NUML Journal of Critical Inquiry (NUML JCI) E ISSN 2789-4665, P ISSN 2222-5706 is published by National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, Faculty of Arts and Humanities. It is a continuation of NUML Research Magazine (established in 2003), with revised and improved parameters, approved by the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan. NUML Research Magazine attained the status of Journal in 2011 and was named as NUML Journal of Critical Inquiry from 2011 onward. The contributions are duly abstracted and indexed by ProQuest, CSA Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts database (USA). NUML JCI is listed in ProQuest Academic Research Library. NUML JCI has also signed agreements with ProQuest and Ebscohost for international distribution, abstracting, and indexing services. The journal aims at investigating and bringing forth innovative research-based concepts and practices at national and international levels, and promotes scholarly research in the domains of Language, Literature, Linguistics, and Education. The journal provides platform to researchers, classroom practitioners and academic professionals to share their novel theoretical and practical research initiatives. NUML JCI hosts stimulating, inspiring, and informative research papers catering to the complex and increasingly diversifying multidimensional needs of learners, teachers and professionals in diverse contexts. Contributions that break new grounds in the prescribed fields of knowledge, initiate interdisciplinary debates, tap into the latest ideas in pedagogy and creative thinking, and produce knowledge through reasoning and research are welcomed. The journal also accepts Book Reviews in the related areas. NUML JCI not only encourages authors to be creative but also attempts to motivate and guide readers to be inquisitive, creative, and critical in approach. It encourages creative freedom of expression and provides a space for enunciation that may help discipline the intellectual minds to come forth with a logically set frame of innovative ideas in various fields of study. The journal is constantly striving to achieve excellence by promoting quality research. It is also committed to forge ahead with a zeal to set standards of quality and academic integrity. In recognition of its efforts and contribution to research, the journal was upgraded to “CATEGORY Y” by Higher Education Commission of Pakistan in January 2016. Publisher: Faculty of Arts and Humanities, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad
Liberation or a Creative Balance?: A Case For Epistemologies of the South (ES)
This paper is about a paradigmatic shift: from the until now dominant western-centric modernity to a plurality of non-western-centric modernities. Such a paradigmatic shift will call for new political, economic, cultural, social, and epistemic tools. In this paper I concentrate on the epistemic tools. I argue that the western-centric modernity is based on the epistemologies of the North and that the paradigmatic shift will call for new epistemologies which I designate as the epistemologies of the South (ES). This does not mean that the epistemologies of the North (EN) should be totally discarded. It means that some of its features are of great value to the extent that they are integrated in broader epistemic landscapes. For instance, western-centric modern science is a valid form of knowledge but it is not the only valid form of knowledge, as claimed by the epistemologies of the North. Conflict of Interest: The author declares that there are no conflicts of interest related to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article, and that the data presented have not been fabricated or falsified. Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant or financial support from public, commercial, or not-for profit funding agencies. Participant Consent: The author confirms that Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and confidentiality was duly maintained. Data Fabrication/Falsification Statement: The author declares that no data have been fabricated, falsified, or manipulated in this study. Copyright: Copyright (c) 2026 Boaventura de Sousa Santos
Copyright (c) 2026 NUML journal of critical inquiry
Conformity and Crisis: Analyzing the Digital and Gendered Personae through Jung's Archetypes
Historically, human psyche has been a subject of literary inquiry but the challenges of postmodern age require a renewal examination through which identity is constructed and maintained in society. This article applies Carl Jung’s Analytical Psychology to analyze the critical tension between the Persona (the social mask) and the Shadow (the repressed self) in the works of postmodern poets, Sherman Alexie and Warsan Shire. The study focuses on how cultural pressure shapes individual identity and hinders the process of individuation. Examining Alexie’s selected poems, the analysis identifies the digital Persona as a mechanism for chronic psychological stagnation and avoidance, while studying selected poems of Warsan Shire reveals psychological burden caused by imposed gendered Persona. The comparison establishes a structural dichotomy in the modern identity crisis; the passive failure of Ego and the triumph of Self through integration. Both poets conform that psychological wholeness in the twenty-first century is possible, but only through an integration of the adopted social role and the repressed self of an individual. Conflict of Interest: The author declares that there are no conflicts of interest related to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article, and that the data presented have not been fabricated or falsified. Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant or financial support from public, commercial, or not-for profit funding agencies. Participant Consent: The author confirms that Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and confidentiality was duly maintained. Data Fabrication/Falsification Statement: The author declares that no data have been fabricated, falsified, or manipulated in this study. Copyright: Copyright (c) 2026 Amina Razaq
Born Free, Chained by the Capitalist: Exploitation of Wildlife in Tania James's The Tusk that Did the Damage
This paper aims to highlight the oppression of wild animals in Southern India in the wake of late capitalist patriarchal developments. Late capitalism with its exploitative tendencies marginalizes the Third World environment including wild animals. This study focuses on the intricate processes that are involved in transporting illegally procured animal parts from poachers to affluent buyers, involving individuals from diverse backgrounds in the commission and cover-up of the crime. Drawing upon Shiva's "maldevelopment" theory, Karen Emmerman's critique of animal sanctuaries, Catherine Doyle's analysis of captive elephants, and Fleischman's critique of forest policy implementation, this paper delves into the plight of the poached animals and critically analyses the novel The Tusk That Did the Damage by Tania James, from an ecofeminist perspective. By drawing insights from ecofeminist theory, this research investigates the exacerbation of animal trafficking in the contemporary Indian society as depicted in the novel The Tusk That did the Damage. Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest related to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article, and that the data presented have not been fabricated or falsified. Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant or financial support from public, commercial, or not-for profit funding agencies. Participant Consent: The authors confirm that Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and confidentiality was duly maintained. Data Fabrication/Falsification Statement: The authors declare that no data have been fabricated, falsified, or manipulated in this study. Copyright: Copyright (c) 2026 Kalsoom Khalid & Sofia Hussain
Governing Life and Beyond: The Politics of Survival in Mo Yan’s Shifu, You’ll Do Anything for a Laugh
