Narrating 1Malaysia: nationalism and patriotism in Malaysian literature written in English

Malaysian literature in English in the 1960s was a product of early Malaysian writers’ endeavour to spearhead a literary tradition of writings that promoted a national identity amongst the diverse races living the country. This task, however, was generally undertaken by those who were more inclined to write about the issues and interests of their own communities rather than those of others living in the country. In the last twenty years, however, there have emerged a number of fictional writings that depict not only the country’s multiracial context but also imply the existence of a sense of national consciousness and patriotic feelings amongst Malaysians. These writings, this paper suggests, veer away from the communal interest of individual ethnic groups by exploring interracial relationships, returning to historical junctures, assessing the effect of globalization and, finally, conjuring alternative cultural paradigms with the single aim of unifying Malaysians and embedding them with the nationalistic spirit of 1Malaysia

"Straying imagination, righteous intuition": the English romantic movement and philosophy of Muhammad Iqbal (1873-1938)

Although the philosophy of Muhammad Iqbal is highly original, it reflects a strong and pervading presence of Romanticism. Correspondingly, literary critics have drawn similarities between the English Romantics and Iqbal on a number of thematic concerns, in particular, their appreciation for nature. There is, however, a notable absence of discussions on the role that imagination in the two philosophies. This paper aims to discuss the ways in which Iqbal extends the primary position given by the English Romantics to imagination in order to assert the importance of intuition. In doing so, the Romantic ideal of the heroic person as one who has unattainable wants brought about by his imagination, is transformed in Iqbal’s poetry into an individual’s struggle to fulfill his almost impossible desire to have an intuitive closeness to and knowledge of Allah (s.w.t) and the resulting intensity of love that the narrator has for his Creator

From Pasha to Cleopatra and Vashti: the Oriental Other in Charlotte Brontë’s Villette

Critics have argued that Jane’s engagement with the Orient in Jane Eyre (1847) is grounded in the vocabulary of her role as liberator and the discourse of female slavery and male domination as represented by the use of the harem metaphor in the text. Yet little is said about how this same metaphor exposes in Villette (1853) the ambivalence inherent in the construction of a Western character that has been invaded by the so-called menacing influences of the Orient. In the novel, the Oriental familial institution of the harem is figuratively and literally seen as a contaminant that poses a threat to a racial and gendered colonial British character. It suggests that this contamination destabilizes this character, blurring the line that divides both East and West, fantasy and reality, and argues that the Oriental institution of the harem, the artistic representations of women as illustrated by the Orientalist portrait of Cleopatra and the actress playing Vashti and, finally, M. Paul, represent the different ways in which this character is gendered and orientalized

From Pasha to Cleopatra and Vashti: the oriental other in Charlotte Brontë’s Villette

Critics have argued that Jane’s engagement with the Orient in Jane Eyre (1847) is grounded in the vocabulary of her role as liberator and the discourse of female slavery and male domination as represented by the use of the harem metaphor in the text. Yet little is said about how this same metaphor exposes in Villette (1853) the ambivalence inherent in the construction of a Western character that has been invaded by the so-called menacing influences of the Orient. In the novel, the Oriental familial institution of the harem is figuratively and literally seen as a contaminant that poses a threat to a racial and gendered colonial British character. It suggests that this contamination destabilizes this character, blurring the line that divides both East and West, fantasy and reality, and argues that the Oriental institution of the harem, the artistic representations of women as illustrated by the Orientalist portrait of Cleopatra and the actress playing Vashti and, finally, M. Paul, represent the different ways in which this character is gendered and orientalized

"Narrating 1Malaysia": nationalism in Malaysian literature in English

Malaysian literature in English in the 1960s was a product of early Malaysian writers’ endeavour to spearhead a literary tradition of writings that promoted a national identity amongst the diverse races living the country. This task, however, was generally undertaken by those who were more inclined to write about the issues and interests of their own communities rather than those of others living in the country. In the last twenty years, however, there have emerged a number of fictional writings that depict not only the country’s multiracial context but also imply the existence of a sense of national consciousness and patriotic feelings amongst Malaysians. These writings, this paper suggests, veer away from the communal interest of individual ethnic groups by exploring interracial relationships, returning to historical junctures, assessing the effect of globalization and, finally, conjuring alternative cultural paradigms with the single aim of unifying Malaysians and embedding them with the nationalistic spirit of 1Malaysia

The real in the magic: a study of magic realism in Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the sea of stories (1990)

While many studies have focused on Salman Rushdie’s use of magic realism in his highly-acclaimed novels, the way it is employed in his children’s fiction remains understudied. This paper, hence, attempts to fill in this gap by applying Anne Hegerfeldt’s (2005)’s theoretical framework on magic realism onto its reading of Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990). This framework relies on five techniques or features namely: a realist mode of writing to describe fantastic events and characters; a marginalized focaliser; subverted scientific and historical discourses; a supernatural reality; and, finally, a literal manifestation of a figurative expression. This paper also suggests that Rushdie employs magic realism to undermine the realist narrative mode as well as scientific and historical discourses in order to present an alternative worldview that places narrative knowledge, gathered from stories with magical characters and events, as a legitimate source of knowledge regarding the world

Complementary log-log with random effect model using Malaysian graduate employability data

The objective of this research is to investigate the relationship between hazard ratio or survival function of graduate employability and 8 explanatory variables. The 8 explanatory variables are as follows: gender, CGPA, geographic region, English language proficiency, area of study, curriculum satisfaction, carrier guidance services satisfaction and monthly family income. In order to study a survival function of graduate employability, we have developed a sequence of binary numbers (employed (1) or unemployed (0)) at a particular time of being employed among first degree graduate students (N=2228). The data is based on a survival study data, which traces the survival function of graduate students within 12 months of window opportunity. We have used the complementary log-log model in various forms. For the simple complementary log-log model, the results showed that the hazard risk with baseline hazard ratio relate to graduates' gender, CGPA, satisfaction with career guidance, the geographic region from which they came from, their English performance, their area of study and their family income. As for subject-specific (random effects), the hazard ratio also relates to the abovementioned variable