ARHIVA POPESCU Ileana-Mihaela
POPESCU Ileana-Mihaela
Analele Ştiinţifice ale Universităţii “Ovidius” Constanţa nr. 29/ 2018
POPESCU Ileana-Mihaela - AFTERNOON RAAG OF AN UPROOTED INDIAN ON THE ROUTES OF
DISPLACEMENT: THE SEARCH OF IDENTITY THROUGH HEALING MEMORY (pag. 76-83)
This paper examines the impact that the movement from one space to another has over the individual in the formation of identity. The roots of nationhood, ethnic inheritance and traditions are destabilized in the process of forming a hybrid identity, required by the adoptive space. Thus, the stability of the native roots is challenged by the mobility of the new routes which bring displacement. The Indian immigrant―once uprooted―passes through the trauma of maladaptation and lack of integration, not being able to manage the conflict between his Indian identity and the English one. The shifted and hybrid identity becomes unstable, oscillating between the memory of the healing narrative and the new identity. The analysis will focus on defining and characterising these concepts of space in the dialectics of home– land and host–land of an Indian who left for studies at Oxford. Amit Chaudhuri, in his Afternoon Raag, questions the meaning of raag―the Hindi for chant―in its oxymoronic meaning of “song of happiness” or “song of grief.” Therefore, even if the Indian immigrant has achieved his dream of studying and living in a first-world country, still he cannot be content, as he feels uprooted, dejected and not integrated in the new community. He only finds redemption through music, memory and seclusion, or through retreating to his ethnic group.
POPESCU Ileana-Mihaela
Analele Ştiinţifice ale Universităţii “Ovidius” Constanţa nr.28 / 2017 vol.2
POPESCU Ileana-Mihaela - THE OVERSEAS INDIAN OTHER ‒ CAUGHT BETWEEN OUTER SPACE AND INNER SPACE ‒ AS IMMIGRANT, OR AT HOME, IN JHUMPA LAHIRI’S UNACCUSTOMED EARTH AND KIRAN DESAI’S HULLABALOO IN THE GUAVA ORCHARD (pag. 53–62)
Ileana-Mihaela POPESCU, a tenured teacher at “Mircea cel Batran” National College Constanţa, is currently enrolled in her second year at the Doctoral School of Humanities of the Faculty of Letters, Ovidius University of Constanţa, with the topic: Between Two Worlds: Contemporary Indian Female Writers in the Anglo-American Space. A graduate in English–Hindi from the Faculty of Foreign Languages, the University of Bucharest, she holds a master’s degree in Anglo-American Studies from the Faculty of Letters, Ovidius University, Constanţa.