Journal of Contemporary Poetics

Initial Pages

2025-07-17T05:27:39+05:00

Gesture in Diplomatic Address: A Case Study of Imran Khan in 74th UNGA Speech

2025-07-24T06:51:41+05:00

Political oratory is a diverse genre which effectively juxtaposes speech and non-verbal cues. Politicians from diverse backgrounds and cultures often incorporate non-verbal elements, such as hand gestures, into their speeches. These hand gestures possess high utility and universality; thus, researchers believe that hand gestures and speech work together as a unified system for production and comprehension. This research explores the complex relationship between non-verbal and verbal communication within the dynamic realm of political public speech, drawing on McNeill’s (354) Gesture theory. McNeill’s theory classifies gestures into four categories: iconic, metaphoric, beat, and deictic. Employing a qualitative approach, the study provides an in-depth analysis of Imran Khan's gestures and relationship with spoken words. Iconic and metaphoric gestures were found to reinforce spoken content, while deictic and beat gestures directed attention to specific subjects and enhanced overall communication of meaning. The study found that Imran Khan effectively employed all four types of hand gestures and demonstrated a clear correlation between these gestures and his spoken words, thereby revealing his underlying thought processes. This study confirms the intricate correlation between gestures and language, emphasising their importance in influential public speaking. This resource provides unique perspectives on effective communication tactics, emphasising the significance of non-verbal clues in global conversations.

The Scapegoat in William Faulkner’s Fiction: A Girardian Analysis

2025-07-17T05:39:10+05:00

According to René Girard, the concept of the scapegoat originated as a religious practice, a communal ritual whereby the sins of the community are projected onto a goat. The chosen goat would then be sent into the wilderness, as a sacrifice, to carry the burden of their offences. The goat was, later on, replaced by individuals who were burdened with the sins of the community. This study highlights the scapegoating of characters in two of William Faulkner’s iconic short stories, A Rose for Emily and Barn Burning, through the lens of Girard’s theory of scapegoating. In these stories, scapegoating conceals itself under the guise of social hierarchies and gender discrimination, whereby the weaker individuals undergo communal oppression. The repetitive pattern of projecting blame on the central character of each story demonstrates the underlying violence maintained by social norms. In A Rose For Emily, Emily is demonised and alienated by the community. Emily feels the imperative to withdraw herself from the hostile world that inadvertently participates in scapegoating her. The first-person plural narration reveals the community’s hostile attitude towards her in many instances. In Barn Burning, the ten-year-old Colonel Sartoris, aka Sarty, acts as an emotional scapegoat of his father’s rage against the system. Sarty’s ideals unfit him for his family and make him an outcast. This study also explores how Faulkner endows his characters with the power to resist oppression. Their acts of resistance show the rejection of their role as a scapegoat.

Exploring Trauma and Text Worlds in the Novel The Spinner’s Tale: A Cognitive Poetic Analysis

2025-07-17T05:43:12+05:00

Over the last few decades, the prevalence of violence and terrorism in Pakistan has substantially affected the mental health of Pakistani youth (Khan 365; Munawar et al. 10). This issue is comparatively underexplored and requires careful consideration. The present study examines individual and collective trauma in Pakistani society, utilising the theoretical framework of literary trauma theory in the light of contemporary Pakistani fiction writing, specifically The Spinner’s Tale. It draws attention to the protagonist Ausi’s trauma by employing the 2022 revised fifth edition (DSM-5-TR) of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). It utilises Kai Erikson’s theory to explore the collective trauma of Pakistani society. These theoretical concepts are studied from a cognitive poetics perspective, employing the Text World Theory (TWT) proposed by Joanna Gavins as the analytical framework. The findings reveal that Ausi’s Trauma is realised in the narrative through all three interconnecting levels of TWT, i.e., the discourse world, the text world, and the new worlds. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that the discourse world-level of TWT connects Ausi’s trauma with the collective trauma of Pakistani society, as it is responsible for Ausi’s transformation from a young, educated Pakistani youth into an internationally wanted terrorist. The present study aims to raise awareness within Pakistani society regarding the damaging effects of social disruption, which may lead to further incidents of violence and terrorism.