This paper examines selected short stories from Shifu, You’ll Do Anything for a Laugh written by Mo Yan and critically explores governance, survival, death, and the instability of human subjectivity set in post-socialist China. Mo Yan’s fiction highlights a system in which power operates through life, as well as the instrumentalization of death. Using theoretical frameworks of Michel Foucault’s concept of biopolitics and Achille Mbembe’s theory of necropolitics, the paper demonstrates how governance extends from the management of populations to the production of the living dead subjects whose bodies remain economically and politically valuable beyond death. A close textual analysis of four selected short stories is conducted to explore how biopolitical regimes initially produce surplus life, which gets abandoned later, and subsequently, the necropolitical structures transform death into an opportunity for extraction. Mo Yan also destabilizes the boundaries between human and nonhuman as a result of biopolitics, foregrounding human subjectivity as mutable under conditions of extreme deprivation and war-time trauma. The short stories critique modern governance as a system that exploits life, abandons life, cures life, and alters life, making the human body an unstable and negotiable category under the heavy surveillance. Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest related to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article, and that the data presented have not been fabricated or falsified. Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant or financial support from public, commercial, or not-for profit funding agencies. Participant Consent: The authors confirm that Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and confidentiality was duly maintained. Data Fabrication/Falsification Statement: The authors declare that no data have been fabricated, falsified, or manipulated in this study. Copyright: Copyright (c) 2026 Tahreem Soomro & Yun Gong
Language, Power and Gendered Silence through Hegemonic Euphemism in Gul’s A Pathan Daughter
Language shapes and is shaped by society. It is rarely neutral as it affects norms, perception, and veils power asymmetries. Euphemistic language often masks hegemony and inequalities particularly in patriarchal societies. This study examines the hegemonic function of euphemistic language in Gul’s A Pathan Daughter (2024). The researcher utilizes mixed method. AntConc 4.3.0 (Anthony, 2024) is used for frequency count and Lutz’s (2016) doublespeak framework is employed to examine how linguistic manipulation obscures gendered victimization and oppression. Findings of the study reveal that a persistent use of euphemistic language confines women within the walls of domesticity, while parental control is framed as compassionate guidance; obedience negotiated as honor, education labelled as dangerous, and impractical and forced marriage as a tradition. These linguistic manipulations are utilized to normalize obedience, neutralize resistance, and to internalize the patriarchal control. Euphemistic language operates as an effective weapon of hegemony as well as an internalized mode of compliance. The study exposes how patriarchal hegemony is sustained and inequalities are naturalized through everyday language in A Pathan Daughter (2024). The findings of this study add valuable insights to the context of sociolinguistics and feminist theory by providing a comprehensive and empirical data about the hegemonic function of euphemistic language in enforcing patriarchal control in certain Pakistani fiction. Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest related to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article, and that the data presented have not been fabricated or falsified. Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant or financial support from public, commercial, or not-for profit funding agencies. Participant Consent: The authors confirm that Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and confidentiality was duly maintained. Data Fabrication/Falsification Statement: The authors declare that no data have been fabricated, falsified, or manipulated in this study. Copyright: Copyright (c) 2026 Tariq Mehmood Khalid, Abdul Qayyum Sahar, & Tallat Jabeen
Demystifying Violence: A Study of Resistant ‘Self’ Against Controlling Images in Afro-American Feminist Literature
The debates on the epistemic, cultural, and historical erasure of Black women in White feminist discourse have been historically established, revealing the racialized gender politics against Black subjectivity. Tainted with an overarching ideological stereotyping, the chief goal is to produce controlling images that marginalize and silence the Black community. This epistemic violence blurs the affective-referential realities of the Black society and needs a reconsideration to voice the voiceless. Engaging with the canonical Black feminist texts, i.e., Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) by Zora Neale Hurston and The Bluest Eye (1970) by Toni Morrison, the article argues that both Hurston and Morrison subvert and reposition violence not as a site of victimhood, but as a radical epistemic resource through which the Black women reclaim the lost voice and articulate a resistant selfhood. Through an in-depth intersectional feminist textual analysis rooted in constructivist worldview, the study theorizes violence as an epistemological framework, enabling Black women to resist and defy the Jezebel, mammy, and welfare mother—the imposed scripts of identity formation, and carve out an agentic niche for themselves. The study is important in unveiling the patterns of selfhood and seeks to challenge the traditional interpretations and reaffirm the Black women’s consciousness against racist and patriarchal spaces. Conflict of Interest: The author declares that there are no conflicts of interest related to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article, and that the data presented have not been fabricated or falsified. Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant or financial support from public, commercial, or not-for profit funding agencies. Participant Consent: The author confirms that Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and confidentiality was duly maintained. Data Fabrication/Falsification Statement: The author declares that no data have been fabricated, falsified, or manipulated in this study. Copyright: Copyright (c) 2025 Shumaila Noreen Conflict of interest: The author has declared no potential conflicts of interest and falsification/fabrication of data with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Copyright (c) 2025 NUML journal of critical inquiry
Unbalancing A Fine Balance: Narrating Social Disability and Institutionalized Injustice
This paper examines the demonstration of institutional inequality and power politics producing conditions of social disablement within the Indian historical context portrayed in Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance (1995). Guided by Iris Marion Young’s “Five Faces of Oppression” (2008), the research interprets social disability not as an individual anomaly but a social condition caused by institutional laws, societal structures, and uneven power distribution across caste, class, gender, and religion. The study argues that disability is not solely physical or mental, but a metaphoric condition that disables every otherwise able individual due to ingrained prejudices and institutional structures, taking away respect, freedom and agency from those on the margins. Following the path of a qualitative, interpretive method and close textual reading, the study portrays how exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence shape the lives of the underprivileged Dalit, Muslim, Sikh, and female characters amid the 1947 Partition and the 1975 Emergency period. The study calls for critical dialogue in Disability Studies and South Asian literary criticism toward social justice and inclusivity. Thus, by foregrounding voices on the margins, it brings forth the wider perspective of justice that the participation, security, and recognition are the fundamental needs, rather than optional goods. Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest related to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article, and that the data presented have not been fabricated or falsified. Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant or financial support from public, commercial, or not-for profit funding agencies. Participant Consent: The authors confirm that Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and confidentiality was duly maintained. Data Fabrication/Falsification Statement: The authors declare that no data have been fabricated, falsified, or manipulated in this study. Copyright: Copyright (c) 2025 Warda-Tun-Naeem & Ayesha Akram Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no potential conflicts of interest and falsification/fabrication of data with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Adopting AI-Based Speech Recognition for Enhancing Pronunciation Accuracy and Learner Confidence
