Bio
Dr. Ayanita Banerjee is a scholar affiliated with the University of Engineering and Management in India, focusing on diverse research areas including South Asian studies, philosophy, social sciences, education, cognitive neuroscience, and political science. She holds a Ph.D. in English and has contributed to academic discourse through research and peer review, emphasizing interdisciplinary approaches that span history, philosophy, and social identity studies.
Experience
University of Engineering & Management
2021 - 2022Editors Role
Reviewer
GJCST
2024 - PresentAffiliations
Calcutta University
Fellow
Member since 2023Grants and Awards
Fellowship Award
Calcutta University
Research
(Re)-defining Chitrangada- The Queer Journey from Tagore to Rituparno Ghosh
The third gender identity, in India, has always been disparaged by the heterosexuals. The survival of “third gender†can be traced in the rudimentary Vedic literatures of India, where, as per prakriti or nature, gender has been clearly divided into pums-prakriti or male, stri-prakriti or female, and tritiya-prakriti or the third sex. The third sex is considered as an intrinsic union of the male and female natures so intensely that they cannot be marked as male or female in the collective sense. The interaction of “gender†and “sex†creates a problem as both are frequently considered the same. The word “sex†denotes biological sex and “gender†as psychological behaviour and identity. The term prakriti or nature conversely implies both facets in concert as one intricately entwined and cohesive unit. Hence the “heterosexual matrix†— an ideal order between sex, gender, and sexuality generated during the modern era (Butler 1990), not only categorized gender borderlines, but promoted the gender order as being implicitly heterosexual.
Nature, Freedom and Pedagogy-A Comparative Analysis of Rousseau and Tagore
Naturalism, the philosophy of Nature which subordinates mind and spirit to matter denies belief in the Supernatural and the Spiritual. While Idealism idolizes the ‘Mind’ or the ‘Self’, Naturalism emphasizes ‘matter’ and the physical world. Unlike the Idealists’ claim substantiating that “God alone is the true agreement of concept [Begriff] and reality [Realitát]; all finite [endlichen] things involve some untruth [Unwahrheit], they have a concept and an existence [Existenz] which are incommensurableâ€1, the Naturalists say that the ultimate reality is ‘matter’ which manifests itself in the form of ‘Nature’. According to this philosophy ‘the material world’ or ‘the physical world’ or ‘Nature’ is the only real world that can be comprehended through human senses and unfurled through scientific investigations. ‘Atom’, ‘Empty’ space and ‘Motion’ are the three postulates on the basis of which the entire Nature and the phenomena of the Universe can be explained. As Ernest Hocking writes
