Several prominent accounts of the end of epic attribute its demise to modernity. A society riven by contradictions cannot make epic poems. The incoherence of modernity baffles the grand aspirations of epic to tell the “tale of the tribe,” to compass an entire world and way of life in a single grand vision. That is one story of the end of epic in Western literature. The rise of natural philosophy, the disenchantment of the world and banishment of God to the gaps left by naturalistic accounts broke up the enchanted world that created epics, leaving in its wake elegiac mourning for the totality epic represented.

What is a good life? Scholars often attempt to answer this question by examining people’s ideals. Exemplified by Joel Robbins’ call of “the anthropology of the good,” anthropologists are encouraged to make ethnographic inquiries into qualities that are “imaginatively conceived” to be desirable and even “outstripped” the immediate realities (2013, 457). In other words, the scholarly examination of the “good life” has long been domesticated in the realm of thoughts and beliefs, insulated from that of the lived experiences.

The increasing prevalence of human-wildlife conflict (HWC) in India has become a critical environmental and social issue. As human populations expand and encroach on natural habitats, interactions between humans and wildlife have escalated, often resulting in tragic outcomes for both. Discourses surrounding HWC are often deeply anthropocentric, framing wildlife primarily as predators and emphasizing human losses, such as crop and livestock damage, typically tied to economic activity. This perspective predominantly highlights negative interactions, with scant attention given to positive encounters or the broader ecological and cultural benefits of coexistence.

Neoliberal Global Capitalism – Challenges for Postcolonial Studies
Call for Papers
Annual Conference of the German Association for Postcolonial Studies (GAPS)
29-31 May 2025, University of Bielefeld, Germany
Deadline for submissions: 15 December 2024

The Neutral is a peer-reviewed media studies journal based out of the Cinema Studies Institute at the University of Toronto. The Neutral is committed to a diversity of disciplinary approaches and media objects of study.

Decoding Lynching: Reading of African American and Dalit Literature

Note: Brill has shown interest in the concept of this project and will publish it in one of their series provided the contributions are positively assessed during the peer review process.

Call For Papers: Global Asexualities and Aromanticisms 

Co-edited by Yo-Ling Chen (Independent Scholar) and Ela Przybyło (Illinois State University)

Deadline for abstracts: September 30, 2024

Contact email: globalacearo(at)gmail(dot)com