This study examines the integration of AI–based speech recognition (ELSA Speak, Speechling) in a language centre and its effects on pronunciation accuracy and learner confidence. Two groups of intermediate EFL learners (N = 40) completed pre-test and post-test diagnostic pronunciation assessments, with the experimental group receiving support through AI-app usage analytics. The comparative results revealed that the AI-assisted group demonstrated significantly more positive outcomes than the control group (p < .001), thus achieving higher post-test scores and increased learner confidence in the pronunciation assessment in the experimental group (paired t, p < .001). Consistent engagement in AI-assisted pronunciation practice was associated with improved performance (r = .62, p < .01). Quantitative results showed that learners using AI tools achieved higher pronunciation scores and confidence, while qualitative findings indicated reduced speaking anxiety, sustained motivation, and enhanced learner autonomy, despite minor implementation challenges such as connectivity issues and occasional feedback perception mismatches. The findings show the effective integration of AI-based pronunciation tools with conventional language instruction through feedback and self-regulated learning scaffolds. However, the intact–class design, single-centre context, and short duration result in limiting generalizability, demanding a longitudinal, multi-site replication. Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest related to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article, and that the data presented have not been fabricated or falsified. Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant or financial support from public, commercial, or not-for profit funding agencies. Participant Consent: The authors confirm that Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and confidentiality was duly maintained. Data Fabrication/Falsification Statement: The authors declare that no data have been fabricated, falsified, or manipulated in this study. Copyright: Copyright (c) 2025 Rehana Gulzar & Muhammad Ehsan
Displacement and Exilic Guilt: Exploring Psychological Trauma in Ghassan Kanafani's "Returning to Haifa"
This study examines the intertwined relationship between guilt, trauma, loss, and displacement. It explores the psychological consequences of detaching from homeland, emphasizing that one’s home plays an important role in shaping one’s identity. The study also illustrates how suppressed emotions cause guilt and trauma when refugees are confronted with their familiar surroundings or homeland. The focus of the study is the mental struggles of Palestinian refugees resulting from prolonged exposure to war, violence, and displacement. The research is qualitative in nature and follows the narrative of Ghassan Kanafani, “Returning to Haifa.” Theoretical props include Trauma theory (Herman and Caruth), Guilt theory (Tangney) and Freud’s psychological ideas. The concept of complex trauma, deferred trauma, multi-layered guilt and the conflict between ego and superego are central to the analysis. This research offers a comprehensive understanding of the narrative and emotional struggles of Palestinian refugees, revealing that the trauma of exile is not just related to physical hardships but also emotional stress. Conflict of Interest: The author declares that there are no conflicts of interest related to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article, and that the data presented have not been fabricated or falsified. Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant or financial support from public, commercial, or not-for profit funding agencies. Participant Consent: The author confirms that Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and confidentiality was duly maintained. Data Fabrication/Falsification Statement: The author declares that no data have been fabricated, falsified, or manipulated in this study. Copyright: Copyright (c) 2025 Zamurd Maqsood
Terraforming the Red Planet: Imperial Domination, Neocolonial Control, and Resistance in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars
This paper uses Edward Said’s concept of colonial discourse to examine how Mars is colonized by the governments of Earth and dominated by transnational capitalism, as it is depicted in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars. The novel portrays Mars as a battlefield for the imperial powers of Earth, where the wars for Martian land proceed from well-known predilections for imperialist and neo-colonial capitalism. Mars appears as a “frontier,” neither settled nor exploited, that can be colonized, where both the colonizers and colonized struggle for dominance. But Martian colonists reject corporate and institutional control and fight their own battles reminiscent of anti-colonial struggles on Earth. This qualitative study investigates how Mars can be viewed as an extension of neocolonialism by arguing that Robinson has depicted Mars as a colonial/neocolonial space. The novel serves as a warning to the institutions of Earth as it demonstrates that conquest, corporate dominance, and economic exploitation are challenges that must be continually opposed. The research underlines the need to create a system based on justice, freedom, and the wellbeing of all settlers. It raises both political and ethical questions and illustrates how speculative fiction like Red Mars plays a role in policymaking conversations. Conflict of Interest: The author declares that there are no conflicts of interest related to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article, and that the data presented have not been fabricated or falsified. Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant or financial support from public, commercial, or not-for profit funding agencies. Participant Consent: The author confirms that Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and confidentiality was duly maintained. Data Fabrication/Falsification Statement: The author declares that no data have been fabricated, falsified, or manipulated in this study. Copyright: Copyright (c) 2025 Jonathan Caleb Imdad
Pluribiological Cosmopolitanism and More-than-Human Societies
In this essay, I discuss the notions of multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism from an interspecies perspective. I propose the concept of "pluribiologism" as an alternative to Western multiculturalism and to the multinaturalism that anthropologists such as Eduardo Viveiros de Castro identify in the Amerindian peoples of the Amazon. Pluribiologism is the basis for interspecies societies and for the concept of the rights of nature, which has been developed and introduced into the legal systems of many Amazonian countries. I offer examples of the rights of nature and of its consequences within nation-states. In the final section of the essay, I outline the notion of a pluribiological cosmopolitanism from an interspecies perspective and suggest ways for humans to establish peaceful relations with more-than-human beings. Conflict of Interest: The author declares that there are no conflicts of interest related to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article, and that the data presented have not been fabricated or falsified. Funding: Research for this article was funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement no. 101002359). Participant Consent: The author confirms that Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and confidentiality was duly maintained. Data Fabrication/Falsification Statement: The author declares that no data have been fabricated, falsified, or manipulated in this study. Copyright: Copyright (c) 2025 Patricia Vieira Research for this article was funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement no. 101002359).
