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Culture is one of the crucial factors behind the formation and articulation of identities. Overcoming the stereotype of 'base-superstructure' binary the neo-Marxists rightly pointed out the role of culture both as a reflection of the economic base as well as the potential arena of reproducing the ruling economic base through a daily basis meticulous mechanism known as hegemony. In order to challenge the ruling hegemony a counter cultural process is required, which encompasses all the dissenting and marginal voices prevailing in the society. This paper is going to deal with such a counter cultural attempt, which is commonly known as the progressive cultural movement to challenge the ruling hegemony in the context of Bengali literature and culture. The progressive cultural movement in Bengal started as a world-wide response to the war-ridden international political order at that time, when the fascist aggression was in its peak and the scope of democracy was threatened globally. The leading intellectuals like Henry Barbusse and Romain Rolland in Europe started to organize all the intellectuals under a broader democratic and progressive organizational umbrella against destruction of war. Thus, the League against War and Fascism was established and most notably Rabindranath Tagore became its President. Inspired from this ideological aura some of the Indian intellectuals in Britain founded an organization named All India Progressive Writers Association (AIPWA), which gradually expanded its root all over India including Bengal. In Bengal, where the cultural politics was already established in the wake of Swadeshi movement, the new ideological-cultural programme was well accepted among its intelligentsia. In this we context we have to keep in mind the role of the Communist Party in mobilizing the intellectuals, bringing them under a broader ideological platform, both in India as well as in other countries. The movement was committed towards the motto of bringing back people into the literature and culture. The voice of ...

Serious Play: Formal Innovation and Politics in French literature from the 1950s to the present investigates how 20th- and 21st-century French authors play with literary form as a means of engaging with contemporary history and politics. Authors like Georges Perec, Monique Wittig, and Jacques Jouet often treat the practice of writing like a game with fixed rules, imposing constraints on when, where, or how they write. They play with literary form by eliminating letters and pronouns; by using only certain genders, or by writing in specific times and spaces. While such alterations of the French language may appear strange or even trivial, by experimenting with new language systems, these authors probe into how political subjects—both individual and collective—are formed in language. The meticulous way in which they approach form challenges unspoken assumptions about which cultural practices are granted political authority and by whom. This investigation is grounded in specific historical circumstances: the student worker-strike of May '68 and the Algerian War, the rise of and competition between early feminist collectives, and the failure of communism and the rise of the right-wing extremism in 21st-century France. Analysis of pronominal subjects in Perec and Wittig shows how they interrogate power struggles during May '68; both authors imagine shared textual production as the bedrock of new political communities. Moving into the 21st century, Jouet stages various "bad" communists, in order to pay tribute to dying communist communities and to unpack the ongoing legacy of communism's collapse. In the end, formal play offers an antidote to 20th- and 21st-century crises of community by creating virtual communities through the text itself.

One of the foremost French intellectuals of the post-war era, Bourdieu has become a standard point of reference in the fields of anthropology, linguistics, art history, cultural studies, politics, and sociology, but his longstanding interest in literature has often been overlooked. This study explores the impact of literature on Bourdieu's intellectual itinerary, and how his literary understanding intersected with his sociological theory and thinking about cultural policy.

Discusses role of writers and poets such as George Eliot, Rebecca West, Vera Brittain, and Anna Akhmatova, and their works, on political, international, intercultural, interreligious, and race relations; 11 articles and 10 poems.