Writing and activism a study of the critical reception of Arundhati Roys works

Abstract

While numerous researchers have analysed literature as a site of activism to discuss a variety of social issues imbued by the writer, there has been renewed interest to locate cultural forces and critical practices that mediate its circulation and reception in the public sphere. Though this scholarly intervention does not directly implicate the social issues in literature, it allows the scholars to recast literary writings in a new light to see how writing transitions into a space of creative resistance on account of their critical interpretations and analysis that stir a public discourse around the social issues discussed in the writings. Considering writing as a mode of activism, this study assesses how the critical reception of literary writing stirs public discourse around the social issues. This thesis is an attempt to redirect the focus towards the critical reception of literature and how it shapes the interpretive frameworks within which the reading public understands the written text. newlineFor this purpose, the thesis traces the critical reception of Arundhati Roy s writings to see how the circulation and reception of her writings transition her writings into a space of activism. By separately drawing the critical reception of her writings in mass media and academia, this thesis analyses various ideological frameworks that negotiate the reception of her writings. While various concepts from Reception Studies and Cultural Studies have been borrowed to understand the critical responses, Stuart Hall s encoding and decoding model is primarily used to understand the ideological circulation and reception of Roy s writings in the public sphere. With an aim to unfix the static positions for analysing literary writing, this study redirects the attention towards the rigidly ideological nature of circulation processes that regulate writing and its reception to allow for, what Hall terms as, individual, private, variant readings that challenge and resist these power-structures. newline newline