Humor and Resistance in Pakistani Corporate Memes
This study aims at investigating how humor is constructed in corporate memes through cognitive mechanisms and how corporate memes are used as a collective voice by Pakistani employees to express discontent with their work culture and organizational practices. Based on Conceptual blending theory (Fauconnier, & Turner, 2002), this research paper analyzes Pakistani corporate memes selected from widely used platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, and Pinterest. Drawing upon Bakhtin’s conception of Carnivalesque (Bakhtin, 1984), the significance of workplace humor in challenging dominant narratives, questioning power imbalance and facilitating collective acknowledgement has been highlighted. The findings suggest that the dynamic cognitive processes are responsible for the successful interpretation of humor within corporate memes, depending upon integration of distinct mental spaces evoked by exposure to various ideas present in targeted memes. Further, it is revealed that the workplace memes have the potential to express critique and assert new perspectives by employing techniques such as grotesque exaggeration, visual metaphor, imagery, hyperbole and sarcasm. This article contributes to new debates on internet memes and their potential to galvanize action within digital realm. Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest related to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article, and that the data presented have not been fabricated or falsified. Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant or financial support from public, commercial, or not-for profit funding agencies. Participant Consent: The authors confirm that Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and confidentiality was duly maintained. Data Fabrication/Falsification Statement: The authors declare that no data have been fabricated, falsified, or manipulated in this study. Copyright: Copyright (c) 2025 Aneeqa Ahmad & Musarrat Azher
Monolithic Modes of Oppression: An Intersectional Approach to Class and Gender in Tendulkar’s Kamala
The study aims to answer critical issues concerning the nuanced interplay of gender, class, and silence in shaping the experiences of South Asian women, as well as different layers of oppression that become the cause of multilayered identities. Through an in-depth analysis of Vijay Tendulkar's play Kamala, the study challenges monolithic conventions regarding Indian womanhood, concentrating on the traditional institution of marriage and illustrating its role in women's enslavement. This study critically evaluates the differential experiences of women of color, illustrating that shared identities do not equate to monolithic realities, by utilizing a methodology of close textual analysis and drawing upon Crenshaw's (1991) intersectionality theory. The pronounced disparity between Kamala and Sarita in the play highlights the complex and context-dependent intersections of class and gender that influence various feminine identities. Furthermore, it recognizes the potential of theatrical performance as a tool for empowering underrepresented communities to articulate their lived experiences. This research paper argues for the necessity of an intersectional approach to understand social justice in Pakistan, indicating the limitations of singular frameworks in addressing the interwoven oppressions faced by Pakistani women due to their multiple identities. Conflict of Interest: The author declares that there are no conflicts of interest related to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article, and that the data presented have not been fabricated or falsified. Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant or financial support from public, commercial, or not-for profit funding agencies. Participant Consent: The author confirms that Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and confidentiality was duly maintained. Data Fabrication/Falsification Statement: The author declares that no data have been fabricated, falsified, or manipulated in this study. Copyright: Copyright (c) 2025 Ayesha Izhar Chaudhri, Salma Khatoon, Asma Khatoon
‘Heavy Waters’ of Punjab: A Hydro-critical Analysis of Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice-Candy Man
This research argues that the seminal Partition novel Ice-Candy Man, written by Bapsi Sidhwa, presents a vision of fluvial Punjab in a manner that fits the idea of “Heavy Waters” presented by Elizabeth DeLoughrey. The latter’s idea of water carrying both physical and metaphysical waste seems to materialize in Sidhwa’s novel, who places her story in the context of the partitioned Punjab of 1947, when a desire for ‘territorialism’ over water resulted in countless human beings turning into ‘national refuse’, or people killed in the name of nationality, whose dead bodies floating in the rivers of the Punjab turned the rivers into both a haunting site and a site foreboding an environmental crisis sooner or later. Hydro-criticism emerges as an apt theory to carry out this research, considering the tools it provides to look at literary texts from a watery perspective, while the research methodology involves a close textual analysis, with specific focus on events pertaining to water in the novel. The study concludes that a) If Elizabeth DeLoughrey’s hydro-critical lens can aid in understanding the pain of Middle Passage victims and the defiling of the Atlantic Ocean, the same theory may help read indigenous texts to pay tribute to Pakistan’s water bodies, and b) If Atlantic modernity is metallic due to the residue it carries of British naval weaponry, then overt sexual activity taking place in Pakistan and India can be linked to the ample flesh that lies in the waters of the Subcontinent. Conflict of interest: The author has declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Go Back!: Reclaiming Indigenous Visibility in Literary, Cultural, and Environmental Spaces of Pakistan
