Japan's Socio-Cultural Identity and the International Society: Ainu, Russia and Japan's Quest for Northern Territories

Fusion of Cultures: The case of Southeast Asian Communities in Sri Lanka during the 19th and early 20th centuries

Ravages of Empire:  Burmese Days in the creation of George Orwell

Empowering Women Through Politics and Global Education: A Reflection from Jung Chang's Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

Inem, A Jury of Her Peers, and Indonesian Women: Tradition or In Transition?

A ‘Chinese Puzzle’ – The paradox of a modern, (yet) traditional society

Beyond spirituality:  Hindu temples in Singapore

Tradition of touching feet of elders in India

Where Change Creates Continuity: The Culture of Domesticity in Contemporary Japan

Chinese Culture Revisited: The Case of Footbinding as a Cultural Phenomenon

Cultural clash and gender splash through English language as a medium of communication

A Critical Study of Locally Published ‘Romance Novels’ in English

The Idea of Ideas: Some reflections on how conceptual metaphoric patterns shape our language and thought

The Influence of Gender and Ethnicity on the use of ICT in Higher Education: A case of Arts and Social Sciences students in Universiti Malaya

Non-formal Education in Indonesia: Regulation and Society Discourse

Proxemics and the Novel: An Ecological Approach

Poetics of Art Experience in Indian Aesthetics

On the 100th Year of Solitude: Novels as Alternative Histories and the Filipino Nation

Islam, Cinema and Globalization in Bangladesh: For or Against? 

(Re)framing Fatherhood in Films of Carlitos Siguon-Reyna

‘New Blood’: The Strange Cityscapes of Soi Cheang

The Hero in Hindi Cinema

‘Spectacle’, ‘Excess’ and Contemporary Thai Horror

Spiritus ex Machina: Spectral Technologies in Asian Horror Film

New Me; the evolution of a creative writing model to aid and encourage the development of English language skills in Asian students

Spread the Word! Some Cultural Implications of English as an International Language

Improving learners' intercultural competence in teaching English as Foreign Language in Asia

On Cultivating Chinese EFL Learners’ Cultural Awareness

Islamic Femininities in Indonesia: Traditions and Transitions

Alexander Bukh
Tsukuba University, JAPAN

Alexander Bukh is an Associate Professor of International Relations at the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Tsukuba University. Alexander received his PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics and his academic interests include International Relations theory, Japan-Russia relations and International Relations in Asia-Pacific. Alexander published in a number of journals including Asian Survey and Asia Cultural Studies and his book on Japan-Russia relations is due to be published by Routledge in 2009.

Japan's Socio-Cultural Identity and the International Society: Ainu, Russia and Japan's Quest for Northern Territories

Japan's national identity is often perceived as unique and different not only in the Western discourse but also in the domestic debates on Japan's society and culture. This paper challenges this wide spread perception by engaging in an empirical analysis of Japan's national identity discourse. Here national identity is conceived as a construction of the "self" vis-a-vis multiple "others" and this paper seeks to examine Japan's "self" construction vis-a-vis Ainu, the natives of today's northern Japan, and Russia as the "others."  In this context, this paper engages in a critical examination of the domestic socio-cultural discourse starting from Japan's 19th century northward expansion through the Northern Territories dispute, which until today continues to haunt Japan's relations with Russia. The argument of this paper is twofold; first, it argues that there has been an important discursive connection between the Ainu and Russia as the "others" in Japan's identity. Second, this paper seeks to exemplify that the construction of Japan's socio-cultural identity has been in a mutually constitutive relationship with the cultural structure of, what in International Relations scholarship is conceived as, the International Society.

Amporn Srisermbhok
Srinakharinwirot University, THAILAND

Amporn Srisermbhok was a Fulbright recipient for her study for a PhD in American Literature at Bowling Green State University, Ohio, and her post doctorate research on Henry James' major works. Dr Srisermbhok was former Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Head of the Department of Western Languages at Srinakharinwirot University. Though her major authors were Henry James and Graham Greene, most of her recent research was on gender issues focusing on prominent feminist authors. Her last book was entitled: Approaches to Feminist Literature.

Empowering Women Through Politics and Global Education: A Reflection from Jung Chang's Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

The Twentieth Century not only marked a turning point of feminist writing, but ethnic writing covering various aspects including racism, ethnicity, cross-cultural conflicts, politics, gender and social issues. Among famous Chinese authors, Jung Chang has made a great contribution in revealing many powerful changes in China in her masterpiece: Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China which reflects political chaos, gender struggles, and cultural revolution. This paper focuses on how women's struggles to maintain power to survive with dignity have underpinned some limitations of old Chinese traditions against women. Through three prominent women's struggles from different generations: the grandmother, the mother and the daughter, we come to understand Chinese traditions and the need for change beginning with how the grandmother is forced to conform to the old Chinese tradition, and how she was exploited for her father's political gain. Then the new mode of women's struggle appears through the mother's idealism and involvement in politics and how she is eventually betrayed and exploited as well. In the third generation, we see how the daughter (the author) is politically abused, but through education and global literacy she has, in the end, maintained her social stature and led a new life with dignity. She really represents the new woman of the 21st Century to voice how global literacy is important as a gateway to enhance cross-cultural understanding.

Animesh Singh Rathore
Ohio University, USA

Animesh Rathore is currently a Doctoral Student at the School of Media Arts and Studies, Ohio University. He is a graduate of the Southeast Asian Studies Program at Ohio and his research focuses on International Media, Culture, and Development. Before beginning his graduate studies in the United States, he worked at the Center for e-Governance, Indian Institute of Management, Ahemedabad for three years. He also holds a Masters in Development Communication and a B.A. in English Literature.

The Influence of Gender and Ethnicity on the use of ICT in Higher Education: A case of Arts and Social Sciences students in Universiti Malaya

While most studies on the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) among students have typically focused on technical education, this study focuses on students in Arts and Social Sciences—a group that has seldom been studied for its ICT use. This study examines the relationships among gender, ethnicity, and students’ ICT use. The fieldwork for this study involved a survey of students and interviews with faculty members and students conducted at the Universiti Malaya—the oldest and among the highly regarded public institutes of higher education in Malaysia with students from diverse socio-cultural backgrounds. The findings show that the female students spent significantly more time using ICT for study purposes than males. The interviews with faculty members revealed that females spent more time on studies and were less likely to cheat or plagiarize. However, no such difference was found between the Bumiputra and non-Bumiputra students. Few studies in past have considered the relationships across the three variables—ICT, gender, and ethnicity. This research is a small step towards developing an understanding of how socio-cultural factors interact with the new technologies and provides a basis for further research on factors associated with ICT use in culturally diverse Asian countries.

