Lab Activity: Gun Island

This blog is prepared as part of the Lab Activity on Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh, assigned by Dr. Dilip Barad Sir. The activity focuses on using digital tools and research skills to better understand the novel.

Tasks Included:

1. Upload all video resources from the “ResearchGate Flipped Learning Activity” to NotebookLM.

2. Create an infographic and slide deck from selected videos and reflect on whether they improved your understanding.

3. Generate one short AI-based video on a difficult topic and evaluate its usefulness.

4. Select a research topic using prompts from the video “Practical Skills for the Use of ICT in Research” (01:00:40–01:10:40) and share the outcome via blog link.

Select specific videos as source and generate infographic & Slide Deck on it. Post it on your blog. Also check if these infographics or slides help you understand the novel or not.

For this activity, I have chosen a video about the novel: 

Summary - 3 | Venice | Part 2 of Gun Island | Amitav Ghosh.

Based on this video, here is the infographic and slide deck:

Infographic

                                

Slide deck:

Learning Outcomes:

• Understand how the story shifts to Venice and why that setting matters to the novel’s themes.

• Recognise how the travels of the Gun Merchant legend connect past history with present-day movements.

• See Venice as a symbolic place where migration and exploitation are visible in the lives of modern migrant workers.

• Identify how Deen’s experiences in Venice change his view of the world, broadening his ethical awareness.

• Relate myth and lived reality, observing similarities between historic journeys and contemporary migrant crises.

• Appreciate how inequality, displacement, and resilience are portrayed through characters like Rafi and the migrant community.

• Recognise the novel’s emphasis on continuity between history and the present, showing that human mobility is persistent across time

3.Generate one short video on the video resource which you found difficult to understand. See if the AI-generated video helps you understand the topic or not.

For this Activity I have choose video titled: Part III - Historification of Myth and Mythification of History | Gun Island | Amitav Ghosh

Here is the original video:

Here is the video generated by Notebook LM:

Research Activity: Select the research topic on this novel – Gun Island.

Selected Research Topic:

Myth, Migration, and Climate Crisis in Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh

Prompt 1: Create a table showing each source with its publication dates, author credentials, and whether it is a primary source, secondary analysis, or opinion piece.

Source Title	Publication Date	Author Credentials	Source Type
'Gun Island' Is a Surreal Novel About Climate Change and Migration (Interview	September 10, 2019	JR Ramakrishnan: Graduate of SOAS and Columbia Journalism School; contributor to NYT Book Review	Primary Source (Direct interview with the author, Amitav Ghosh).
Gun Island: A Tale of Myth, Migration and Climate Change (SMART MOVES JOURNAL IJELLH)	September 2021	Ashna Francis: Lecturer in English at the College of Applied Science, Kerala.	Secondary Analysis (Peer-reviewed academic article).
What we can learn from Amitav Gosh’s Gun Island about the gaps in European climate migration policy	January 2023	Monique Farrugia & Júlia Isern: LLM candidates in Law; Nikita: Law student.	Secondary Analysis (Legal and academic review).
Amitav Ghosh Meets His Own Demand for Cli-Fi With “Gun Island”	September 18, 2019	Michael Berry: Freelance writer for the Boston Globe and San Francisco Chronicle.	Opinion Piece (Literary book review for the Sierra Club).
DoE-MKBU YouTube Lecture Series (Multiple parts)	Not provided in transcripts	Academic Lecturer: Department of English, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University	Secondary Analysis (Educational lectures and literary breakdown).
Environmental Crisis and Forced Mobility... in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island	February 18, 2026	Naseera MK: Assistant Professor, Department of English, Ambedkar College	Secondary Analysis (Academic research article)
Exploring Environmental Degradation and Climate Change in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island	October 31, 2024	Dr. Deep Shikha Karthik: Assistant Professor of English, Govt. P. G. College, Sitapur	Secondary Analysis (Academic research article).
Exploring Porous Borders in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide and Gun Island	November 30, 2025	Sabine Lauret-Taft: Associate Professor at the University Marie & Louis Pasteur.	Secondary Analysis (Academic essay for Postcolonial Literatures and Arts).
From Sundarbans to Venice: Climate and Cultural Migrations in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island	October 2025	T. Uma: Ph.D. Scholar; Dr. K. Guejalatchoumy: Associate Professor and HOD.	Secondary Analysis (Seminar research paper).
Gun Island Study Guide and Background	2019 (Copyright 2026)	SuperSummary Editorial Staff: Professional literary experts.	Secondary Analysis (Educational study guide)
Gun Island: Amitav Ghosh – Talking About Books	July 28, 2019	Imran Ali Khan: Literary reviewer and blogger.	Opinion Piece (Book review blog).
Humans and Nonhumans in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island: An Ecocritical Analysis	January 5, 2024	Eva-Karin Elisabeth Berlingieri: Independent Project researcher (Bachelor's level), Mid Sweden University.	Secondary Analysis (Academic thesis/project)
Analysing Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island as a Climate Fiction (MBSTU Journal)	October 30, 2024	Iftakhar Ahmed: Department of English, Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University	Secondary Analysis (Academic research article).
Precarity, Catastrophe and the Anthropocene: Reading Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island	January-June 2025	Dr. Kankana Bhowmick: Independent Researcher and Doctorate recipient.	Secondary Analysis (Peer-reviewed academic article).
RECLAIMING THE SACRED: THE MYTHIC IMAGINATION IN AMITAV GHOSH’S GUN ISLAND	October 2025	C. Mobisha Keni: MA student; A. Annie Divya Mahisha: Assistant Professor.	Secondary Analysis (Academic research article)
Reclaiming the Unreal: Myth, Non-Human Agency, and Literary Imagination...	August 15, 2025	Zakiyah Tasnim: Department of English, University of Chittagong.	Secondary Analysis (Academic research article)
The Earth System Reanimated: The “Environmental Uncanny” in Amitav Ghosh’s Novel “Gun Island”	August 19, 2024	Thomas Schwarz: Academic contributor to the WritingtheAnthropocene project	Secondary Analysis (Academic blog post/essay)