This paper examines the nexus of visibility and violence in the context of indigenous communities of Pakistan, with a focus on the literary works of Mustansar Hussein Tarar. Through a critical analysis of Tarar’s texts, this study reveals how his narratives subvert the dominant autochthonous discourses (surrounding the sociocultural and geophysical spaces of the Indus Valley), reclaim visibility for the indigenous communities, and thus enable their survival. The intersection of literature, culture, and environment has already been explored by many scholars (De Loughery 2015; Mukherjee 2010; Nixon 2011; Huggan 2004), with some discussions also incorporating the perspectives of indigenous peoples (Dove 2006). By drawing upon the nexus of visibility and violence in the context of environmental spaces discussed by Rob Nixon (2011), this research demonstrates how Tarar’s works challenge representational bias against the visibility of indigenous communities and shows slow violence inflicted upon them, thereby mitigating the detrimental effects of centuries of marginalization. To illustrate this argument, I have chosen two novels by Mustansar Hussain Tarar, Sorrows of Sarasvati originally published as Bahao, and Love in the Shade of Death originally published as Qurbat e Marg Mein Muhabbat. Through these works, Tarar traverses both temporally (from the Indus Valley civilization to the present time) and spatially (from Sarasvati to Sindhu), thereby reprobating the current debates of belonging, reimagining the past and present of the Indus Valley through an indigenous lens, and reclaiming visibility for indigenous people within literary, cultural, and environmental spaces in Pakistan. This study contributes to the ongoing eco-critical debates by highlighting the significance of indigenous literary narratives in imagining alternative spatialities. Conflict of interest: The author has declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
The Development of Nominal Synsets for the Saraiki Language: A Corpus-based Analysis
This paper focuses on developing nominal synsets for the Saraiki language (SL), a lesser-studied language spoken in Pakistan. Nominal synsets are groups of nouns that share semantic characteristics and are crucial for natural language processing tasks such as information retrieval, machine translation, and text classification. The research aims to create Saraiki Nominal Synsets (SNS) using the Gurumukhi Punjabi WordNet. The study employs a hybrid approach, combining merge and expansion techniques for analysis and gathers data from PDF textbooks, online sources, and the Saraiki Wikimedia incubator. The collected data is limited to texts published between 2000 and 2019, and manually tagged using Antconc 3.4.4.0 wordlist due to the unavailability of a tagger for the Saraiki Language. The study builds a 2.2 million Saraiki word corpus and a list of 750 nouns, then categorizes and semantically organizes the Saraiki Nominal Synsets based on the list of Saraiki nouns. To identify and classify nouns in SL based on their semantic properties, a corpus-based approach is utilized, and nominal synsets are constructed using a combination of manual and automatic methods. Evaluating the quality of the synsets involves comparing them to existing lexical resources and conducting a semantic similarity analysis. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach in capturing semantic relations among nouns in SL and producing synsets useful for various NLP applications. Overall, this study contributes to the development of linguistic resources for lesser-studied languages and provides valuable support for researchers and developers working on natural language processing tasks involving SL. Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest related to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article, and that the data presented have not been fabricated or falsified. Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant or financial support from public, commercial, or not-for profit funding agencies. Participant Consent: The authors confirm that Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and confidentiality was duly maintained. Data Fabrication/Falsification Statement: The authors declare that no data have been fabricated, falsified, or manipulated in this study. Copyright: Copyright (c) 2025 Madiya Asgher & Musarrat Azher
Indigeneity and Resistance in Zubair Ahmad’s Grieving for Pigeons
This article explores how short stories in Zubair Ahmad’s collection Grieving for Pigeons (2022) manipulate the narrative of cultural memory to project the intricate realities of the postcolonial Pakistani Punjab. These stories set in Lahore foreground the rich memories of pure culture and the partition of Punjab, contribute to the empowerment of Punjabi language, and depiction of cultural and historical heritage of Lahore. Moreover, significantly, these short stories also showcase a postcolonial resistance. Drawing upon concepts of Mieke Bal on cultural memory and Aleida Assman’s “remembering forward”, this research highlights how Ahmad’s stories (2023) succeed in excavating the transformation and reformation of cultures by reinterpreting understanding of the past and, thus, put forward a “remembering forward”. These stories, originally written in Punjabi and translated into English by Anne Murphy, situate culture of the past in the future to come, by influencing people to embrace their culture, enabling it to adapt to new circumstances and achieve an elevated position where it becomes resistant against colonial exercise. I argue that cultural memory, impacting the identities of individuals, grows to a point of resistance which I term as postcolonial resistive memory. This postcolonial resistive memory produces the Affect to emphasize the authenticity of the shared past and ideological resistance in the masses. This memory also has the potential to maintain indigeneity, reinscribe the cultural past, and revolutionize futuristic ideals. Conflict of interest: The author has declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Decoloniality, Indigenous Resistance, and Environmental Justice in Mother Forest: The Unfinished Story of C.K Janu
This study explores the connection between indigenous resistance, decoloniality and environmental justice through Mother Forest: An Unfinished Story of C.K. Janu. The fight for land rights issues by the Adivasi community started in India right after Independence. This controversial and sensitive realm, worsened initially by the British and sustained by successive governments through Forest Policies, requires critical examination. Resistance voices were always raised against such inhumane deeds of expropriation. The inseparability of land from their existence reinforced their struggle to be rooted in indigenous ontologies. Resistance battles were against the governmental bodies that stripped them of their autonomy, sovereignty, and self-determination. They were able to question bigger structures with colonial origins, highlighting the colonial nature of contemporary forest policies. Indigenous Adivasi resistance struggles, thereby, turn out to be decolonial in nature, as they contest colonial ideas that persist today. Mother Forest: An Unfinished Story of C.K. Janu, is one such tale of indigenous insurgence against unjust land expropriation. Examining the text from a decolonial perspective unveils the potential of indigenous uprisings to question bigger structures of injustice. Conflict of interest: The author has declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Slamming Narratives: A Critical Analysis of Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan’s Slam Poetry