Bachamiya Abdul Hussainmiya
Universiti Brunei Darussalam, BRUNEI

Dr. B. A. Hussainmiya, Ph. D is an Associate Professor of History at Universiti Brunei Darussalam. He has written 5 books and many articles in international journals on various subjects including the Malays of Sri Lanka and Modern Brunei History. His magnum opus, Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin III and Britain: The Making of Brunei Darussalam was published by the Oxford University Press: Kuala Lumpur in 1995. He was the Co-Chairman of the 2nd Malay World Symposium held in Colombo in August 1985. He is also a consultant in historical documentation to the official Brunei History Centre situated in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam.

Fusion of Cultures: The case of Southeast Asian Communities in Sri Lanka during the 19th and early 20th centuries

My paper deals with certain aspects of a fusion of Southeast Asian culture with South Asian culture in a historical context. The Southeast Asian migrants to Sri Lanka since the 17th century due to European colonial activities brought along with them a greater tradition of Javanese and Malay classical literary traditions which helped in the perpetuation of special identity of the people who later were styled as Malays of Sri Lanka.  A large number of Malay and a couple of Javanese manuscripts discovered in early mid- 1970s in the island nation indicate the one time popularity of Southeast Asian literature and culture in their midst. A main thrust of this paper, however, shall focus on why and how the Southeast Asian cultural traditions gave way to form a hybrid culture among the migrants spurred by the host society.  By delineating the details of the Southeast Asian literary traditions in the 19th century Sri Lanka, this paper would show how Colombo, the capital of the island State became the eastern most extension of the Southeast Asian traditions. My paper will also highlight the characteristics of the print culture whereby Southeast Asian news percolated to Sri Lanka and vice versa through the print media. In certain ways Colombo even pioneered developments in Southeast Asian publishing activities in the form of lithography of the age.

Bill Lakos
University of Tasmania, AUSTRALIA

BA 1st Class Honours UTAS 2005. Final year of PhD. My research is predicated on a goal of “clarity of understanding,” and an emphasis on a particular understanding of “culture,” on hermeneutics, and (an attitude found within) the philosophy of language. This “goal of understanding” is specifically related to China. China’s rise in world affairs requires a more accurate and nuanced understanding than is presently available.

A “Chinese Puzzle” – The paradox of a modern, (yet) traditional society

There is no doubt that China and Asia have been going through an extended period of change and transition. These changes have most often been seen, and understood from within the paradigm “tradition and modernity,” and often articulated as a “paradox.” However, the discourse dealing with how the West understands China has more to do with ideology than with a critical and reasoned understanding of another culture. “Apparent” paradoxes are indicative of epistemological problems or inconsistencies. The main epistemological problem with this paradigm is one of Western ethno-centric distortion. The global hegemony of Western intelligentsia, including the media, promotes “the ideas and values” invented by Western intellectuals and reflects the ideologies and values of Western culture.

Important symbols, such as ancestor worship, are “vehicles of culture,” and they may be studied not for themselves, but for what they can reveal to us about culture. Starting with the rituals of Chinese ancestor worship and ending with the rituals of modern day news and information consumption, this paper explores how a symbolic understanding Chinese culture reveals the deep streams of cultural continuity, where “tradition” abides at one level, and “modernity” at another.

Erich Berendt
Assumption University, THAILAND

Erich A. Berendt was born in Canada, B.A. (history) U. of Alberta, Canada, M.A. (philosophy of religion) U. of Chicago, M.S. & Ph.D. (linguistics) Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago.  Has taught in Japan at the University of Chiba (1973-1993) and Seisen University (1993-2008).  Was honored by Seisen University as “Professor emeritus” May 2008.  Currently Professor at the Graduate School of English, Assumption University, Bangkok.  Director of Seisen’s Language Education Research Center (2004-6).  President of the Asiatic Society of Japan (2000-2002) and has served on the editorial boards of the following journals: Japan Assoc. of College English Teachers’ Bulletin, Asian Englishes, Asia TEFL, Intercultural Communication Studies, also as editor-in-chief of Japan Assoc. of Applied Linguistics Bulletin (1986-1995).  Research areas have focused on comparative spoken discourse (English, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese), applied speech acts in conversation, and Contemporary Theory of Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics.  Recent books include one in Cognitive Linguistics Metaphors for Learning (2007) and a book of poetry Passageways to My Mind.

The Idea of Ideas: Some reflections on how conceptual metaphoric patterns shape our language and thought

From a Conceptual Metaphoric perspective (Lakoff & Johnson 1980, Lakoff 1987, Lakoff & Turner 1989, Gibbs 1994) comparable data bases for English and Japanese on the expressions utilized for expressing IDEAS were analyzed into eleven underlying metaphoric or conceptual patterns.  E.g. IDEAS ARE FOOD, IDEAS ARE COMMODITIES, IDEAS ARE PATHS.  The data related to expressions on the key terms of IDEAS and KANGAE were collated from genre such as psychology, philosophy, cognitive linguistics, language learning, especially vocabulary building, and dictionaries. 

Four cross-cultural semantic relationships between English and Japanese are examined.  A=essentially the same in form and meaning; B=similar in form but different in meaning; C=different in form but similar in intent; D=miscellaneous items different in form and meaning (linguistically and semantically distinct).  Significant linguistic-cultural differences were found.  The implications for cross-cultural understanding (interpretation and translation) and linguistic relativity will be discussed.

Gary Bettinson
Lancaster University, UK

Gary Bettinson is a lecturer in Film Studies at Lancaster University, U.K. His research interests include approaches to film aesthetics; individual film authors, such as Wong Kar-wai and Soi Cheang; Hong Kong cinema and Asian filmmaking in general; and American independent and mainstream cinema.

“New Blood”: The Strange Cityscapes of Soi Cheang

Ambitious Hong Kong filmmakers are routinely confronted with the same artistic challenge: how to depict the local territory in fresh and innovative ways, and still remain faithful to popular storytelling traditions? This paper explores the work of local popular filmmaker, Soi Cheang – a protégé of Johnnie To and Joe Ma – in light of this aesthetic problem. Cheang’s strategy is to make the familiar Hong Kong landscape appear strange. This is achieved, in part, by eschewing the “postcard principle,” whereby a location is identified by famous landmark views. Instead, Cheang’s films revel in Hong Kong’s hidden spaces, languishing in the squalor and detritus of the city’s neglected underbelly. Much of Home Sweet Home (2005) takes place in sodden underground sewers, and constructs, in the words of one critic, a “seemingly centerless and often frighteningly vacant Hong Kong”; Dog Bite Dog (2006) transforms Hong Kong into an urban wasteland, its rabid protagonist scavenging for scraps upon a mountainous landfill. Only Hong Kong’s independent cinema has lingered so emphatically on the territory’s destitute and impoverished areas. The city is further defamiliarised through the figure of the outsider – e.g. Dog Bite Dog’s Cambodian assassin – around whose perspective the city and its events are focalised. Cheang’s displaced protagonists, and the viewer with them, perceive Hong Kong and its customs as alien, incomprehensible and strange. As the Russian Formalists argued, defamiliarisation in art functions to “renew” the spectator’s habitualised perception of familiar objects; correspondingly, Cheang compels us to perceive Hong Kong afresh.

