On 1 February 2005, the only challenger to Prachanda's supreme position and power was locked up, under armed Maoist guards, inside a small mud house in an isolated corner of Lawang village. In a poorly-lit and unheated room, the deputy leader of the Maoists, Baburam Bhattarai lay on a small bed, reading. Detained with him was his wife Hisila Yami, who was also a Maoist leader. She appeared much stronger than her intellectual husband, and was frustrated at not being allowed to go outside. Incarcerated because of her husband's actions, she considered herself a sati of the twenty-first century.

Baburam Bhattarai was arrested for writing an article that had been published in the premier national broadsheet Kantipur (Daily) before the party had a chance to debate its content. Bhattarai's article, “Princely Tendency and Democracy”, was a follow-up to another shrewdly analysed article, “Difference between Democracy and Monarchy”, by Devendra Raj Pandey, a civil society activist. Bhattarai had written:

Abstract: In her article “Comparative Cultural Studies and the Study of the Medieval Literature” Roberta Capelli discusses the importance of studying medieval authors and manuscripts using a contextual and comparatist approach. She postulates that the conceptual eclecticism and empirical pragmatism of comparative cultural studies offer scholars useful theoretical and methodological parameters of analysis to understand the palimpsestic nature of medieval texts. While inter-and multidisciplinary training in the traditional fields of medieval studies (textual criticism, history, philosophy, etc.) is necessary to deal with the socio-cultural, textual, visual, etc., complexities of the medieval world, Capelli suggests that medievalists would benefit from employing new media technologies in digital humanities.

Introduction

Today, the fascination with matters medieval—in particular the Gothic—occur in all manners and genres whether literature, cinema, television, and new media including the world wide web and video games, etc., and the resurgence of medieval genres, heroes, themes, myths, and traditions are re-shaping our understanding of the Middle Ages (see, e.g., Charlesworth; Fugelso; Pearsall; Utz and Shippey; Weisl). But also the scholarly approach to the Middle Ages has been undergoing significant changes through the last century including the re-thinking and updating the theoretical and methodological bases of research in light of the new literacies and technologies.

The Middle Ages is the period of European history from the fall of the Roman empire in the West (fifth century) to the fall of the empire in the East with Constantinople in 1453.

Abstract: In her article “Arab Fiction and Migration in the Work of Haqqi and Salih” Ikram Masmoudi proposes that twentieth-century Arab fiction is marked by the theme of the journey in literal and figurative ways. The Saint's Lamp by Yahya Haqqi and Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih depict two different kinds of enigmatic arrivals. Their arrival is the opportunity to adjust and assess their positions and their cultural differences. Although the two arriving protagonists in these novels have different attitudes vis-à-vis the West and their local culture, the structure of arrival in both novels is not straightforward and immediate, but instead reflects a negotiation between two attitudes and a transition from an immediate, physical arrival to an inner, mental arrival. This leads to a new understanding of and an adjustment to a fuller sense of arrival.

In the middle of his life and experience as a writer living and writing in England, the main character and narrator of V. S. Naipaul's autobiographical novel The Enigma of Arrival, an Indian from colonial Trinidad retires to the English countryside to heal and reflect on a series of aspects of his life: his metropolitan encounters, his career, and his early attempts at writing. In the cottage he rents he stumbles upon a few books left there by pervious tenants. Among them was a booklet with reproductions of famous paintings.

On 28 May 2008, a few hours before midnight, and just 20 days after the Election Commission of Nepal announced the results of the historic Constituent Assembly polls, the first meeting of the Assembly declared the abolition of the country's 239-year-old monarchy. It resulted in a magical and rare outburst of collective emotions. Traditional and staunchly monarchical, the Kingdom of Nepal became the youngest republic in the world—without a single bullet being fired. A twenty-first century republic!

All day, Kathmandu was celebration personified. Political party activists staged rallies in different corners of the city, waving flags and chanting republican slogans. Cultural events—traditional dance, songs and recitations—were performed throughout the city. Many young students painted their faces with the slogan Republican Nepal. Some radical activists even burnt effigies of the deposed King—their bête noire.