Some popular literary feminist discourses have reduced Muslim woman’s identity to a homogenous monolithic entity devoid of her subjectivity and agency. Resultantly, Muslim women seem to be reduced to a stereotypical image of an oriental, marginalized entity, as these narratives are often employed to rationalize the violence in the third world. Over the years, slam poetry has become a popular medium of counterdiscourse against such problematic framing of Muslim women. This paper examines the slam poetry of Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan as a site of resistance against monolithic representations of Muslim women in both Western and cultural narratives. Situating her work within the post-9/11 socio-political context, the analysis draws on postcolonial and Muslim feminist theories to explore how Manzoor-Khan reclaims narrative authority through performative verse. Through close readings of “This Is Not a Humanizing Poem”, “A Story for Ourselves This Time”, and “Funeral of the Authentic Muslim Woman”, this paper highlights her subversion of Orientalist tropes, patriarchal scripts, and Western expectations of relatability. Manzoor-Khan’s poetry resists frameworks of respectability and authenticity, offering instead a defiant, pluralistic vision of Muslim womanhood. By using the slam stage as a political and poetic platform, she expands the possibilities for self-representation and collective storytelling. Conflict of Interest: The author declares that there are no conflicts of interest related to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article, and that the data presented have not been fabricated or falsified. Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant or financial support from public, commercial, or not-for profit funding agencies. Participant Consent: The author confirms that Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and confidentiality was duly maintained. Data Fabrication/Falsification Statement: The author declares that no data have been fabricated, falsified, or manipulated in this study. Copyright: Copyright (c) 2025 Marya Gul
In a novel historical context, as in the case of a revolution, the weight of history tends to be light on the generations that are there at the onset; they may be called “the inaugural generations”. On the other hand, it tends to be heavy on the generations that follow; let us call them “the after generations”. These two types of generations correspond to two different conceptions of the past, respectively: the past as a mission or a task, and the past as a treasure or a trophy. For the inaugural generations, the past is open and unfinished; for the after generations, it is closed and accomplished. The relative prevalence of these two types of generations determines the relative weight of history. History is as much about the past as it is about the present. The present is nothing more than the past in the process of presenting itself to us. Modern Eurocentric view of the world led to a global separation between two bodies of people: those who do not want to remember and those who cannot afford to forget. The latter are the people whose past and present was violently interrupted by Western domination. In consonance with the epistemologies of the South, this paper is written from the perspective of the people who cannot afford to forget. Conflict of interest: The author has declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Copyright (c) 2024 NUML journal of critical inquiry
The Individual and the Political are ONE: A Parallactical Reading of Milan Kundera’s The Joke
Milan Kundera believes that science and reason understand what we call ‘being’ through the binarism of subject/object and, in the process, have reduced the world into pure instrumentality. To him, novel is the genre that strives to explore ‘being’ beyond this binarism. His fiction investigates different modes of being like the personal and the political, body and soul, and the particular and the universal. This article analyses the antagonism of the personal and the political in his novel The Joke using Slavoj Zizek’s idea of parallax view. Parallax is the change of the position of the observed with the change in the position of the observer. Zizek applies this concept on the social and political field to prove that these two antagonistic positions might seem two but, actually, are ONE. Zizek has used Hegelian/Marxist theoretical framework to prove this ONENESS. The article, using Zizekian insight, argues that the perceived difference between the personal and the political is parallactical and both are, in fact, ONE. But this ONENESS should not be understood as an imposition or coercion but a necessary condition for the social field to function. Moreover, the article posits that the one-sidedness on the part of the individual when it comes to antagonistic modes of being, gives birth to extremist positions that ought to be avoided. A Parallactical reading of the selected text offers a critique of social and political polarization that has gripped the world in recent decades. Conflict of interest: The author has declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Native American Voices: Decolonial Perspectives on Selected Texts of Alexie and Momaday
This paper explores the Native American voices through a decolonial reading of a range of selected texts of Sherman Alexie and Navarre S. Momaday. The aim is to understand indigenous culture as a prototype for retrieving the lost identity of American Indians. The decolonization of mind is realized through cultural resistance and counter-discourse that articulates the liminal experiences of the marginalized and the ostracized. Therefore, the literary representation of peripheral voices not only defies the dominant voice but also creates new avenues for cross-cultural communication with the mainstream discourse. This study employs the dialogic approach of Greg Sarris and Louis Owens as theoretical support for analysing the selected texts. The slippery frontier position of American Indians is not separatist but conversational that subverts stereotypes and, simultaneously, acknowledges difference. This essay principally explores how cross-reading Native American subversive texts can serve as a tool for cross-cultural communication. The indigenous writers with their lost identity (due to their living on reservations) write passionately about their past, traditions, and customs to make their voice heard in the mainstream discourse for their survival. This paper, therefore, proposes that the gap between Natives and Euro-Americans may be bridged through literary resistance for reconciliation instead of creating antagonism between them. Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Leaping with Duende: Triangulating Dionysian Aesthetic and Spanish Surrealism in the Selected Poems of Federico Garcia Lorca