Cheang gives us a Hong Kong we don’t fully recognise, a milieu that is at once strange and familiar; which is to say that it is both novel and rooted in tradition. For example, Cheang’s distinctive depiction of Hong Kong is shaped by tried and proven genre conventions – invoking the road movie, the western, the film noir – and other transtextual norms (e.g. allusion to other films). This paper argues that, far from established practices and norms inhibiting innovation, formal and stylistic traditions are in fact exploited by Cheang to launch his distinctive vision of Hong Kong.

Hang Nguyen
Assumption University, THAILAND

Nguyen Thi Thanh Hang is a lecturer of English at the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, Ministry o Foreign Affairs. She has been teaching there for two years before embarking on her graduate studies (MA ELT) at the Graduate School of English at Assumption University. She is a recipient of the UBCHEA scholarship.

Improving Intercultural competence for EFL students in Asia: an example of Vietnam

As English has become an international language, it is the means of communication for people from different cultures. However, misunderstanding and cultural shock can happen easily in intercultural communication if communicators do not understand their partner’s culture, which might cause anxiety, stress and embarrassment. Hence, successful communication requires both understanding of linguistics and cultural issues. It is important that not only linguistic competence but also intercultural competence should be stressed in English Language Teaching (ELT). However, the fact is that intercultural competence has not been paid much attention to in ELT in Vietnam as well as in other Asian countries. As a result, students of English may master English in terms of its grammar and linguistics but have many problems in intercultural communication. With the aim to develop student’s intercultural communicative competence, this article stresses the increasingly important role of intercultural communication in ELT and the necessity to develop student’s intercultural communicative competence. Then, a variety of learning and teaching activities are put forward to be integrated in EFL teaching and learning with an aim to improve the current situation of EFL teaching and learning in general and in Vietnam in particular.

Joseph Foley
Assumption University, THAILAND

Prof. Joe Foley, Graduate School of English, Assumption University. Formerly Head of the Department of English Language and Literature, National University of Singapore, until 2001. Language Specialist, Southeast Asia Ministers of Education Organization, (RELC) Singapore until 2006. Numerous publications, formerly editor of the RELC Journal and now editor of The New English Teacher.

A Critical Study of Locally Published “Romance Novels” in English

This paper proposes to illustrate what is possible in the classroom to help learners to see texts as problematical; to be critically aware of literacy as a phenomenon and as a consequence for the learner to be assertive in their interaction with texts. At the same time it is hoped to show how Information Technology can be used as a tool in the analysis of texts.

The study will focus on samples taken from a novel published locally for the English speaking market in Southeast Asia. The choices made by the writer in both lexis and grammar will be critically examined in an attempt to reveal the stereotypical role modelling with its implicit relations of power structures in society. The texts chosen for this study were a series of Romance novels: Coming Home, The Right Track, City Girl and Kiss me Kat, published by Times Books International, Singapore.

John Gartland
Assumption University, THAILAND

John Gartland is a lecturer of English at Assumption University Institute for English Language Education. Widely published as a poet in the UK and the US, he founded the highly successful Poetry ID writers’ group in the UK in 1998, and thrives on live performance of his work. A new collection of his poetry, Gravity’s Fool was first published by Assumption University Press in 2007, and has been reprinted twice.

New Me; the evolution of a creative writing model to aid and encourage the development of English language skills in Asian students

This presentation charts the development, from class room origins to final published text, of the volume of poems entitled New Me. This collection, penned by largely Chinese ABAC students in their first year, grew out of a series of classes, run by the presenter of this paper, which integrated creative writing with regular English language tuition. In this paper I seek to defend and revalidate the practise of using literature and creative writing in the teaching of EFL.

This practise has come under attack from some representatives of EFL teaching who see it as being unnecessary and unhelpful to the efficient processing of English communicators for the needs of the business machine. However, as the presentation seeks to show, by merely churning out business communicators, EFL teaching risks ignoring the rich roots of the language in the civilization from which it grew. In doing that we deny something very valuable to our students. Such an approach also makes it more difficult to produce in our students a sense of “ownership” of the language. This sense of ownership grows out of the integration of teaching English skills with an appreciation and enjoyment of great writing in English; a sense of ownership deepened and made permanent by the students’ active participation in writing creative work themselves. Such work was viable enough, in this project, to be published in a collection by Assumption University.

Some would say such programmes are a necessary counter to the philistinism of an approach in EFL teaching that devalues a great language and its literature by merely serving as a production line for office communicators. Others would say such shallowness of vision denigrates and cheapens our role as teachers. This paper hopes to address these issues, using New Me, and the work it contains as a more progressive and productive model for our profession.

Katarzyna Ancuta
Assumption University, THAILAND

Katarzyna Ancuta is a Lecturer at the Graduate School of English, Assumption University, Thailand. She holds a MA in English Literature and a PhD in Literary Theory and Cultural Studies from the University of Silesia, Poland. She is the author of Where Angels Fear to Hover: Between the Gothic Disease and the Meataphysics of Horror (Peter Lang, 2004) and over 20 articles on various cultural manifestations of Gothic.

Spiritus ex Machina: Spectral Technologies in Asian Horror Film

Difficult as it may be to talk about a unified category of “Asian Horror Film,” this article originates from an observation that in a great majority of Asian horror films (exemplified in this research by Japanese, South Korean, Hong Kong, Chinese, Thai, Taiwanese, Singaporean and Vietnamese films) the horror film is almost equivalent with the “ghost” film. At the same time, it is relatively easy to notice that the celluloid representations of Asian spirits frequently do not comply with the Hollywood-established patterns, easily recognisable to a Western horror fan. This, to a certain extent can be said to reflect local religious beliefs, customs and traditions, as well as numerous Eastern aesthetic and philosophical values. Recently, however, many Asian horror films seem to convey a message that the spiritual world is in need of a technological upgrade. This, in turn, has a direct effect on the popular understanding and representation of the supernatural, as observed in everyday life in the said Asian cultures, and the idea of “the ghost” evolves.

This paper examines the notion of spiritual technologies, understood in a twofold manner. On the one hand, based on an analysis of a number of contemporary East Asian and South East Asian horror films, the discussion will focus on the ways modern technologies, particularly visual and media technologies, have contributed to a shift in understanding the concept of the ghost. On the other hand, this paper will focus in more detail on the case of Thai horror cinema, where ghosts have become a narrative technique and ghost stories seem to have contributed to the development of cinematic technologies in general.

Lany Kristono
Satya Wacana Christian University, INDONESIA

Lany Kristono was graduated from Satya Wacana Christian University, majoring in the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language. Her interests include literature, culture and social and, political issues. She published an article on critical thinking and did a research on the effect of critical thinking style to students' reading skills acquisition.