There was unending public enthusiasm. In the evening, thousands of candles were lit and firecrackers set off across the blue-black sky, adding to the festivities. Many people illuminated their houses, to celebrate the birth of a republic.

The historic declaration of the republic was made in the Birendra International Convention Centre which was named ater the late king and was inaugurated by him 15 years ago. The Centre's Sagarmatha Hall was chosen to host the first official meeting of the new Constituent Assembly, signalling the end of the rule of the Shah dynasty.

The inequality between the players created problems for the managers of the Constituent Assembly election. The Commission was ridiculed by the media and the civil society for failing to take effective action against the violations. The news reports carried disapproving headlines, like Toothless Election Commission, Impotent EC and Feeble Commission. The Commission began to lose what it valued most—its integrity.

Then, a complaint was filed by Dev Shankar Poudel, the UML candidate from the Rammechap-1 constituency, who stated that the Maoists had attacked his group while they were out campaigning. Poudyal said the Maoists had encircled them, and attacked him and his supporters with iron rods, heavy wooden sticks, large rough stones and Khukuris (Nepalese knifes), and stolen Nepalese Rupees 335,800 in cash.

That night, all the news channels showed Poudel lying in a hospital bed with injuries all over his body and a smashed and bloody head. When the Chief saw the images he was white with rage. He felt he had to take action, at any cost, to prevent a repetition of such an assault.

First, he planned to cancel the nomination of the Maoist candidate who was accused of being responsible for the attack on Poudel. The Chief was determined to use his executive prerogative to shorten the normally lengthy process of cancelling a nomination—in order to send a clear message to the perpetrators of violence.

a. From ‘Splendid Isolation’ to ‘Manifest Destiny’

The Monroe Doctrine which had essentially been a doctrine for isolation underwent a gradual transformation, its principle and ideology being re-interpreted and applied to pave the way towards ‘Manifest Destiny’ especially since the fag end of the nineteenth century, though the process already initiated few decades before that. It is worth mentioning here that American Foreign Policy was the indispensable midwife to the birth of the American Republic.

Hemmed in between the two twenty-first century superpowers—China and India—Nepal is home to nearly 26.5 million people of different ethnicity, caste and religious groups. They inhabit an area of around 147,000 sq km, which stretches from low flatlands—an extension of the Gangetic plains of present-day India in the south, to high mountains soaring to nearly 9,000 metres in the north. The Nepalese speak over 100 languages, and have different festivals, attire and food habits. But in contrast to its cultural richness, Nepal is considered poor in economic terms. The United Nations (UN) has designated Nepal as a least developed country; over 60 per cent of its population lives on less than two dollars a day and around 35 per cent is illiterate. Unsurprisingly, Nepal is said to reflect the socio-economic and political features of troubled sub-Saharan Africa.

Nepal emerged as a modern state in the mid-eighteenth century, when a number of small warring principalities were consolidated into a united kingdom. Prithivinarayan Shah, former King of the old House of Gorkha, led the consolidation process, which was achieved by a combination of war and diplomacy. He is also credited with utilising clever political strategies to keep the British colonialists, who were sweeping through South Asia, at bay. Prithivinarayan Shah's astute state building skills institutionalised the sovereignty of the Shah King in Nepal, who wielded supreme authority and power as an absolute ruler.

Abstract: In his article “The Notion of Life in the Work of Agamben” Carlo Salzani analyzes the notion of “nudity” Giorgio Agamben's understanding of Western culture. Beginning with a reading ofthe essay “Nudity,” in which Agamben proposes an archaeological investigation of the theological apparatus of the concept, Salzani analyzes the pivotal trope in Agamben's Homo Sacer project, “bare” or “naked life,” that is, the nudity of life in the grip of sovereign power. Nudity and the nudity of life are construed as a “limit-concept” in a double movement of simultaneous positing and negation or in a positing that grants at the same time the inappropriability of its object. Salzani highlights how much this “liminality” owes to a tradition that borders the aesthetics and ranges from Kant's “sublime” to Heidegger's Ereignis via Benjamin's “expressionless-ness.” In Agamben's thought this risks to resemble a “mystical intuition,” as he argues in his first book, The Man Without Content, about Kant's aesthetic judgment.