This paper explores selected poems from Federico Garcia Lorca's two poetry volumes, A Poet in New York and Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias, from the perspective of his poetic thesis expounded in the lecture titled Theory and Play of Duende. The available scholarship on Lorca fundamentally focuses on the socio-politico-cultural undertones in his poetry. By bringing a fresh perspective to his poetry through the technique of Duende, this research challenges pre-existing notions popular in the available critical scholarship. A robust creative force that artists’ work exudes without their control on it, Duende leaves a trance-like effect on the spectators/audience (and readers in case of poetry). Understood by many cultural critics and writers as an artistic inspiration deeply rooted in Spanish soil, Duende has long been riddled with mystical abstractions and subject to scholarly misconceptions. The current study makes it accessible through Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of Dionysian Aesthetic from his book Birth of Tragedy. Inspired by the Greek god Dionysus that stands for orgiastic energies, dance, and transgression, Dionysian Aesthetic is the manifestation of creative energies in art. This investigation also employs a Spanish concept called “Leaping” that bridges the gap between Duende and Dionysian Aesthetic, as this paper illustrates by reading Lorca's selected poems. Having its origin in Spanish poetry, Leaping is a technique characterized by associative jumps from subject matter to the unconscious mind keeping in perspective the emotions emanating from the poem. This essay triangulates Duende and Dionysian Aesthetic as theoretical props with Leaping technique in order to analyse Lorca’s poetry, and this is how it intervenes in contemporary scholarship on Lorca. Conflict of interest: The author has declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Consilience Chronicle A Big-History Perspective on Ejaz Rahim’s Garden of Secrets Revisited
This research analyses Ejaz Rahim’s historiographical epic poem Garden of Secrets Revisited (2020) to explore the synergy between the overarching concept of “Big History” (regarded as good knowledge) and the integrative nature of “Consilience.” Building on the idea of William H. McNeil, David Christian further expostulates the concept of “big history” in his essay “What is Big History?” where he draws on and elaborates the term “consilience” coined by E.O. Wilson, who initially envisioned it as “a return to the goal of a unified understanding of reality.” The in-depth analysis of Rahim’s epic seeks parallels between Christian’s idea of big history by using the consilience of multiple disciplines of knowledge to understand the common themes that shape the world. Marnie Hughes-Warrington’s deliberations on the concept of philosophical and universal history in poetic form, expressed in her book History as Wonder (2019), are triangulated with the ideas of Christian and Jacques Derrida to pursue the argument through a bricolage of theoretical positions. This paper finally develops the thesis that the concept of consilience underpins the methodology of long history by emphasizing an interdisciplinary approach to human history. A critical study of Garden of Secrets Revisited, therefore, provides a nuanced understanding of the ethical implications of the experience of reading big history along with an engagement with Derrida’s propositions in Specters of Marx (1994), where he regards the experience of history as an ethical understanding of things. The study intervenes critical scholarship on the strength of its argument that historiographical poetry as a powerful and transformative sub-genre has the potential to reconnect history, ranging from humanities to natural sciences, with a universalist vision underlying the concept of big history that may help reach the objective historical truth. Conflict of interest: The author has declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Navigating Space, Place, and Society: A GeoHumanities Perspective on Transgression in Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand
This research explores the social dynamics of space in Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand (2021), originally published as Ret Samadhi, and translated into English by Daisy Rockwell. Tomb of Sand revolves around Ma, an eighty year old woman, who rises from a deep trance as new and develops a taste for transgression. The objective of this research essay is to evaluate the social implications of animation of places like doors, thresholds, boundaries, and walls in the novel, and to analyse the role of spatial dimension in the transgressive activities of characters. The research is significant in that it highlights the treatment of space as a physical entity that has a cognition of its own. The paper argues that the places in the novel are alive due to their social soul, and they put forth the ideologies and thoughts of the prominent actors who inhabit them. Places, therefore, become indicators of characters’ transgression since they represent the social expectations with regards to gender, age or class. For instance, the door of Bade’s home (in the text under scrutiny) “knows that it must remain open” as he has a responsibility towards every social class as a civil servant. However, the case is different for Beti whose departure from Bade’s home is viewed as a sign of transgression. This research employs the concept of place by Tim Cresswell in his book In Place/ Out of Place: Geography, Ideology and transgression (1996). Appropriating the tools of interpretive phenomenological analysis of the text, the research contributes to the interdisciplinary domain of GeoHumanities. Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Commodifying Gender: A MatFem Perspective on "I Am For Sale, Who Will Buy Me?"
This research investigates the commodification of women in Afghanistan through an in-depth analysis of the anonymous Afghani-authored short story, “I Am For Sale, Who Will Buy Me” (2010). Employing a Materialist Feminist lens and drawing upon Silvia Federici's theoretical framework in Caliban and the Witch (2004), the study examines the influence of religious doctrines on women's social and economic status, culminating in their marginalization. The analysis dissects the exploitation of gender roles, objectification of female bodies, and the commodification of Afghan women, revealing the intricate interplay between patriarchal systems, religious ideologies, and gender disparity. Additionally, the study explores historical and contemporary challenges faced by Afghan women, encompassing barriers to education, economic opportunities, and social integration. Emphasizing the necessity for comprehensive approaches, this research advocates transformative change and gender justice, stressing its urgency. Positioned within the broader discourse on women's struggles, this study aims to contribute an understanding of women’s oppression with a primary focus on fostering agency and societal transformation for Afghan women.