Inem, A Jury of Her Peers, and Indonesian Women: Tradition or In Transition?

Both Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Inem and Susan Glaspell’s A Jury of Her Peers depict a woman who suffers because she is a woman. Interestingly, the stories end in a contrasting fate each woman has because of (an) other women. Glaspell makes Minnie’s friends cover up the proofs of the crime Minnie has done; thus, save her from imprisonment. By doing so, Minnie’s friends act against the law, yet they take the risks. In contrast, Mother, who should be Inem’s benevolent protector, refuses to help Inem due to propriety. Once a victim of her husband and social norms, Inem once again surrenders to the social convention. This triggers a question if social norms are more dominant than the law in determining the life of Indonesian women. The answer seems to be ‘Yes’ despite the changes taking place in the country and society. The issuance of Anti Pornography regulations and the Jakarta City Government’s plan to provide special buses for women to protect them from being sexually harassed are two examples. As Inem is blamed for being unable to please her husband, the Anti Pornography regulations blame women for causing men to feel sexually attracted to them. Thus, the regulations legalize the long existing social values. Similarly, the Jakarta City Government plan, which is welcomed by female passengers, justifies male passengers’ attitude to view women as an object as well as implies that women are powerless and that they may get a protection only from men.

Louis Royal
Huachiew Chalermprakiet University, THAILAND

Dr Royal is an American physician with a strong interest in literature.  He is currently an instructor of English and Mathematics at Huachiew Chalermprakiet University, Samut Prakarn, Thailand. He is also a part time instructor at Bangkok University. As a physician, Dr. Royal has been residency trained in Family Practice and Aerospace Medicine, and he has published several journal articles in those fields.  He has worked in a variety of positions, including Chief Flight Medical Officer for Strike Command in the Royal Air Force, England; work as a Flight Surgeon at U-Tapao, Thailand, and deployments to the Azores and Honduras. 

Ravages of Empire:  Burmese Days in the creation of George Orwell

Eric Blair served as an officer in the Indian Imperial Police in Burma from Nov 1922 to July 1927, when he was aged 19 to 24 years.  As a representative and enforcer of the policies of the British Empire in its Indian colony of Burma, he experienced firsthand the suppression of indigenous freedom at the hands of a totalitarian regime…a regime of which he was an integral part.  He viewed with considerable revulsion the very position that he held in the Indian Imperial Police, and he came to identify with those abused and less privileged.  Upon a leave in England, he resigned his position, never to return to Burma.

Blair turned to experiences which further shaped his ideas, by living with the poor in England and France…nd by personally experiencing the debasement and bleakness of their lives. Based on these experiences Eric Blair emerged as the writer, George Orwell with his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London (1933). His second book, Burmese Days (1934), looked back at his Burmese experience, with a profound criticism of the British imperialism of which he had been a part.  In a later novel, The Road to Wigan Pier, Orwell criticized even more directly his Burmese experience in the service of empire. Further Burmese experiences are identified in his short stories, “Shooting an Elephant” and “A Hanging.” Orwell’s subsequent literary works developed a consistent political theme: the appalling wrong of totalitarian regimes which destroy the aspirations and freedoms of the common man.  His profound criticisms of totalitarian regimes ultimately merged into his most famous novels, Homage to Catalonia (1938), Animal Farm (1945) and 1984 (1949).

A vast array of writers also contributed to Orwell’s world view.  Among these, Charles Dickens, Jack London, Jonathan Swift, E.M. Forester, Joseph Conrad and A.E. Houseman have influenced Orwell’s writing.

George Orwell is perhaps the most profound and politically astute writer of the 20th century.   His phrases “Big Brother,” “Thought Police,” “1984,” “Newspeak,” and “Orwellian” have enriched the English language.  But this writer, as Eric Blair, ultimately derived the basis of his ideas in the British Imperial colony of Burma… for Orwell began in Burma.     

Mary Ainslie
Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

Mary Ainslie is based at Manchester Metropolitan University researching a PhD concentrating upon spectacle and narrative in Contemporary Thai horror Cinema. She worked as a press anchor and interviewer for the Bangkok International Film Festival 2007 and conducts research in Thailand focusing on the different viewing practices between rural and urban communities.  She writes features in popular magazines focusing on recent Thai cinema and provides reviews for up and coming new releases of Asian cinema in the U.K. Her thesis focuses particularly upon the different ways cinema is watched and perceived within Thailand and the changes this has enacted upon narrative film form.

“Spectacle,” “Excess” and Contemporary Thai Horror

Horror has been a popular and established genre in Thai cinema since its early beginnings, drawing upon indigenous myths and belief systems and integrating these with the representation of anxieties relating to modern life. Thai horror films follow a narrative structure shaped by both indigenous stylistic accents and the global horror trends of established Hollywood aesthetics.

Recent successful and stomach-churning productions such as Art of the Devil 2, Sars Wars and 13 Beloved represent an evolution towards extreme graphic modes of representation, visibly twisting and perverting their tortured protagonists under the pressure and injustice of modern life.

Both films engage in extreme body-centred horror and disgust to elicit effects from the viewer. This use of spectacle is an aesthetic drawn from both indigenous forms of representation and the appropriation of specific attributes of global horror. The productions mentioned have been very successful on the international festival circuit; the extreme visceral effects conforming well towards the Western orientalist conception of Thailand as a land of “excess” (Jackson 2006).

Through analysis of these films, this paper will argue that the critically commonplace deployment of theoretical models grounded in Western horror cinema results in a condescending and fundamentally inaccurate reading of Thai cinema’s use of extreme spectacle. It will conclude moreover, that any repudiation of Thai horror cinema’s subaltern status as both essentialist culture and poor imitator of Western aesthetics must rest on the kind of concrete rational and formal analysis proposed by the cognitive film theory stance, whose opposition to the screen tradition allows, I will argue, an effective means of escape from such neo-colonialist critique.

Purwanti Kusumaningtyas
Satya Wachana Christian University, INDONESIA

Purwanti Kusumaningtyas is a lecturer at the Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga, Indonesia. She is interested in gender and cultural studies, and a practitioner of non-formal education in her hometown.  At present she is  conducting  her research on  The Shift of  Gender Roles in the Family of Women Migrant Workers in Glawan, Kabupaten Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia and is actively involved in promoting non-formal education for children of socially and economically disadvantaged society.

Non-formal Education in Indonesia: Regulation and Society Discourse

Compulsory education was introduced in Indonesia more than two decades ago, the idea being that every child between 7 – 12 years old should get proper primary education from elementary level to the first secondary level, which is equal to the junior high level of education. It is a fact that poverty very often hinders children from getting an education. To solve this problem non-formal education has been introduced as an alternative. Programs such as study clubs, package programs and home-school programs have mushroomed to accommodate the needs not covered by formal education.

Indonesian people have connoted non-formal education as the second class education, for financial and geographical reasons, except for home-schools. Unlike home-school programs which are relatively costly and chosen by those who live in cities, the remaining non-formal education programs are frequently cheap and designed for those who live in the suburbs, on the outskirts of towns or the villages. It makes people think that the quality of this type of education is as low as its price and as remote as its location. On the other hand, according to the Indonesian Education System regulation released in 2003, the government acknowledges the existence of non-formal education programs and institutions as an essential part of Indonesian education.

This paper will compare the two discourses on non-formal education by studying the cases of two non-formal education groups in Salatiga, a small town in the middle of the Central Java province. The example of two non-formal schools, Qaryah Tayyibah and Satya Parahita, will serve to illustrate the ups and downs of non-formal education in Indonesia. An analysis of the regulation in question will precede the discussion of the two cases, based on the interviews with the students’ parents, the people who run the schools and several Salatiga residents. Critical Discourse Analysis will be employed to reveal the discourse of non-formal education in the town.

Rajeevnath Ramnath
Assumption University, THAILAND

Rajeevnath Ramnath teaches in the Graduate School of English (GSE) at Assumption University. He has a PhD in English Language and Literature from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and has taught in India, Singapore and Thailand in the past decade.

This paper will examine the spiritual and the socio-cultural roles of Hindu temples in multi-lingual and multi-cultural Singapore after giving a historical overview of the Indian settlement from the period of Sir Stamford Raffles in the first section. The second section will highlight the origin, architecture, rituals and religious practices of Hindu temples in the City State before focusing on how modern Hindu temples serve as a cultural platform for artists and performers in the fields of music, dance, drama and folk arts. The final section of the paper will highlight the social welfare projects of temples such as, medical welfare for senior citizens and scholarship for students to mention a few.

Reggy Capacio Figer
University of Tsukuba, JAPAN

Reggy Capacio Figer is a doctoral student who majors in International Exchange and Relations at the Department of International and Advanced Japanese Studies, University of Tsukuba, Japan. Before doing graduate work, he was a Research Fellow at the Modern Cultures and Public Policies Department of the same university.  He did his BA and MA in Communication Research at the University of the Philippines in Diliman. His research interests are on media and communication, migration studies, child and elderly abuses, culture and development.

(Re)framing Fatherhood in Films of Carlitos Siguon-Reyna

Men play sundry roles in the economy, the community and the family.  Men are husbands and fathers, brothers and sons.  Across differences of class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, age and religion, one of the few commonalities that men share is their gender privilege.  Men, like women, are affected by gender power structures that are interwoven with other hierarchical structures such as those based on race and class.  In this study, the author concentrates on the discourse of men as fathers in the films of Carlitos Siguon-Reyna.

The films of Carlitos Siguon-Reyna always presents with “perfect framing, exemplary camera movements and impeccable orchestration of scenes which have won the admiration of film mavens.”  He is considered a director who incorporates brave, exquisite and realistic storylines with witty use of language.  His films have been acknowledged and recognized locally and internationally by film critics and award-giving bodies as globally competitive. 

The present concern on the study of fathers as portrayed by Siguon-Reyna’s films maybe better understood if seen in the light of the ongoing changes in the society and the world-at-large.  The emergence of the feminist movement and the rise of the working mothers have led to the neglect of males, particularly, the fathers in the society.  This study also takes into account gender development and equality.  With the recognition of the fact that men have a major role in  redressing gender inequalities hence, the author assumes that portrayal of fathers in mass media, like film, should be examined since it reinforces society’s manifested perception regarding characteristics, attitudes and traits of fathers.  Thus, the need to allot research attention regarding fathers as portrayed by films is essential and substantive.

The study uses George Gerbner’s Institutional Approach to Mass Communication and Lee Loevinger’s Reflective and Projective Image Theory as framework.  The method utilizes principally textual analysis of the eight films directed by Siguon-Reyna.  An interview is also conducted in order to substantiate or debunk the author’s assumptions of the study.
Findings of the study show that the portrayals of fathers in Siguon-Reyna's films are “projected image” but coincide with what we see in reality.  Fathers are still confined with their “macho image.”  They discipline their children in a stiff and rigorous manner and still authoritative in assigning tasks and responsibilities.

Moreover, fathers are portrayed with virility and aggression.  They are depicted as violent and hostile when confronted with family problems which are usually on financial matters and taking care of children.   However, a faint tinge of change in their roles and responsibilities as fathers starts to emerge.  Fathers are open to the idea of taking part in child rearing and nurturing.  They believe the significance of their roles as fathers in the development of the well-being of their children.  These findings of the interaction of fathers and children suggest that the traditional theoretical position of masculinity is not as dominant in men’s conceptions of fathering as is assumed.

Based on the results of the study, the researcher recommends the need for a more extensive and effective portrayal of fathers in movies to support the idea that fathers have significant influences on the well-being of children.

Other film productions should (re)define and (re)frame their analyses and presentation of fathers, most often are stereotypical and representative of traditional fathers. They should provide the venue for the cultivation of realistic documentation of the way of life of the fathers, and the people in general.    

Sanjeev Kumari Paul
Veterinary Polyclinic Bhuntar, INDIA

A poet, writer, translator, reviewer and a wild life enthusiast associated with various local and international organizations. Presently working as Veterinary Medical Specialist at Veterinary Polyclinic Bhuntar, Himachal Pradesh, India. “Strengthen Thy Soul” is her recently published collection of healing poetry which is also a simple endeavour to analyse life. 

Tradition of touching feet of elders in India

In India among many Hindu communities there is a tradition of touching the feet of elders as a way to wish them or greet them. This tradition is a symbol of great respect to elders. To many who are not familiar with it, it may seem to be distracting but those who follow this tradition feel extreme sense of satisfaction and are proud of their culture, traditions and values. On one hand this style is a mark of respect for elders while on the other hand it is also a symbol that depicts humbleness of the person who is touching the feet of his or her elders. It is also a way to greet elders. In my opinion, it is also a kind of exercise that maintains the flexibility of our spine and also an alarm if there is something wrong medically with the back or spine. The tradition that is a part of the culture in many Hindu families in India also generates blessings from elders and the positive energies that are a way to happy, healthy and prosperous life. It is a highly emotional and sentimental moment when someone touches the feet of his elders before going to or after coming back from a competition or examination.

Sathapond Chantade
Assumption University, THAILAND

Sathapond Chantade is currently a graduate student at Assumption University, Thailand, where he is working on a Master’s degree in English Language and Literatures. He has a BSc degree in Medical Technology, Mahidol University and a BA in Communication Arts, Chulalongkorn University, both in Bangkok, Thailand.

