No abstract

Technological advancement has made the world a complex arena of day to day transforming phenomenon. In such a complex and technologically progressive world nothing is static instead things have become technology oriented. The socio-historical phenomena like orientalism and imperialism are also not free from technological progress. Similarly, literature of the contemporary times has become Postmodernist for it now aims to represent the current human experiences. The quality of the Postmodernist literature is to represent and dismantle the socio-cultural constructions that use to perpetuate control and power. The objective of this research is twofold; it has projected the world of technological progress and innovation through the analysis of the selected Post-cyberpunk novel Accelerando ( (van Dijk, 2008) has projected the linguistic discursive analysis of techno-colonialism in order to answer the research questions. The study has also introduced Post-cyberpunk as the genre of Postmodernist twenty-first century literature. The findings of the research have suggested that the selected Post-cyberpunk novels have not only represented techno-colonialism but they have also characterized the impact and influence of the techno-colonizers throughout the world.

The current study aims to identify particular ways through which social actors are represented by Pakistani media such as MCB (Muslim Commercial Bank) Ladies Account (2017). This study is only limited to two Pakistani advertisements as a sample of study. The research design is qualitative content analysis. The study seeks to examine the propagation of class differences for the sake of gaining viewer’s empathy in order to achieve marketing purposes. The researchers have applied Leeuwen’s (2008) framework of Visual Representation of Social Actor for the analysis of data. The analysis of data has provided an insight into different ways class differences are showcased. It has further provided an insight that notion of lower/middle class is constructed and represented as “others” in the particular advertisements with the help of Visual Representation of Social Actors. The result of study validates that lower/middle class is particularly marginalized in the mentioned advertisements, whereas it has become a general practice of Pakistani media to project such kind of class dichotomy. The study has further incorporated the idea that through such kind of projections the capitalists propagate the purchase of unwanted items. Wherein, regardless of any use the viewers while empathizing with the social actors purchase the advertised items.

The present research aspires to represent the subversion of pre-defined gender roles in the novels; The Shadow of the Crescent Moon (2013) by Fatima Bhutto, Butterfly Season (2014) by Natasha Ahmed, and Stained (2016) by Abda Khan. The researchers had tried to depict the destabilization of gender-based stereotyped identity from the Pakistani perspective. The selected method of study was Feminist Analysis by Tyson (2006), which examined literature as a medium to represent feminist issues, whereas; the theoretical angle of “Matrix of Domination” from Collins’ (2004) Feminist/Gender theory was used as a principle to analyze and depict the subversion of pre-defined gender roles in the selected novels. Present study aimed to establish the notion of gender as a social construct that could be subverted through literary discourses that have the potential to challenge the power-based gender roles within a patriarchal society. In this regard, different critical works of prominent theorists and writers had been discussed briefly in the literature review to project the significance of the works by contemporary Pakistani women writers as a medium to subvert identities formed by their society. Gender was also a means of power, through which the dominant sought to control the subordinate. The objective of the research was to suggest that gender is socially constructed, therefore, it can be deconstructed through literature. The selected novels exemplify the current gender inclinations of today’s Pakistan with the pen of female writers. Stereotyped gender identity is a socially constructed vice that divides humans into segments, hence it is required of the contemporary discourses to decenter such power discourses that perpetuate hegemonic boundaries and restrict the women into social shackles of imposed identities.