Prompt 2: Which of these sources are more frequently cited or referenced by other sources in this notebook?

The following sources are the most frequently referenced by other sources in this notebook:

1. Rakibul Hasan Khan (2024)
   The paper "Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island: The Climate Crisis and Planetary Environmentalism" is one of the most widely cited sources.
   It is used by Iftakhar Ahmed to define "Planetary Environmentalism" and its ability to transgress human-made borders.
   Sabine Lauret-Taft cites Khan regarding how water borders provide a microcosmic view of the Global South.
   Uma and Guejalatchoumy include it in their analysis of climate fiction and planetary consciousness.
   Thomas Schwarz references Khan's interpretation of the novel's "happy ending" as a form of multispecies justice.
   It is also a key reference in the comprehensive report on the convergence of myth and climate crisis.

2. Trina Bose and Amrita Satapathy (2021)
   Their article, "The Crisis of Climate and Immigration in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island," is a foundational reference for the socioeconomic analysis of migration in the novel.
   Iftakhar Ahmed cites their work regarding the web of human trafficking and xenophobia faced by undocumented migrants.
   Sabine Lauret-Taft uses their research to discuss the major types of exploitation found in human trafficking.
   Eva-Karin Berlingieri references them to explain the correlation between natural disasters and the increase in refugee populations.
   Dr. Kankana Bhowmick cites them when discussing the "era of environmental derangement".

3. Ashna Francis (2021)
   The academic paper "Gun Island: A Tale of Myth, Migration and Climate Change" is cited frequently for its exploration of interconnectedness.
   Iftakhar Ahmed references Francis to explain how the novel uses the myth of the Gun Merchant as a nexus to draw parallels between the Little Ice Age and contemporary climate scenario.
   The source is also extensively used as a primary analytical framework in "The Convergence of Myth, Migration, and Climate Crisis".

4. Ursula Kluwick (2020)
   Kluwick’s article, "The Global Deluge: Floods, Diluvian Imagery, and Aquatic Language in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide and Gun Island," is cited for its ecocritical perspective.
   Naseera MK includes it in the references for analyzing human and non-human displacement.
   Sabine Lauret-Taft references her work on aquatic language and imagery.
   Eva-Karin Berlingieri uses Kluwick to argue that Ghosh gives agency to the non-human and ties local destruction to global repercussions.

5. Nupur Pancholi and Sanjit Mishra (2021)
   Their study, "The Era of Environmental Derangement: Witnessing Climate Crisis in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island," is another frequent reference.
   Sabine Lauret-Taft cites them regarding the "broken relation between human culture and Nature" and how Venice's milieu mirrors the Sundarbans.
   Dr. Kankana Bhowmick references them when discussing the inextricable link between human activity and climate catastrophes.

Summary of Citation Frequency

The source titled "The Convergence of Myth, Migration, and Climate Crisis: A Critical Analysis of Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island" serves as a synthetic source that references almost every other major academic paper in this notebook, including those by Francis, Khan, Bose, Satapathy, and Berlingieri. Additionally, the DoE-MKBU YouTube lecture series provides an extensive oral analysis that covers many of the same themes, though it is primarily referenced within the synthetic reports rather than by the other academic papers.

Prompt 3: Summarize the primary perspective of the top five most substantial sources.

1. "The Convergence of Myth, Migration, and Climate Crisis: A Critical Analysis"
   This source provides a high-level synthesis of the novel's themes, identifying Gun Island as a direct narrative response to the theoretical failures Ghosh articulated in The Great Derangement. Its primary perspective is that the novel breaks the constraints of "modern bourgeois realism"—which treats nature as a passive backdrop—by reclaiming myth and the "environmental uncanny" to describe a world where the "weirdness of reality" is now outpacing fiction. It highlights how linguistic archaeology (tracing the word bundook to Venice) and historical mirroring (linking the 21st century to the 17th-century "Little Ice Age") collapse the distance between local folklore and global history.

