectual and scientific change, Frankenstein reflects a world fascinated by the possibilities of human progress wh...

  The Little People of Power: Marginalization in Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead From Shakespeare’s Court to the Modern Corporate World Introduction: Looking Beyond Hamlet Shakespeare’s Hamlet is usually remembered as the tragedy of Prince Hamlet—the prince who struggles with revenge, morality, madness, identity, and death. However, a Cultural Studies approach encourages us to look beyond the central character and examine those figures who remain at the margins of the narrative. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are two such characters. They are not the rulers of Denmark. They are not the central agents of revenge. They do not control the political machinery of Elsinore. Instead, they occupy an uncertain position between friendship and political service. They are summoned by King Claudius to discover what is happening to Hamlet, and they become instruments within a larger power structure. The worksheet for this activity asks us to examine how their marginalization ref...