Disability Studies: Disability studies is an academic discipline that examines the meaning, nature, and consequences of disability. Initially, the field focused on the division between “impairment” and “disability”, where impairment was an impairment of an individual’s mind or body, while disability was considered a social construct. The attitudes towards disabled individuals are as diverse as people are diverse. Some of those attitudes, however, can be grouped together: attitudes of fear, attitudes of revulsion, and attitudes of pity are just three of the more horrific ones. These attitudes have not only been displayed by people, they have also been imposed upon people – often disabled people. Disability studies also investigate images and descriptions of disability, prejudice against people with disabilities (ableism), and the ways narrative relates to disability. Because of its concern with the body and embodiment, disability studies also intersects other critical schools like gender studies, queer studies, feminism, critical race studies, and more.
Eco-critical Studies: Ecocriticism is a worldwide emergent movement which pleads for a sustainable development of all organisms. This revisionist movement criticizes the anthropocentric attitude of the humans which is a hindrance to a sustainable future. Today even in the twenty-first century when we witness a rapid growth of science and technology, the marginalized people are still being deprived of their equal rights to survive. They are yet to have a taste of true development even in the developed or developing countries. They are more ecological when the so called civilized people have put our ecology at stake. They are dedicated to their roots, yet they are being exploited by the capitalistic society. They even fall an easy prey to the state sponsored terrorism. Ecocriticism advocates development of every individual in close proximity with nature.
Marginalized Studies: Literature has always been cognizant of social power structures. It has always aligned itself with the struggle for empowerment and emancipation of the disadvantaged sections of the society. It gives vent to the aspirations and inspirations of the people and has, by unravelling the seams of power hierarchies, led to the poetics and politics of resistance. identity assertion and egalitarian world views. The superstructures of race in Africa, Australia, USA and caste in India inform, deform, and complicate the identities of the marginalized along lines of gender, class, and family structure. In the modern-day debate, various facets of marginality have been discussed in scholarly circles in almost every disciplinary area including literature, history, sociology, and political science with implications for issues as diverse as justice, gender, equality and inequality. The advent of literary and cultural theories in the literary field has brought major changes in the way of reading, interpreting and understanding literature and culture. This has empowered, in a significant way, marginalized discourses which often remained unnoticed by the hegemonic culture. This has constantly been argued that a comprehensive literary study of marginality and its epistemic role is necessary and would contribute to a better understanding of how humanistic knowledge has been created, structured and transmitted.
Department of English, School of Arts, Humanities & Commerce, Coimbatore
Should have a thorough understanding of the various literary theories
Assistant Professor
Department of English
School of Engineering, Coimbatore