Cultural Clash and Gender Splash through English Language as a Medium of Communication

As a Thai who speaks English as a foreign language and as a subject to be studied himself, the researcher has observed and found that the language has become more and more important to his life. First of all, English language has, to some extent, played a role in shaping his identity. It helps emphasize his “self,” and how, regarding the social status, he should and he could address himself to other people and vice versa. Secondly, it facilitates him when he communicates with people in different situations with different roles he plays in society, including as a university student, an employee, an employer, a (family) partner, and a client when he communicating with a medical doctor. Thirdly, it is a medium he uses to communicate within his newly-founded family, with his same-gender partner who comes from a different culture with a different mother tongue. And finally, in his study, the researcher has found that the language also helps reduce a problem of gender discrimination and racial discrimination which Thai, his own mother tongue, could not help him in these matters, but also, sometimes, the Thai language itself causes him these problems. 

Scott North
Osaka University, JAPAN

Scott North holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley. For the last six years he has taught at Osaka University's School of Human Sciences. Gender cultures, workplace cultures and divisions of family labor are his primary research interests.

Where Change Creates Continuity: The Culture of Domesticity in Contemporary Japan

In Japan’s households, most women and nearly half of men now disagree with the traditional division of labor. Practices, too, are changing: even women with small children are increasingly likely to remain in the work force. Social scientists hypothesize that changing gender norms and women’s increased income will lead to a more equal division of family work. But Japanese women still do about 90% of household labor, and, despite a visible increase in fathers’ child-centered activities, Japanese husbands still do far less than men in other societies.

How does Japan’s division of family work remain grossly unequal? This paper presents evidence from the lives of a purposive sample of dual-income households with young children. A third of the couples were twin-career: spouses held identical or nearly identical full-time posts. Observations and conversational interviews reveal, in the participants’ own words, how gender power is manifest in spousal social action and negotiations over who-does-what. The lingering influence of customary norms of male domination is related to an under-appreciated dimension of the problem: falling Japanese birth rates have transformed the male demographic so that three-quarters of men between 20 and 49 are first sons, a special position in Japanese family life that symbolizes the continued intergenerational transmission of male primacy. In combination with men’s roles as “ideal workers,” their position as first sons “naturally” justifies continued minimal participation in housework and childrearing.

Sharyn Graham Davies
Auckland Univeristy of Technology, NEW ZEALAND

Islamic Femininities in Indonesia: Traditions and Transitions

This paper critically engages with notions of Islamic femininities in Indonesia, exploring the complexities within this category over the last few decades. One area where the dynamics of femininity comes to the fore is with transgender bodies. Drawing on long-term ethnographic field work in Indonesia, the paper looks at how transgender males engage globalized discourses of Islamic femininity to create particular localised subject positions. In South Sulawesi, many transgender males make a good living through their work in beauty salons and at weddings. This income provides the resources necessary to participate in a global economy of consumption and body modification. This paper explores the oftentimes playful ways in which femininities are performed and ways in which they are contested. The paper also traces changes in representations of femininity in Indonesia over the last few decades, particularly in respect to trans subject positions and the influence of Islam.

Shrawan K. Sharma
Gurukul Kangri University, INDIA

Professor Shrawan K. Sharma has a MA PGCTE, MPhil, PhD and DLitt in English. He has been teaching in the Dept of English, Gurukul Kangri University, Haridwar for the last 25 years. At present he is Professor of English and Director of the Centre for Canadian Studies. He is also the Editor of The Vedic Path, a Quarterly English  Journal of the Gurukul Kangri university, Haridwar. His specialization is Indian and Western literary theories. He has carried out four projects--two on Canadian Literature in English in Simon Fraser University, British Columbia and York University, Toronto, Canada and two projects on Indian literary theories in the Gurukul Kangri University, Haridwar. He has organised 10 national and International conferences. Besides fifty research papers, there are three books to his credit. The books are: Alienation in the Poetry of Matthew Arnold, Phases of Canadian Poetic Culture and Kuntak's Vakrokti Siddhanta: Towards an Appreciation of English Poetry.

Poetics of Art Experience in Indian Aesthetics

In the context of India, aesthetics means “science and philosophy of fine art.” It is science of fine art because the problem of art is originally a problem of technique of art. The works, wherein the philosophy of art is discussed, are primarily concerned with technique; and the philosophy is closely related to it. It is philosophy of fine art is because the experience that a work of art arouses in an aesthete is accounted for in terms of different schools of philosophic thought in India and also because the authorities on three arts, poetry, music and architecture, hold that art presents the Absolute as conceived by them. Thus there are three schools of philosophy of art: i) Rasa-Brahma-vada (school dealing with the experience of absolute in literature) ii) Nad-Brahma-vada (school dealing with the experience of absolute in music) iii) Vastu-Brahma-vada (school dealing with the experience of absolute in architecture). And fine art is the art which present the absolute in sensuous garb and aesthetical relation, as distinct from the utilitarian, with a work of which give rise or leads to experience of the absolute.

Since the very beginning, the Indian acaryas (scholars) have examined and enunciated this experience of the absolute in terms of kavya prayojana (the purpose of poetry). To them, kavya prayojana (the purpose of poetry) is to impart this experience. Bhamaha states that kavya (poetry) promotes purusarthas (four ends of life)—dharma, artha, kama, moksha (righteousness, worldly possessions, desires, salvation) and further imparts pleasure. Vamana too mentions pleasure as one of the purposes of poetry, the other being the reputation. Mammat describes explicitly the purpose of poetry in the following way: kavyam yashase artham krte vyavahara-vide shivetarakshataya / sadyah para-niravrtaye kantasammitayopadesha-yuje.( Poetry is for attaining fame, wealth, practical knowledge, destruction of evil, immediate tranquil pleasure (anand), and for attaining instructions in the fashion of a wife’s counsel to her husband.” Of these six purposes or functions of poetry, described in the verse, the first four are applicable to the poet while the remaining two apply to the reader. This account shows that poetry helps in promoting all the good and ends of poetry, both mundane and supramundane. Coming to the purpose of poetry in relation to the reader, it can be said without dispute that poetry imparts anand (immediate pleasure) to sahrdaya. The classical tradition of critical appreciation has crystallized ultimately in the acceptance of anand as the function and purpose of poetry. Bhattanayaka, Abhinavagupta and  Vishwanath consider this anand as  rasa. In Indian aesthetics this rasa or anand has been understood as kavyanand or rasanand or brahmanandsahodara which can be translated as art experience. Thus the purpose of a literary work of art is to provide a unique pleasure, i.e. brahamananda- sahodarananda. It creates a state of bliss in the reader/ spectator and helps in having an impersonalized and ineffable judgment. This experience is both a means of achieving perfect mental balance and ultimate salvation.

The present paper aims at dealing with the process of this art experience which includes a number of issues: What is the nature of this experience?, what are its constituents and conditions in which it evokes?, how does it evoke in the  reader/spectator?, how is it different from other experiences of life?

