Muted Voices Research Articles

Polyphony in Mary Borden’s selected poems

This study examines the manifestation of polyphony in the war poetry of Mary Borden, an American-British poet whose works capture the multiplicity of voices, both heard and silenced, during wartime. It contributes to modernist and postmodernist literary discourse by addressing the overlooked polyphonic dimensions of her poetry. The research focuses on three poems from her collection The Forbidden Zone (1929): At the Somme: The Song of Mud, The Hill, and Unidentified. The data collection and analysis involve close textual examination and application of postmodernist conceptions of polyphony by exploring various forms of polyphony, including dialogical relationships, levels of communication, diversity of voices, styles of discourse, and perspectives to explore how polyphony shapes the structure, unity, and meaning of Borden’s poetry. The findings reveal that Borden manifested polyphony as fragmentation, religious and mythological norms, muted voice, philosophical and religious voices, juxtaposition, vocalized icons, psychological and introspective polyphonic dialogs, and rhetorical voices. They are used to depict the horrors of war, capturing the suffering, anguish, and trauma experienced by soldiers through the fragmented and subjective perspectives of a nurse and an eyewitness. Her use of trench poetry accentuates the emotional turmoil of war, reflecting grief, despair, and anger through a polyphonic and fragmentary style. The research argues that the relationship of multiple voices within these poems reflects the brokenness of nations and the fragmented consciousness of war survivors. By engaging with polyphonic voicing, this analysis demonstrates how Borden’s poetry challenges readers to confront the incompleteness, indeterminacy, and enduring psychological impact of war.

Representations of Marginalized Populations in French WWI Literature: Muted Voices by Kathy Comfort (review)

Representations of Marginalized Populations in French WWI Literature: Muted Voices by Kathy Comfort (review)

An Analysis of voicelessness of the Indian women in water and God of small things

This study attempts to investigate Bapsi Sidhwa's Water and Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things through the lens of the Muted Group Theory. During the post- and pro-independence era, the subdominant groups were repressed and muted at the hands of the dominant groups. This discriminatory approach of Indian institutionalized society forced the muted groups to endure exploitation and suppression. This study highlights the factual truth, about the hypocritical and hierarchal Indian-subcontinent society and seeks to investigate the presence of the muted voices in Roy and Sidhwa's texts. This research examines muteness as a broader phenomenon, which is only not restricted to women in these selected texts. This research employs the Muted Group Theory to deal with the muted groups' muteness. Shirley Ardener and Edwin Ardener coined the term Muted Group Theory in 1975. The Muted Group Theory portrays that society is under the control of dominant groups. This research adopts the Thematic analysis, and themes play a significant role in organizing data. The study of the texts reveals that the Muted Group Theory allows Roy and Sidhwa's mute and marginalized characters to accept their significance and consider themselves valuable entities of Indian-subcontinent society.

Stigmatization Through Positioning and Interpretative Repertoires: The Case of Honor Crimes in the Arab World

ABSTRACT In the context of “honor” crimes in the Arab world, victims are subjected to stigmatization for deviating from societal norms by perpetrators seeking to assuage their culpability. Understudied is stigma as constructed by the Arab world’s general public to establish different positions in relation to these cruel acts. Taking a critical discursive psychological approach, this research analyzed comments posted on a YouTube video reporting the killing of the Saudi university student Nada Al-Qahtani. The study identified three positions through which the different individuals practiced stigmatization: 1) alignment with the perpetrator; 2) alignment with the victim; and 3) a partial alignment position involving avoidance to commit oneself to the crime. These positions were framed through an array of conflictual psychological, cultural, and religious interpretive repertoires. The study concluded that there is a shift in the discourse of HCs in the Arab world, where certain individuals position themselves and influence the positioning of others toward a more individualistic, self-centered, and autonomous approach for problem solving. It also suggested that social media platforms are a venue through which muted voices condemning such crimes should be promoted.