Lyotard’s Notion of Metanarratives in High Muck a Muck: Playing Chinese

2025-07-17T06:00:12+05:00

High Muck a Muck: Playing Chinese is a digital poem, but an interactive experience. Developed through an interdisciplinary effort of eleven Canadian artists, programmers, and community members, the project comprises an interactive website, eight videos, and a gallery installation. The digital text explores the theme of Chinese immigration to Canada’s West Coast, highlighting both historical and contemporary issues faced by diasporic communities in the host country. This research examines the work through the postmodernist framework of French theorist Jean-François Lyotard, particularly his claim regarding the demise of metanarratives or grand narratives. Postmodernism is marked by scepticism towards established beliefs and absolute truths. Lyotard challenges the validity of Western metanarratives, arguing that such grand narratives have lost their authority in the postmodern world. As High Muck a Muck: Playing Chinese engages deeply with diasporic issues, it implicitly rejects dominant narratives surrounding immigration to Western societies. Like other digital texts, it incorporates texts, images, videos, and sound, all of which will be analysed through Lyotard’s lens to support the argument for the death of metanarratives. The text confronts and critiques prevailing narratives of multiculturalism, racial harmony, materialism, and economic prosperity in Western, particularly Canadian, contexts.

Stereotypical Portrayal of Women in Pashto Songs, Ghazal, and Tappa

2025-07-17T05:51:37+05:00

This study examines the portrayal of women in Pashto songs, with a specific focus on how it reflects and reinforces the gender roles within Pashtun society. Recognising the cultural importance of Pashto music, the research explores how lyrical content contributes to the construction of women's identities through a feminist cultural lens. Employing a qualitative content analysis, specifically thematic analysis, the study analyses a purposively selected sample of Pashto songs known for perpetuating gender-based stereotypes. The findings of the study show that women are often portrayed as passive, submissive, and dependent figures, with their roles mostly confined to the home. In many songs, women are often celebrated primarily for their beauty, while their individuality, decision-making abilities, and intellectual strengths are often overlooked. This narrow focus reduces women to decorative symbols rather than recognising them as full participants in society. Such portrayals continue to reinforce traditional gender roles and support patriarchal thinking. As a result, these representations become a barrier to promoting gender equality and limit the possibility of more balanced and respectful portrayals of women in cultural expression. The study contributes to the broader dialogue on gender, media, and cultural reform, emphasising the need for more empowering and multidimensional portrayals of women in Pashto songs.

Shameen from Haseena Moin’s Kohar: A Melancholic Character in Mist

2025-07-17T05:54:40+05:00

This paper analyses Shameen, the lead character of Haseena Moin’s (1991) mini-serial Kohar, in light of Sigmund Freud’s theory of melancholia and argues that as someone who loses an object of love, suffers ambivalence, is haunted by past experiences, disregards her ego and goes through a mania, she proves herself to be a melancholic character as per Freud’s theory. The paper also sheds light on how and why Shameen’s character is shaped by the ‘past’, unlike the writer’s other female protagonists whose efforts are always for a better ‘future’, and what the deeply evocative title ‘Kohar’ (mist) and the setting of the play suggest about Shameen’s bleak future. The paper offers an insight into a post-Zia era dismal regime that changed women in multiple ways, in terms of their character, their participation in practical life and their emotional sensitivity. This research thus lies at the intersection of psychanalysis and feminist studies and tangentially touches upon environmental literature to see why a popular dramatist, at a certain juncture in Pakistan’s history, chose to sketch a character markedly different from her other characters, and what she hoped to achieve by placing her in suburban Karachi rather than in the heart of the bustling metropolis, and why her melancholic female character failed to appeal to the masses unlike her more vivacious female characters residing in Urban Karachi.