The Womb of a Lesser Woman: Indian Anglophone Fiction and the Politics of Biotechnological Othering
Our paper investigates the fictional representations of ‘biotechnological othering’ and biological precarity as experienced by underprivileged Indian women with particular emphasis on the commodification of their wombs. Foregrounding the exploitation of their reproductive rights via surrogacy at the hands of the glocal capitalist elite, we rout our argument through the representational practices of The House of Hidden Mothers by Meera Syal and Origins of Love by Kishwar Desai to explore the disavowal of the reproductive rights of socio-economically vulnerable Indian women and the re-perpetuation of capitalist modes of inferiorization that target them. Contesting the egalitarian tilt of posthuman discourses, our main contention is that the biotechnological commodification of the wombs of indigent women does not merely confine them within structural inequalities, it also ensures that they remain confined within a biological precarity. Taking theoretical support from pertinent voices in the field including Deepika Bahri, Laura Harrison, Anureet Lotay, Katerina Kolarova and Eva-Sabine Zehelein, we unpick the multi-dimensional ramifications of biotechnological othering depicted in these novels to foreground the threat of biological precarity embedded within transnational surrogacy and the continuation of the dehumanization of Women of Colour in today’s world.
Tracing Death as a Political Instrument: A Study of Osama Alomar’s Selected Collections of Flash Fiction
This research article analyzes two collections of flash fiction including Fullblood Arabian (2014) and The Teeth of the Comb and Other Stories (2017) written by Osama Alomar, a Syrian refugee author. Guided by the theoretical framework of necropolitics as proposed by Achille Mbembe, this article investigates the constant presence of death and its multifaceted role in the wake of the Syrian civil war as portrayed in Alomar’s selected collections of flash fiction. The article attempts to study how death becomes an instrument in the civil war, widely used, manipulated, and exploited by various actors during the conflict-ridden period, each employing it differently. Although the selected collections of flash fiction demonstrate that death takes on many forms and performs multiple functions in the backdrop of the Syrian civil war, this research article narrows its scope to the analysis of how death is used as a political pawn and a political statement. At the outset of this research, it is postulated that the ruling Syrian regime transforms death and its fear into an instrument to intimidate and subdue Syrian civilian characters, thereby downplaying death as merely a political pawn. On the contrary, death also emerges as a political statement of the Syrian civilian characters as they begin to embrace death as a form of political activism to bring about social and political change in Syria. Invoking Catherine Belsey’s textual analysis method, some flash fiction stories from the selected collections are analyzed to study how the ruling Syrian regime and civilian characters reconfigure death in the wake of the Syrian civil war.
Tracing Verticality: A Critical Study of Island of a Thousand Mirrors
This paper investigates the (de)construction of binaries vis-à-vis the verticality of women in domestic and epistemic domains in Nayomi Munaweera’s Island of a Thousand Mirrors. In doing so, the study employs Greeta Gaard’s concept of naturalization of women and feminization of nature which refer to the process of using binaries as a means to ensure that women remain on a horizontal position in the vertically moving structure of power. Being in a horizontal position, both women and nature are not powerful. Through this theoretical lens, this study explores the reasons of horizontality by investigating the patriarchal thoughts of society that categorize women as aquatic, domestic and wild animals through the use of animalistic language to show their restricted movement. The animalization reflects the subjugation of women in the hands of capitalist man. The study also focuses on feminization of nature which is feminized because of its caring and reproductive attributes. These shared attributes allow patriarchal ideologies to dominate women and nature through oppressive strategies. The discussion on animalization and naturalization underscores the constraints imposed on women and their mobility within sociocultural context. Furthermore, this paper takes into consideration the traumatic experiences, sufferings and exploitation of rape victims and highlights how female characters break the societal sanctions, and resurface in order to move vertically while deconstructing the binaries of male-female, Sinhala-Tamil, and human-nonhuman. The deconstruction of binaries creates an inclusive society without discrimination of the oppressed and the privileged. It also highlights that we need to treat all living creatures equally with compassion. I use Catherine Belsey’s method of textual analysis in order to analyze the selected text.
Identification of Ideational Grammatical Metaphor in Saraiki Language and its Deployment in Different Registers of Saraiki and English: A Contrastive Study
Grammatical Metaphor refers to a set of lexico-grammatical choices offered by a language to create formality of expression and pithiness. Firstly, this linguistic feature was discussed by Halliday in 1985 who classified one of its types -the Ideational Grammatical Metaphor (IGM) into 13 types and regarded it as a scientific or academic discourse characteristic. The IGM phenomenon is now considered central in SFL (Systemic Functional Linguistics)-inspired language teaching and significant for translators in understanding the Metafunctional meanings across SL (Source Language) or TL (Target Language). However, this worthwhile linguistic phenomenon has been understudied in the context of Pakistani languages. This work studies the Saraiki language for its identification and deployment in different English and Saraiki registers. The study follows the SFL Grammatical Metaphor Theory of Halliday (1998; 1999; 2006) as a theoretical framework and Content analysis as a tool for the identification and categorization of IGMs. The text consisted of the undergraduate course books of Saraiki and English, and its sample is delimited to 15 excerpts from both languages. The research results in the identification of all thirteen IGM categories in Saraiki, as in English; while regarding the IGM deployment in different registers of both languages, it is observed that the extent of IGM usage in Saraiki written text (1.14 per Clause) is greater than in English (0.83 per Clause), and academic text of both languages is found to have more instances of Ideational Grammatical Metaphors than the works of fiction in these languages. The study contributes to the body of research on Grammatical Metaphor and SFL-inspired comparative studies on Indo-Aryan languages of the world.