Higher education English language professors' conceptualisation of peace: A call for integrating critical peace practices into teaching and teacher education programmes

Higher education English language professors' conceptualisation of peace: A call for integrating critical peace practices into teaching and teacher education programmes

Hidden Dialogicality among Eritrean Refugees in the Civic Integration Process in The Netherlands

In the debate about the integration of refugees in European nation-states, several scholars have recently noted a so-called ‘agency paradox’ (Klaver et al., 2018), which draws a contrast between, on the one hand, the initiative and inventiveness of refugees during their flight and, on the other hand, an allegedly lethargic attitude upon arrival in a new country. In this paper, we will unpack this paradox in a critical analysis of civic integration in the Netherlands. We shall write ‘against integration’ (cf. Rytter, 2019) by recovering the muted voices of a group of Eritrean refugees whose future depends on the obligation to complete civic integration exams. Using Dialogical Self Theory (DST), we will demonstrate that a seemingly passive attitude among migrants must not be interpreted as a lack of agency. Instead, we will show that their agency is silenced and subordinated by the integration process, but that they are simultaneously involved in a hidden dialogue with the new society in order to negotiate a future in which their multiple identifications as both Eritrean and Dutch are recognized. By facilitating the recovery and recognition of the muted voices of Eritrean refugees, Dialogical Self Theory contributes to their empowerment.

The Muted Voice in Assia Djebar’s Children of the New World (1962)

Assia Djebar’s Children of the New World (1962) is an example of a novel that illustrates two different categories of Algerian female characters: daring and submissive. The present study, then, is an attempt to pinpoint the group of female characters who are aware of their inferiority compared to males but they cannot cast off the shackles of patriarchy. Their inaction is the result of their certainty that their voices will not be heard due to the colonial and patriarchal structures in their society. Therefore, this research will highlight these female characters’ silence. To reach the stated objective, the researcher will rely heavily on Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s perspective on the subaltern voices and their inability to speak. The main focus will be on male dominance as a reason of females’ submissive character. Résumé Les Enfants du Nouveau Monde (1962) d'Assia Djebar est un exemple de roman qui illustre deux catégories différentes de personnages féminins Algériens : audacieux et soumis. La présente étude tente donc d'identifier le groupe de personnages féminins qui est conscients de leur infériorité par rapport aux hommes mais qui ne peuvent pas se libérer du carcan du patriarcat. Leur inaction est le résultat de leur certitude que leurs voix ne seront pas entendues en raison des structures coloniales et patriarcales de leur société. Cette recherche mettra donc en lumière le silence de ces personnages féminins. Pour atteindre l'objectif annoncé, le chercheur s'appuiera fortement sur le point de vue de Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak sur les voix subalternes et leur incapacité à parler. L'accent sera mis sur la domination masculine comme raison du caractère soumis des femmes.

Two Wives and Ten Husbands: A Comparative Reading of The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and The Wife of Willesden’s Prologue

This paper juxtaposes two literary works, Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath’s Prologue in The Canterbury Tales (1386-1400) and Zadie Smith’s The Wife of Willesden’s Prologue in The Wife of Willesden (2021). Both women, one in the fourteenth century (Alisoun) and one in the twenty-first century (Alvita), say what they feel and follow any path that they choose. They hardly mind what others say about them. They decide their own mind and their own perspectives. They hold five husbands seamlessly: in the space of 40 years in the case of Alisoun, and over 50 years in the case of Alvita, adjusted to fit the modern difference in life expectancy. In presenting these two literary pieces, this paper examines the relish of reading about the assertive ladies of both worlds, who claim their lives to be theirs more than anyone else’s. What is conspicuous in this comparative reading is that Smith’s pastiche of Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath’s Prologue in the theatrical form brings to life the five voiceless husbands of Alisoun, whose distantly muted voices the audience and the reader are allowed to hear reverberating in Kiln Theatre in their aural imagination. Thus, this comparative reading brings out the voices of Alvita’s five husbands and their views of their shared wife. Moreover, the paper examines how Alisoun’s husbands see Alisoun, and imagines how Alisoun would have been looked at when the reader of The Canterbury Tales was left with only Alisoun’s view of herself.

