Purpose of the study: The paper discusses the impact of digital education on the health and well-being of students who have been taking online classes since the onset of COVID-19. The paper also investigates the authenticity of the media reports that have been reporting about the decline in students' health due to the extensive presence of screen time. Methodology: The study is primarily descriptive research with a qualitative and quantitative investigation of the narratives related to health issues such as impaired cognitive functions, eye problems, orthopaedic disorders, insomnia, depression, and anxiety. Google form as an online survey tool is used to collect data later compared with the media reports to conclude. Main Findings: The findings conclude that students' responses corroborate with the narratives of emergent pathological culture reported by news agencies like The Times of India and The Hindu. Application of the study: The present study will help sensitise the stakeholders of the society about the detrimental impact of online classes that might create ground for adopting immediate corrective measures for protecting the future of our nation. Novelty/ Originality of the study: The study's novelty lies in its approach to offer a comparative study of the media reports and the students' responses to cognize the severity of the evolving health issues amidst the pandemic.
Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Klara and the Sun (2021) philosophizes on how in the current technologically saturated culture, the gradual evolution of the empathetic humanoids has, on one hand, problematized our normative notions of cognitive and affective categories, and on the other, has triggered an order of emotional uncanniness due to our reliance on hyperreal real objects for receiving solace and companionship. The novel may be conceived to be a commentary on the emerging discourse in the domain of cognitive and emotional computing that aspires to transform the inner life and social relationships of the human community. The novelty of the paper lies in its ability to showcase how Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun (2021) creates a rupture in the existing research and literary narrative by critiquing the theoretical underpinnings of emotional computing that optimistically foresees a future where simulated empathetic minds will be able to decode the complexities of the human emotions. It discusses how literature turns into an apt tool to reflect on the limitations of the programmed machines to decode the elusiveness of the human mind that defies the one-to-one correlation between words, multiple connotations, and their underlying emotions. Through the lenses of the fictional narrative, the paper foregrounds how the concept of the social robot designed to offer empathy, care, and companionship turns into a failed project. The paper draws on critical perspectives from disposability theory, posthuman affect, and immaterial bodies to foreground the noncodified feature of affective experientialities that emerge as a result of the interface between humans and nonanimate beings.
This essay examines Kishwar Desai’s Origins of Love (2012) in order to foreground how the novel is complexly reflective of the biomedical technologies strategically deployed by medical practitioners and prospective parents for the purpose of reinforcing caste-based bionormative notion of family that artificial reproductive technology is assumed to have problematised. The essay also demonstrates how the use of bioenhancement facilities has led to the revival of neoliberal eugenics enmeshed with state-led biopolitics. The essay draws on the concept of renaturalisation discussed by Tamar Sharon in order to examine how the schizophrenic or deterritorialising potential of reproductive technology is reconfigured and domesticated by the medicolegal practitioners in order to reterritorialise the normative structures of kinship and family formation within a capitalist consumerist culture.
Digitalization, affordable smart gadgets, and social distancing have turned virtual communication into a lived phenomenon. However, we should be aware of the fact that the virtual communication process is entangled with positive and negative consequences. On the one hand, it has enabled people to develop a feeling of togetherness and belonging, and on the other, it is steeped in conflict and dispute due to the extensive use of emojis that are context-sensitive and are subjected to multiple interpretations. The problem of emojis connected with sexual connotations has not been studied in an online conversation parameter. Hence, the current study examines the sexual connotations that are embedded in the usage of non-facial emojis such as eggplant, cherry, etc., in virtual communication and analyses sexual connotations that are generated in closed group interactions. The methodology undertaken in this study is a quantitative experimental research method to collect data. Participants (N=64) will determine how certain context-sensitive emojis are perceived by them in closed group online conversations. Results suggest that non-facial emojis possess sexual connotations which are highly context-specific and used extensively in interpersonal conversations. In this way, this paper will prepare the ground to study more hidden sexual connotations in emojis.
The paper aims to explore Hanif Kureishi’s (2002) “The Body” and Kazuo Ishiguro’s (2005) Never Let Me Go in order to throw light on the bioethical issues related to ageing, biocitizenship, organ transplantation, wasted lives and disposable bodies by extending the discussion from a human to a dystopian posthuman world where affluent sections of society replenish their aged degenerating organic body by incorporating biomatter from non-citizens and clones. The paper draws on and extends Nikolas Rose and Carlos Novas’s concept of biocitizenship, Zygmunt Bauman’s notion of wasted lives, Giorgio Agamben’s explanation of bare life and Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection in the context of literary studies in order to analyze the socio-political status of the engineered lives who are classified as biomedical fodders.
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