Introduction

The work of philosopher Giorgio Agamben has gained a central place in politico-philosophical debates since the publication of his 1995 book Homo Sacer. Agamben elaborates on and defines Western culture with a particular understanding and construction of the meaning of life based on the methodological approach of “archaeology” he borrows from Michel Foucault.

Abstract: In his article “Teaching World Literatures” John D. Pizer argues that “world literature” is a notoriously vague term. It not only lacks disciplinary specificity because it suggests all literature at all times from all places, but also oscillates between signifying a pedagogical domain on the one hand and articulating a heuristic concept indicating how literature circulates in the world on the other. Pizer suggests that contemporary world literature instructors share the goal of teaching their students to comprehend both what is universal in world literature, what is culturally specific, what is familiar, and what is alienating in the texts they read. He outlines a means for achieving this goal by using a meta-theoretical approach of contextual dialectics. Further, Pizer discusses his strategy of teaching otherness by reducing and enhancing student familiarity with syllabus texts by drawing on the Russian Formalist concept of ostranenie.

When a student at university enrolls in an introductory class to almost any subject—be it physics, biology, psychology, history of English literature, etc.—he/she can expect in the initial part of the course to learn how the discipline is defined, what its boundaries are, and what content and techniques are included and/or excluded from its purview.

If Narayan had written only short stories his reputation would have been secure. He confesses that he writes short stories when he tires of writing novels or when he has finished a novel and is waiting to write another one. The short story occasionally becomes an artistic interlude between two longer works or a way of taking his mind off the longer fiction he constantly writes because short stories are relatively less taxing, though not less challenging. Narayan's novels themselves are, as in some cases like The Talkative Man, long short stories and in his essay writing and his non-fictional narratives he employs the elements of the short story writer's craft.

Some discussion of what is a short story, why is the writing of it challenging, what is unique about the craft will be appropriate at this juncture. A short story, is a literary composition, which can be read at one sitting. It is, therefore, notable for economy in all respects. It can only deal with a few characters, unlike a novel; it often deals with the psychological processes of a single character, somewhat akin to an essay like Charles Lamb's “Dream Children; A Reverie.” It has to deal only with a slice of life and its plot has necessarily to be concentrated and well-made with none of the diffusiveness or expansiveness of a novel.

So far, in our discussion, we have assumed the existence of an inertial reference frame and all the experiments and theories have been developed for inertial reference frames. Reality seems to be otherwise. In fact, there is no inertial reference frame. Our laboratories are situated on the earth and any reference frame attached to the earth is not inertial reference frame, owing to its revolution around the sun and rotation about its own axis. The earth has translational motion which is not uniform and rotational motion. It is therefore doubly non-inertial. However, we cannot discard everything developed so far. We have already discussed with suitable reasoning that for practical purposes, the earth may be taken as inertial reference frame. Nevertheless, it is worth to discuss about the motions in non-inertial reference frames. An inertial reference frame moves with constant linear velocity. Thus, the deviation from non-inertial can be in two ways: (i) reference frame is moving with accelerated linear velocity and (ii) reference frame is moving with angular velocity. We shall handle the anomaly in two steps. First, we shall see how to make corrections when our reference frame is moving with linear acceleration with respect to an inertial reference frame. Next, we shall account for corrections when our reference frame is rotating with respect to an inertial reference frame.

Abstract: In her article “Gender and Genre in Comparative Literature and (Comparative) Cultural Studies” Ana Lozano de la Pola argues that although the discipline of comparative literature and the fields of cultural studies and comparative cultural studies remain heterogeneous fields of literary study, they are also likely places for crossovers between different theories and methodologies. Lozano de Pola discusses how diverse feminist positions and theories have affected comparative literature and cultural studies over the last few decades, what kind of reception they have had, and what proposals for change have come out of them. Following a brief overview of debates, she discusses one of the aspects she considers productive and socially relevant within feminist comparative literature and culture, namely theories of gender and genre put forward by Judith Butler and Jean-Marie Schaeffer. The two authors' attempts to understand both categories in a complex way and avoiding misleading essentialisms enables us to reach a methodological point of departure from which to begin thinking about building self-defining and literary codes as a complex and inter-related issue.