Homines Sacri in Contemporary War Novels: A Comparative Insider–Outsider Perspective

This paper examines the status of Iraqis in Sinan Antoon’s The Corpse Washer (2013) and Kevin Powers’ The Yellow Birds (2013) within the circumstances of war in Iraq and addresses the repercussions of the American-led 2003 war on Iraq from an insider–outsider perspective, that is, Antoon’s portrayal of his native land, Iraq, vis-à-vis that of Powers, an American who served in Iraq as a machine gunner for the US Army. This paper draws on Derek Gregory’s conception of homo sacer, which is initially derived from Agamben’s 1998 work. Homines sacri (singular: homo sacer), which emerge when the law suspends itself, are placed outside the law and can be abused and/or killed advertently. The insider–outsider perspectives in the aforementioned novels converge in the way that Iraqi civilians are given the ‘bare life’ status. The fragility and vulnerability of Iraqis in the face of American intervention can be seen both in life and death as the struggles of the living in performing the necessary Muslim ritual of cleansing and burying the deceased. However, the insider’s perspective in Antoon’s novel emphasizes the muted voices of the homines sacri.

Muted Voices: The Underrepresentation of Women in COVID-19 News in Portugal

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Portuguese media seemed to contribute to the symbolic annihilation of women. In spite of the fact that women play leading political roles as the Minister of Health and the Directorate-General of Health, women were almost mute in the COVID-19 news that was published in the Portuguese daily national press. In a sample of more than 6000 news sources, women account for less than 20% of them. Their lack of visibility in the news deepens the existing asymmetries of gender and amplifies the glass ceiling. The aim of this study was to analyze the media coverage of COVID-19 through a content analysis of the news that was published in two Portuguese daily newspapers with different editorial lines. Our period of analysis corresponds to the emergency-state periods (18 March to 2 May 2020; 9 November to 23 December 2020; 15 January to 28 February 2021).

Exile Testimonio in Kim Scott’s Benang from the Heart

Literature is said to be culture-specific production. Muted voices are gaining momentum in academia, and they blur the line between personal and political. Exile Testimonio, as a theoretical discourse, foregrounds the plight of the natives in their homeland. Academia is of the misconception that Exile and Testimonio are irreconcilable binaries, whereas this research article highlights that both are of the same spectres. Power Structures play a rampant discourse in the life of the natives. The supreme irony is that everything is being state-sponsored. Subversion and Containment play a vital role in the theoretical discourse of Exile Testimonio. This Research Article showcases the hidden agonies of the Australian Citizens in their homeland. Australia as a Nation underwent so many invasions, and movements like Jindyworabox and stolen generation are essential in the literary discourse of Australian history and the history of Australia. Kim Scott as a writer of Exile Testimonio, encounters the hidden histories and how their ancestral roots are being shaken owing to political monopolisation. The painful fact is that Kim Scott, who hails from Nyoongar Ancestry, underwent traumatic emancipation when his people's identity underwent a drastic change. The beauty of Exile Testimonio as a theoretical discourse is that the writers become a critic and visionary in foregrounding the unheard truths. The Researchers here will examine the two literary works of Kim Scott, namely Benang.In these works, the hidden facets of history and also in the name of cultural up-gradation, inevitable brutalities had happened. This evidence forms the crux of Exile Testimonio. Overall, this Research Article emphasises making the unknown known by having the element of Exile Testimonio as a justifiable tool.

