There ain't no black in the Union Jack

LITERARY COSMOPOLITANISMS OF SALMAN RUSHDIE, AMITAV GHOSH, AND ARUNDHATI ROY Sunil S. Macwan, B.A., M.A. Marquette University, 2018 Since the 1980s, literary critics have examined contemporary cosmopolitanism’s relationship with globalization from postcolonial perspectives. An intriguing question in this area is: how do postcolonial authors justify their cosmopolitan critiques of globalization while relying on the economic structures that sustain the publishing industry? This dissertation attempts to answer the question by studying literary cosmopolitanisms of Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, and Arundhati Roy. It argues that by developing forms of literary cosmopolitanisms through fiction, some postcolonial writers create alternatives to neoliberal globalization and a reactionary nationalism from within those systems. The primary methods employed in this study include close-reading and critical-research-qualitative analysis. Specifically, the dissertation contends that Salman Rushdie has developed a critical cosmopolitanism of the urban migrant that simultaneously challenges the inhibiting nature of fundamentalist nationalism and homogenizing globalization. Not satisfied with Rushdie’s individualistic cosmopolitanism, Amitav Ghosh recuperates a family-based South Asian cosmopolitanism that evolved during the British colonialism in Asia and provided an alternative to Western cosmopolitanism through the dynamism of the littoral. Celebrating this familial-littoral cosmopolitanism, Ghosh envisions the possibility of a world-community, capable of defying rigid nationalism as well as neoliberal capitalism on the strength of family-like relationships among migrants. Also diverging from Rushdie, Arundhati Roy evolves a small cosmopolitanism that appeals to the global through the local. Roy reaches out to global readers with narratives of local struggles to inspire them to cultivate a cosmopolitan empathy towards those others who inhabit socioculturally backward parts of the World. This dissertation identifies forms of postcolonial literary cosmopolitanisms that enable Rushdie, Roy, and Ghosh to imagine a cosmopolitan world-community, rooted in mutual respect and acceptance of difference. It opens avenues for further research in literary studies that examine postcolonial literature’s creative potential to promote grounded cosmopolitanism as a powerful antidote to economic globalization in the twenty-first century.

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Literary Cosmopolitanisms of Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, and Arundhati Roy

Identity is seen as something important to humans in society, as it shows the origin of the self. Sometimes, someone cannot accept the identity that is attached to them, which will lead to the process of forming a new identity. This case also happens to the main character of The Scent of Sake, a novel by Joyce Lebra published in 2009. Rie Omura is not allowed to interfere in the sake making business, so that she tries to change that identity. Thus, this study aims to examine the process of identity formation that occurs in the character of a Japanese woman, represented by Rie. To answer the research problem, this study uses a textual analysis as the research methods. The theory used to assist the analysis is a perspective proposed by Žižek regarding the formation of subject’s identity to achieve the stage of authentic subject. The results show that in her efforts to unbind herself from the symbolic order, she makes attempts to rule the brewer house. However, her action cannot be categorized as a radical action since it cannot bring her out of the Symbolic. It confirms that Rie is failed to be an authentic subject. Keywords: Japanese Woman, Authentic Subject, Žižek, The Scent of Sake Identitas dipandang sebagai sesuatu yang penting bagi manusia yang hidup bermasyarakat karena menunjukkan asal-usul. Terkadang, seseorang tidak dapat menerima identitas yang melekat padanya, yang akan memantik tindakannya menuju pembentukan identitas baru. Hal ini juga terjadi pada karakter utama dalam novel "The Scent of Sake" karya Joyce Lebra yang terbit pada tahun 2009. Rie Omura tidak diizinkan ikut campur dalam bisnis pembuatan sake, sehingga dia mencoba mengubah identitas dan pelabelan tersebut. Dengan demikian, penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui proses pembentukan identitas dalam karakter wanita Jepang, yang direpresentasikan oleh Rie. Untuk menjawab permasalahan penelitian, analisis tekstual digunakan sebagai metode penelitian. Teori yang digunakan untuk membantu analisis adalah perspektif Žižek mengenai pembentukan identitas subjek untuk mencapai tahap subjek autentik. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa dalam upayanya untuk melepaskan ikatan dari tatanan simbolis, Rie berupaya untuk berperan penting di perusahaan produksi sake milik keluarganya. Namun, tindakannya tidak dapat dikategorikan sebagai tindakan radikal karena tidak dapat membawanya keluar dari Yang Simbolik. Hal ini mengkonfirmasi bahwa Rie gagal menjadi subjek autentik. Kata Kunci: Perempuan Jepang, Subjek Autentik, Žižek, The Scent of Sake

https://jurnal.ugm.ac.id/poetika/article/download/51610/26635

The scent of sake: a failure in the embodiment of japanese woman identity to be an authentic subject

Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses (1989) diagnoses Margaret Thatcher’s brand of capitalism as self-ironizing, cynical, and postmodern. This article focuses on a largely ignored portion of Rushdie’s novel—its satire of Britain’s shift from Keynes’s “dependency culture” to Thatcher’s “enterprise culture.” Citing Slavoj Zizek’s (1989) claim that cynicism is a dominant form of ideology today, the article discusses why moralistic discourses such as identity politics fail to effectively critique those cynical figures who, like Thatcher’s elite entrepreneurs, trumpet multiculturalism and satirize themselves in advance. Rushdie confronts this critical impasse by doubling down on the power of satire, exchanging the politics of blame and victimization for a form of mutually implicating humor. Rushdie’s text often blames everyone—including itself—by insisting that we are all, to different degrees, risible, mutually implicated subjects, especially in our postcolonial, neoliberal age.

Alexander Adkins

Papers

Neoliberalism, Moralism, and Critique in Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses