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).

a. The Civil War

The American Civil War, fought between the Northern and Southern states with industrial and agrarian potentialities respectively, during the first half of the 1860s for over the secession of the Confederacy, should not only be looked as a political carnage but also from multi-variegated prisms – economic, societal, cultural, etc., as the outcome of the war was decisive to the futuristic path of American History. Charles A. and Mary R. Beard wrote in The Rise of American Civilization that the Civil War was a social war that made vast changes in the arrangement of classes, in the accumulation and distribution of wealth in the course of industrial development.

It was 5 October 2007 when the election, planned for November, was finally called off. At that time, the Long Term Observers (LTOs) from the European Union Election Observation Mission (EUEOM) were boarding or waiting to board flights from various airports in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Rome, Brussels and other places in Europe; none of them expected that the election would be cancelled.

The first task for the Chief, after deciding not to resign from his post, was to attend a meeting with the Chief Observer of the European Union's Mission, Jan Mulder, who was also a Member of the European Parliament. This meeting, arranged before the postponement, was to discuss details of the election observation mobilisation.

The second pressing task for the Chief was to deal with the UN's international advisors across Nepal's 75 districts. He feared that if they went home now they might not be available when needed later. The political party leaders could decide to hold an election at any time. But if the Commission retained them, for the foreseeable future there would be no work for them to do—and this would be an unacceptable expense.

The third thing the Chief had to do was to deal with the Returning Officers, who had been sent for the November poll. An election budget had already been allocated to each of them. With the election postponed, there was the danger of overspending, misuse of funds, or even embezzlement by officials.

Abstract: In his article “Comparative Literature and the History of Literature” Slobodan Sucur argues that the origins of comparative literature are tied to debates concerning the renewal of the notion of literature in the nineteenth century. Further, Sucur discusses literary periodization in the history of literature and concepts including transculturalism, based on past and recent work in the field. Following his discussion, he proposes a framework based on geometrical modeling as a possible solution that would bring together literary theory and comparative literature via the representation of a conceptual-stylistic-figural continuum through the dimensionality of geometrical models.

Introduction

The Pandora's Box of literary theory, with its many antagonisms and confusion, and with its potential to destabilize and threaten the presence of disciplines such as comparative literature, seems to have its origin in Romanticism, including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's notion of Weltliteratur (on Goethe, see, e.g., Birus; Pizer; Sturm-Trigonakis). The theorizing of the early Romantic phase contains inconsistencies, and this discord may indeed have filtered down into modern debates about literary theory. Miroslav John Hanak focuses in his discussion of idealism and theory in early Romanticism on the discord and development present in Schelling's and Hegel's reactions to their respective philosophies and their reaction to Kant's and Schlegel's attempts to reconcile these contradictions.

a. Agrarian Anxiety and Populism

The wrenching changes in American economy and society in the post-Civil War period and the rise of big business created two polarized worlds within the nation creating an affluent class and a distressed community who were untouched with the benefits of industrial and national growth. Populism emerged as a political ideology of struggle that pitted ‘a virtuous and homogeneous people against a set of elites and dangerous ‘others’ who were together depicted as depriving (or attempting to deprive) the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity, and voice.’ The Granger Movement mainly in the Mid-West can be considered as a prelude to the ‘Farmers Alliance’ and the formation of the Populist Party in America.

Abstract: In her article “Comparative Literature and Interart Studies” Anke Finger discusses the field of the study of literature and the other arts by 1) tracing the international trajectory of concepts and philosophies on how the arts interconnect and compare internationally; 2) analyzing forms of dialogue and communication between the arts that inform and shape artistic products or aesthetic approaches practiced by different groups or movements; and 3) exploring selected examples of dialogue between the arts by embarking on interart “translations” (ekphrasis), including visualizations and the scoring of literature.

Introduction

The discipline of comparative literature is undergoing challenges: not only is literature across the world to be studied, that is, cultural traditions and productions in comparison with each other instead of a nation-based approach, but the added task presents itself in the search for a comparative history of the arts, within which literature is one. In 1949 René Wellek proposed the following: “It might sound distressingly vague and abstract, if I should suggest that the approximation among the arts which would lead to concrete possibilities of comparison might be sought in an attempt to reduce all the arts to branches of semiology, or to so many systems of signs. These systems of signs might be conceived as enforcing certain systems of norms which imply groups of values. In such terms as signs, norms, and values I would look for a description of the common basis of the arts” (65).

American ‘exceptionalism’ refers to the belief ‘that the United States differs qualitatively from other developed nations, because of its unique origins, national credo, historical evolution, and distinctive political and religious institutions.’ The theory that the United States is different from other countries, its ‘exceptionalism’ stemming from its emergence from the Revolution, becoming the first new nation, and developing a uniquely American ideology based on liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism, and laissez-faire first surfaced in the writing of Alexis de Tocqueville who described the United States as ‘exceptional’ as early as the first half of the nineteenth century. He remarked, ‘The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no other democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one.’

The derailment of the electoral process was of concern not only to local and regional actors but global actors as well. In November that year, President Carter came to Nepal for a four-day visit. He had been asked by the international community to explore the possibility for reconciliation among the disputing factions.

During the visit the Chief was requested, by Darren Nance, the Director of the Carter Center, for a one-to-one meeting with the President. But this invitation created a dilemma for the Chief, who was worried that the other commissioners would be suspicious of his motives if he met alone with the President. Particularly, the Chief was concerned about the commissioner backed by the Maoist party, which did not trust the US government and which could, therefore, interpret the meeting as a sign of a conspiracy.

Finally, it was decided to divide the one-hour meeting time with President Carter into an individual meeting with the Chief, followed by a meeting with all the commissioners. Days before the visit, the American secret service swarmed all over Bahadur Bhavan, checking everything about the proposed meeting room, the participants and the refreshments.

On 22 November 2007 President Carter arrived at 9 a.m., and the constant clicks of camera shutters opening and closing echoed along the corridors of Bahadur Bhavan. Inside a large office President Carter and the Chief sat on a sofa. The former US Ambassador to UN Peter Burleigh was also present. There was five minute photo session and a few minutes of pleasantries before the formal conversation began.