Nation States are constructed, imagined, represented and authenticated through the principle of inclusion and exclusion, where the idioms of culture, race, history, politics and ideology conjure what Anderson calls an "elastic space" beyond which lies the abyss of the other. The 'other' then becomes an essential component in discourses of Nation formation, as it is through a response to the other that the nation fashions its ontological identity, a "phenomenology of alterity". As Levinas points out in his essay "The Trace of the Other" : " the outside of me solicits it in need: the outside of me is for me." The other is thus an intimate enemy for the nation. The nation is then latently reliant on the fixated identity of the other and is thus deeply apprehensive of this other and seeks an epistemic consummation of it in its totality. The nation state constantly interrogates the other : " what do you want from me?" which Zizek terms as "Che voi(?)" a constant interrogation which is the genesis of all forms of xenophobia. This in turn has the possibility to induce sporadic spectacles of active or passive violence through which the other responds to the nation. Such acts of violence then become an integral component of the performative of the other. In Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Chengiz Khan, a man who migrates to America, embracing the American dream, faces constant interrogation in a post 9/11 world from the host nation state to which he in turn responds through a form of passive violence, accomplishing the cult of the other. This paper interrogates into the performative of the other and the economy of violence which is inseparable from it and through a close analysis of the novel, explore the problematic relationship between the nation state and the other.
Anime is the dominant medium of pop-culture expression in modern Japan IJAPS, Vol. 13, No. 2, 73-91, 2017 We are the World Itself 74Japan did not long remain unaware of this fact, however, and has remained active in depicting the plight of immigrants in various genres of creative production.
This paper will attempt to map the emergence of linguistic nationalism as a direct offshoot of the language debate in early-colonial Assam. In 1836, Bengali was made the language of courts and schools in Assam. Ten years later, the Baptist Mission at Sadiya started publishing a monthly magazine called Orunodoi. Orunodoi gradually became a critical instrument in the effort to reinstate Assamese as the language of the province’s courts and schools. How did the emergent public sphere react to the debate on language? What was the power dynamic between an emergent native intelligentsia, the Baptist Mission and the colonial state in early-colonial Assam? What are the factors that prevented Assamese from being reinstated as the language of courts and schools in Assam until 1873? Was the debate on language merely about imposition of a ‘foreign’ language, or was the discourse more fluid with concerns like language standardisation operating as undercurrents? Can the language debate in early-colonial Assam be isolated as the first assertion of a sub-national identity based upon cultural and linguistic ‘uniqueness’? Through an analysis of some articles published in Orunodoi, read along with private letters and official correspondences of the American Baptist Mission in Assam, this paper will attempt to address some of these questions and recover the context of the debate around language in nineteenth-century Assam.
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