Appalachian Queer Film Festival (AQFF)

Appalachian Queer Film Festival (AQFF)

The Voice of Silence: A Study of the Act of Transportation of the Muted Voices

The Voice of Silence: A Study of the Act of Transportation of the Muted Voices

Women as muted voices and silenced subalterns in Razinat Mohammed’s A Love Like a Woman’s and Other Stories

Women, especially in northern Nigeria have become the silenced “subalterns” due to misconceptions about the Islamic religion especially on issues of polygamy, domestic violence, segregation, exploitation, dehumanization and various types of abuses meted on them. This paper seeks to examine how female characters are depicted in Razinat T. Mohammed’s A Love like a Woman’s and Other Stories and the various mechanisms that have situated them into the position of the silenced subalterns. Anchoring on Gayatri Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak” the paper argues that women in A Love like a Woman’s and Other Stories are doubly marginalized and are constantly silenced by men due to the northern tradition and the misinterpretation of the Islamic religion. This paper posits that women are continually held in a vicious cycle: from birth through death, they are given defined roles. More so, the paper surmises that at adolescence, women in Northern Nigeria are forced into early marriages, bastardized under polygamy, politically dehumanized and sabotaged economically in a male-dominated society.

「깃털베개」 와 〈내가 죽던 날〉에 나타나는 ‘광야’와 페미니스트 비평

Elain Showalter calls the “wilderness,” a muted place outside the dominant boundary, and a place not literally represented and thus forbidden to men. This present work conducts a comparative study of the two works that deal with the “wilderness”: a short story “The Feather Pillow” (El almohadón de plumas, 1917) by an Uruguayan male author Horacio Quiroga and a film The Day I Died (2020) by a Korean female director Jiwan Park. This study focuses on the reaction of female protagonists in these two works, who choose to die. This study examines differences between men’s and women’s writing in representing this reaction. In “The Feather Pillow” the male author, since he does not know the “wilderness,” explains the death of the female protagonist with the invasion of a fantastic being (a parasite which does not exist in the real world). On the contrary, in The Day I Died the women director visualizes the “wilderness” to the audience since she knows it. This study also applies a feminist criticism to the men’s writing and a gynocriticism to the women’s. Eventually, this study enables us to re-listen the muted voice of the woman in “The Feather Pillow.”

Toward a More Just Nonprofit Sector: Leveraging a Critical Approach to Disrupt and Dismantle White Masculine Space

This article examines the utility of deploying a critical framework–grounded in critical race theory (CRT), feminist theory, and intersectionality–in nonprofit and voluntary studies. We argue that these theoretical perspectives, which emphasize lived experience and sense-making, while simultaneously situating these experiences within broader socio-political and historical contexts, offer a useful analytic lens for centering the narratives and experiences of marginalized or muted voices, which serve to disrupt and dismantle the hegemony of Whiteness and masculinity in nonprofit spaces.

Muted Voices of the Marginalized: a Peek into Asuran and Kammatipaadam

Muted Voices of the Marginalized: a Peek into Asuran and Kammatipaadam

Ace in the hole: media panics, muted voices, and anxieties of consumption in the reception of Joker

ABSTRACT This essay contrasts components of the reception of Joker: the media panic which accompanied its release, the muted reception following its theatrical and home-viewing releases, and its anxious reception contexts. These processes showcase how Joker’s reception became ‘normalized’, neutered and made to fit into categories of mediated debate dictated by standards of public discourse from which many potential participants felt shut out – or, not unlike Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) in the film, relegated to ‘Late Late Show’ fall guy appearances.

Muted Voices of the New Testament: Readings in the Catholic Epistles and Hebrews ed. by K. M. Hockey, M. N. Pierce and F. Watson

Muted Voices of the New Testament: Readings in the Catholic Epistles and Hebrews ed. by K. M. Hockey, M. N. Pierce and F. Watson

"A Jew without Jewishness": Muted Voices Unbound in Philip Roth's The Counterlife

"A Jew without Jewishness": Muted Voices Unbound in Philip Roth's The Counterlife