Toward a Future of Ethical Cohabitation: The Precariousness of Life and Ethics in Arundhati Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

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Title:	Toward a Future of Ethical Cohabitation: The Precariousness of Life and Ethics in Arundhati Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
Authors:	Deng, Chiou-Rung
Date:	2024-07
Issue Date:	2024-09-20 12:09:42 (UTC+8)
Abstract:	This research paper seeks to engage with Judith Butler's discourse on precarity, vulnerability, precariousness, and the ethics of cohabitation in reading the novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017), written by the contemporary Indian woman writer Arundhati Roy. In her novel, Roy presents various precarious conditions in which minority groups are rendered subject to vulnerability, including the homeless, the poor, the Muslim minority, transgender people, the lowest caste, etc.; meanwhile, a community of cohabitation is imagined on the basis of the shared precariousness in Roy's narrative. Since the September 11 attacks, Butler has been working on the idea of precarious life and the ethics of cohabitation, arguing that violence should lead to the recognition of human beings' shared precariousness and further to living together with others on the basis of ethics and justice. This research project intends to investigate the dialogue between Butler's discourse and Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, both focusing on precarious conditions caused by gender, class, religion, and politics. By applying Butler's notions to my reading of Roy's novel, this paper argues that in the face of precariousness, a future trajectory toward the ethics of cohabitation with otherness could be imagined.
Appears in Collections:	[Graduate Institute & Department of English] Proceeding

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