Stephen Conlon
Assumption University, THAILAND

Stephen Conlon is the Dean of the Graduate School of English at Assumption University. He has taught in Thailand since 1992 and published three books: Underground Streams, A Fate Worse than Death and Great Souls.

Proxemics and the Novel: An Ecological Approach

How is social life embodied in Asian and Western novels? How does proxemics inform us about the ways sociocultural spaces are embodied in the language of the novel? What does proxemics contribute to our understanding of the ecology of language in Asian and Western novels?

In attempting answers to these questions, the traditions of anthropology, sociolinguistics, cultural studies, communications studies, and literary criticism as represented by Edward T. Hall, M.A.K. Halliday, Raymond Williams, Mikhail Bakhtin, Lev Vygotsky, Geert Hofstede, John J. Gumperz, John R. Searle, Edward Said, Benjamin Lee Whorf, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson will be referenced so as to point out some new possible transitions in the study of the novel in the contemporary world and the place of the world in the novel. Writings in English by Pira Sudham, Rattawut Lapcharoensap, and Kazuo Ishiguro will be studied along side translations of Yukio Mishima, Ryu Murakami and Kobo Abė. Work by Henry James, Jack London, Agatha Christie and J.M. Coetzee will be used as examples of how the L1 cultural spaces of English are proxemically embodied in novels to provide historical perspectives on the similarities and differences between the Asian and Western novels so as to sketch in how the traditions of spatial language are in transition in Asian novels.

Some implications this study has for the teaching of creative writing and reading in English in the Asian context will then be set out with reference to fictions written by students. The process by which language embodies social reality in the institutional context will be made clearer as a result of this trans-disciplinary approach.        

Sushama Kasbekar
Assumption University, THAILAND

Presently with business English Department, Assumption University, Bangkok, Dr Sushama Kasbekar is also a novelist, journalist, scriptwriter and television producer. Her areas of interest are mass communication and literature.

The Hero in Hindi Cinema

Hindi (Indian) cinema is colourful, powerful and a presence in the Indian panoramic scene. It is the largest film industry in the world. Any major Indian city has large posters and hoardings lining the streets. Most Indians love the cinema. This mass following extends to the Indian diaspora which covers all major countries in the world. The Hindi film hero is larger than life. He is handsome, brave and daring. He performs feats and superior histrionics many times. There has been a strong shift in the character of the ’hero’ in Hindi films in the past three to four decades.

This research paper seeks to present the role of the hero in the past five decades. Does the Hindi film hero depict a macho image, one who frees women from the villainous intention of de-based men? Or is he humane, a loving patriarch and an ideal father? How do Indian women feel about the Hindi film hero? The paper would seek to answer these questions.

William Denmark
Assumption University, THAILAND

William Denmark has been teaching at Assumption University since 1994.  He has an M.A. in French and English as a Second Language form Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois.  His chief teaching interests are in the use of literature for teaching English as a Foreign Language.  He is the Series Editor of the Turnabout Series of student written novels, published by Assumption University Press.

Spread the Word! Some Cultural Implications of English as an International Language

With English as an International Language (EIL) daily becoming more of an established fact throughout Asia, it may be useful to consider what we can do with it once we have it.  The Turnabout Series of student written novels produced at Assumption University is one attempt to exploit the potential of EIL for the dissemination of culture across boundaries.  Using English to tell their own stories, the authors have created the possibility of sharing their culture with peoples around the world, thereby enriching all of us.

This session will comprise a brief commentary on the cultural implications of EIL, and an introduction to the Turnabout Series.  This will be followed by a question and answer period.

Winton Lou G. Ynion
National University of Singapore, SINGAPORE

Winton Lou G. Ynion is the coordinator of Philippine Studies program of the De La Salle University – Manila, Philippines’ top private academic institution. He has won significant awards in fiction, poetry, essay, and literary criticism in the Philippines. He has delivered lectures on literary tourism, children’s literature, novel and nationalism throughout Asia. He is a candidate for a doctorate degree in Philippine literature from the University of the Philippines, and a research fellow of the National University of Singapore.

On the 100th Year of Solitude: Novels as Alternative Histories and the Filipino Nation

Philippines, owner of Asia’s oldest democracy (1898), is still caught within the issues of nationhood that it fantasizes throughout a century of (neo)colonialism. Jose Rizal, the country’s foremost hero, wrote the Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, two novels that projected a nation, though an “imagined community” as termed by Benedict Anderson, and designed a nationalist project. After “liberation” from US colonialism, the Philippine government pursued the Rizal Bill, a piece of landmark legislation that brought literature and nationalism together in the state’s attempt to decolonize the culture. The bill, too, attested to the existence of ensemble of discourses and practices constituting the field of literary education over which the Philippines sought continually to extend the scope of its nation-building. On this point, the novel was “legitimized” to be the form that could best accommodate the mechanisms of literature as history and vice versa. From Rizal’s novels, this study attempts to map out the phenomenon of “his/herstory” and “nation” in the Filipino context as depicted by three celebrated centennial novels, in Filipino language.

Yang Gang
Linyi Normal University, Shandong, CHINA

On Cultivating Chinese EFL Learners’ Cultural Awareness

With the economic and social development, the communication between China and the outside world is increasingly frequent. People have more opportunities to contact foreign cultures. Culture teaching is playing an important role in foreign language education. At the same time, the modern theories abroad concerning culture teaching are widely spread in China. As such, how to teach culture in foreign language education in the Chinese cultural environment is a hot topic. However, it is unfortunate up to now that no agreement has been reached in terms of how to effectively cultivate learners’ cultural awareness in EFL teaching and learning. Culture teaching needs being imperatively improved. Inspired by the above discussion, I select the topic of “on cultivating EFL learners’ cultural awareness” to present at ACSA conference.

I carried out this study through a sociocultural test and two questionnaires among college English teachers and learners, with the expectation to get an objective view of the current status of culture instruction in foreign language education in China. Accordingly, suggestions for promoting the cultivation of EFL learners’ cultural awareness were put forward.

The focus of the study is how to practically solve the problems in cultivating EFL learners’ cultural awareness. It is my belief that cultivating EFL learners’ cultural awareness through establishing a conceptual framework of culture teaching and learning is more effective and practical than through isolated classroom instruction. Thus, a conceptual framework of cultivating EFL learners’ cultural awareness is raised and illustrated in detail from the aspects of the goal, principle, content and procedure of culture teaching. I advocate different methods for cultivating EFL learners’ cultural awareness in accordance with features of two stages of teaching and learning, namely curricular and extracurricular time. Methods for cultural awareness cultivation at curricular time are lectures of special topics, information presentation supported by technology, role-playing, group discussion and cultural inquiry. Literature reading, newspaper surveying, video watching, Internet surfing and intercultural communication are the specific ways used to cultivate EFL learners’ cultural awareness at extracurricular time. I also put forward pedagogical suggestions for the cultivation of EFL learners’ cultural awareness. These include making the treating of sociocultural competence an educational objective, compiling the textbooks from a cultural perspective, improving teacher’s cultural ability through self-development, adjusting learner’s attitude towards the native culture, offering corresponding courses of culture and cultural comparison, and constructing culture testing and evaluating system.