Introduction

In the discipline of comparative literature and in the fields of cultural studies and comparative cultural studies, the view that feminist criticism—while not yet integrated in pedagogy or in institutional presence (see, e.g., Stabile)—is an integral part of scholarship there is ample evidence of the support of the notion and this is also evident in research and publications.

While the aged Koirala was toiling away for the restoration of the parliament, other things were afoot in this small country of huge diversity. The armed insurgency was becoming increasingly successful and the revolutionary cause was growing more popular day by day. On that cold morning of 1 February 2005 in the village of Lawang, in the rebel infested Rukum district, there were some interesting political developments taking place. All the checkpoints to the village were guarded by Maoist militia with home-made guns and grenades. The major checkpoints were land-mined, soldiers lay in ambush and a company of troops was encamped nearby—as a reserve force. On the hill top, ready to counter attack, were Maoist commanders with heavy guns, General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMG), mortars and powerful telescopic rifles. This impressive security operation was in place to protect a group of important people, who were meeting in a newly built mud house in the middle of the village.

In a large room on the second floor of that mud house the Maoist party was holding a politburo meeting. It had started the week before, and was being held to resolve serious internal differences in the party. This meeting was chaired by Puspha Kamal Dahal alias Prachanda, the Chairman of the Maoist party and the supremo of the Maoist War.

The statistical analysis was conducted using the SAS statistical software program. Frequency distribution analysis was primarily done to evaluate the characteristics of the respondents and summarising their profile. Then, more than 40 per cent product-related attribute's responses were analysed under exploratory factor analyses (EFA) with varimax rotation to reduce the items to a smaller, more parsimonious set of variables. Eigen value higher than 1.0, and factor loading scores were used to identify the number of factors to extract.

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy test was done to find whether factor analysis data was appropriate within the value that falls between the ranges of being great and appropriate of factor analysis data. KMO should be 0.60 or higher in order to proceed with factor analysis. Bartlett's test was done with the result, which indicates a highly significant result with P = 0.000 (P < 0.05) and therefore factor analysis is appropriate and accepted.

Reliability of the extracted factor was assessed to examine the internal consistency of the result measurements. The reliability test was conducted using Cronbach's alpha value of 0.91 and a significance level of 0.000. The tool can be used to assess the data on Likert scale only. Due to this limitation the factor related to socio-economic and demography could not be assessed, as many of these variables were numeric.

Also, a cluster analysis exercise was carried out to group respondents into clusters based on their responses. Respondents within a cluster have a high degree of similarity, while respondents between clusters are unique. This way, cluster analysis would help us know the differentiating factors between clusters. Additionally, significant differences were identified for the cluster based on Chi-square tests and t-tests.

Abstract: In his article “Comparative Cultural Studies and Translation Studies” Paolo Bartoloni discusses the interstitial space of translation by drawing on literary and philosophical preoccupations, especially Giorgio Agamben's notion of “potentiality.” Bartoloni proposes that the defintion and discussion of “potentiality” and the significance it represents ought to pass through a rethinking of translation studies, and asks what would happen if the focus of translation shifts from the final product—or from the relation between the source text and the translation—to the process of translating where distinct languages and cultures meet without superimposing own values onto the other. Bartoloni postulates that this process achieves relevance when located within a cultural dialogue from which a new reflection on translation, as well as literature and subjectivity can commence.

Introduction

Interpreting Aristotle's Book Theta of the Metaphysics, Giorgio Agamben remarks that “in its originary structure, dynamis, potentiality, maintains itself in relation to its own privation, its own steresis, its own non-Being. This relation constitutes the essence of potentiality. To be potential means: to be one's own lack, to be in relation to one's own incapacity. Beings that exist in the mode of potentiality are capable of their own impotentiality; and only in this way do they become potential. They can be because they are in relation to their own non-Being. In potentiality, sensation is in relation to anesthesia, knowledge to ignorance, vision to darkness” (Potentialities 182; further on Agamben and translation, see Bartoloni).