The study focuses on the cultivation of learners’ cultural awareness in FLT and aims at explaining how to effectively promote the target culture learning in a non-native context like China through establishing a conceptual framework of cultivating EFL learners’ cultural awareness. However, there are still some limitations in this study. It remains open to be discussed and improved.

Yuen Ting Lee
Hong Kong Shue Yan University, HK

Yuen Ting Lee is Lecturer of Chinese History at Hong Kong Shue Yan University. She received her PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Her main research interests include modern China, women and gender in China, and Chinese cultural and intellectual history.

Chinese Culture Revisited: The Case of Footbinding as a Cultural Phenomenon

Has footbinding really died out in present-day China? Was it a sign of obsessive male oppression or women’s quest for feminine beauty? Do most previous works on Chinese footbinding unanimously convey a message of “condemnation” rather than an appreciation of this cultural practice in China? People may be surprised to learn that there are some bound-foot women survivors in present-day villages in Yunnan Province of China. These elderly women still bind and unbind their feet on a daily basis, giving the impression that footbinding is so attractive to them that it has become a continual practice in some villages per se.

This paper, building upon previous research in both English and Chinese, revisits the case of footbinding as a cultural phenomenon in China. How this practice originated is not absolutely essential but how and why it had perpectuated as a cultural phenomenon in China for more than a thousand years deserves our attention. There must have been some subtle cultural meanings of footbinding for women and men in the bound-foot era. How did both sexes perceive it? The paper has generated three theories of footbinding: (1) Chinese men’s perspective: the sexually appeal theory of footbinding; (2) Westerners’ perspective: the “crushed bones” theory of footbinding; and (3) Chinese women’s perspective: the women’s art theory of footbinding. The paper will look at a brief history of footbinding in China, these three generated theories, and finally, it will have a glimpse of some elderly women survivors in present-day China. It is hoped that the paper offers both an alternative way of looking at the footbinding issue and a brief historiography of it.

Zakir Hossain Raju
Monash University, MALAYSIA

Islam, Cinema and Globalization in Bangladesh: For or Against? 

This paper deals with how Bangladeshi cinema, a national-cultural institution developed in a postcolonial nation-space in South Asia represents and interacts with Islam and globalization in the 1990s and 2000s. Here I deconstruct the cinematic representation of Islam in a rapidly globalising Bangladesh alongside the identity formation process of Bengali Muslims, the majority group that normalized “Bangladeshi” identity for themselves. I argue in this paper that cinema takes ambivalent position in representing Islam in contemporary Bangladesh. I demonstrate that the popular and the art cinema, the two discourses of Bangladesh cinema consider Islam and globalization in opposing ways, as these two promote different notions of communalism, communal identity and globalization.

Bangladesh popular film industry is a medium-sized national cinema in postcolonial South Asia. During the 1990s-2000s, it produced around 90 feature films every year, which are shown in around 1000 theatres all over Bangladesh, and also disseminated on VCDs and DVDs among diasporic Bangladeshis. Most of these films are genre-based formulaic popular-entertainment films produced in vernacular (Bangla). These local filmic crops successfully kept global popular cinemas such as Hollywood, Bollywood and Hong Kong Action cinema at bay from Bangladeshi film theatres for last four decades or so. Though Bangladeshi popular films are somewhat similar to Hindi popular films in their length and structuring of the content (e.g. song-dance numbers halting the narrative progression), these films address a particular “national” audiences, Bengali Muslims in Bangladesh, but also the Bangladeshis living in Europe, USA and other parts of the world. These viewers are mostly working-class male, busy in negotiating their encounter with global modernity, regularly watch their favourite Bangladeshi film stars on how to tackle the demands of being Islamic/Muslim as well as global/modern. The popular film industry takes a “pro-Islam” stand and creates an Islam versus globalization dichotomy on the screen. These films interpret Islam as part of “traditional,” peaceful lifestyle of rural Bangladeshis of yesteryears and brings out a nostalgia for that period showing how global forces brought in all kinds of impurities in the simple and sanctified lives of Bangladeshis. This traditional/modern dichotomy highlighting Islam as the way to an ethereal happy life becomes problematic as these films also visually (need to) portray the “foreign” elements polluting pious Bangladeshis: the “attractions” such as bodily actions of male stars and display of semi-nude female bodies.

On the other hand, only a handful of independent films produced each year belong under Bangladeshi art cinema. These films are more global than the local. Using the narrational style of the 1950s-60s European art cinema, these mostly depict rural and/or poor Bangladeshis struggling for a better livelihood.  These are mostly produced outside or in the margin of the national film industry and with the possibility of global circulation via film festivals, art-house venues, and transnational, satellite television channels. The art cinema discourse of Bangladesh cinema resonates a cultural-nationalist view of Islam and globalization. This discourse largely positions Islam as an alien culture, a “foreign” religion that entered Bangladesh through political-military aggression. Most of these films repeatedly show Islam as a singular and monolithic orthodoxy. Following the cultural-nationalist notion of Bengali identity, these films believe in an authentic version of Bengali culture and complain that Islam posed certain threats to the development and dissemination of Bengali cultural practices. These films theatralize and exoticize Islamic practices as something ancient in/for contemporary Bangladesh, a rapidly modernizing and commercializing nation-state in the face of globalization. The art cinema discourse thus positions Islam as arcane and orthodox because this mode maintains a clear-cut dichotomy between Islam and Bengali culture. In other words, most art cinema films are committed to a definitive national-cultural modernity prescribed by cultural-nationalist Bengali Muslims, a modernity that normalizes “Bengali” identity as modern and secular. This discourse, thus locates “Muslim” identity of/within Bengali Muslims only as a religious category, and therefore as a sign of communalism.

In this way this paper outlines the oppositional as well as ambivalent characteristics of the popular and art cinema discourses in representing Islam and globalization. Here I analyze some well-known Bangladeshi films that were produced and circulated during the 1990s-2000s. I demonstrate how the cinematic texts produced and circulated as/under both popular and art cinema modes are engaged in constructing and reconstructing different notions of communalism as well as problematic identities for Bengali Muslims in contemporary Bangladesh. I argue that this instability in positioning religion along side national/cultural identity emanates from the ambiguities inherent in Bengali Muslim identity itself. Such ambiguity is enhanced by a social institution like Bangladesh cinema as it interacts with the contradictory ways of evaluating Islam and communal identities by ordinary Bangladeshis while facing the forces of globalization.