2. "Precarity, Catastrophe and the Anthropocene" (Dr. Kankana Bhowmick)
   Bhowmick’s perspective centers on the concept of "planetary precarity" within the Anthropocene. She argues that the novel exposes how neoliberal capitalism and neocolonial resource extraction perpetuate human vulnerability by forcing marginalized populations into a state of "choicelessness" and illegal migration. This source emphasizes that climate refugees are reduced to a status of "homo sacer" (bare life), where they exist in a legal vacuum, stripped of protection and dehumanized by "Fortress Europe" policies.

3. "Humans and Nonhumans in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island" (Eva-Karin Berlingieri)
   This ecocritical analysis focuses on the interdependent relationship between nature and humanity, arguing that nature exerts its own "agency" in response to human behavior. Berlingieri’s perspective is that the Anthropocene marks the end of the divide between nature and culture; storms and wildfires are not random disasters but nature "reacting" to human geological interference. She highlights the "multispecies muddle," where humans, animals (dolphins, snakes, spiders), and insects are all forced to adapt to a changing planet where traditional knowledge and maps have become useless.

4. "Exploring Porous Borders in The Hungry Tide and Gun Island" (Sabine Lauret-Taft)
   Lauret-Taft examines the motif of "porous borders"—natural, political, and digital. Her primary perspective is that water borders (the Sundarbans and Venice) serve as a microcosmic view of the Global South's vulnerability. She argues that Ghosh portrays man-made borders as artificial and failing, while highlighting how digitized borders (phones, social media) have reframed the migrant experience, acting as both a "magic carpet" for dreams and a tool for exploitation by traffickers.

5. "The Earth System Reanimated: The 'Environmental Uncanny'" (Thomas Schwarz)
   Schwarz’s perspective is that Gun Island should be read as "fantastic literature" that disrupts a universe ordered by the laws of nature. He focuses on the "environmental uncanny," defined as the confrontation with non-human forces (like "serpentine" tornadoes or displaced venomous spiders) that suddenly come "alive" due to cumulative human actions. He argues that the novel's "miraculous" ending—where nature intervenes to save the Blue Boat—is a deliberate poetic strategy to offer "multispecies climate justice" and a path toward planetary survival that exceeds scientific explanation.      

Prompt 4: Identify ‘Research Gap’ for further research in this area.

1. Empirical Digital Humanities and Corpus Analysis
   One substantial gap is the lack of large-scale computational or data-driven analysis of climate fiction. While one academic lecture suggests using digital humanities tools to create a corpus of climate-related terms (such as "dead zones," "fossil fuels," and specific storm names like "Aila") to track their recurrence and context, this remains a proposed methodology rather than a completed body of research. Future research could apply these tools across a broader range of "cli-fi" novels to determine if linguistic patterns are shifting in response to the Anthropocene.

2. Legal and Ethical Frameworks for Non-Human "Refugees"
   The sources provide a rigorous critique of the legal vacuum facing human climate refugees, noting that "climate change" is not currently a valid motive for asylum under the 1951 Refugee Convention. However, there is a distinct gap in researching formal legal or ethical frameworks specifically for non-human species experiencing climate-induced displacement. While Ghosh foregrounds the agency of animals like Irrawaddy dolphins and yellow-bellied snakes, the scholarship has yet to fully bridge the gap between "multispecies justice" and actual international environmental law.

3. Clinical Psychological Studies of the "Environmental Uncanny"
   Current research examines the "environmental uncanny" primarily as a literary device or a philosophical awareness of nature's agency. A potential research gap exists in studying the specific psychological impact and trauma of those living through these uncanny events. For example, Tipu's seizures and visions after a cobra bite could be analyzed through a clinical lens of PTSD related to environmental catastrophe, rather than solely as a supernatural or symbolic phenomenon.

4. Intersectional Gender Analysis of Environmental Stewardship
   While the sources discuss Manasa Devi as a representation of female/natural energy and mention the racial coding of passports, there is room for deeper intersectional research on female agency. Further study could explore how characters like Cinta and Piya navigate and potentially disrupt "male Western apocalyptic narratives," offering a gendered model of environmental activism that prioritizes "multispecies justice" over totalizing narratives of doom.

5. The Feasibility of Religious-Led Environmental Mobilization
   A key theme in the sources is Ghosh’s theoretical suggestion that religious organizations may be the only groups capable of the mass mobilization required to address climate change. However, there is a gap in empirical or sociological research testing this theory. Future research could investigate whether a "Dharma-led" environmentalism is actually taking root in vulnerable regions like the Sundarbans or if it remains a literary ideal.

6. The Role of Digital Borders and Information Systems
   The sources identify technology, specifically smartphones and social media, as both a "magic carpet" for migrants' dreams and a tool for traffickers. A research gap exists in the long-term impact of digital surveillance and information systems on climate-induced migration. Research could further explore how "digitized borders" change the actual navigation of the physical world for refugees in ways that fiction is only beginning to portray.

Prompt 5: Draft literature review ending with hypotheses and research questions pertaining to this research gap.

Literature Review: The Intersection of Myth, Climate Precarity, and Multispecies Agency in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island

The Crisis of Realism and the Anthropocene Narrative

A significant portion of current scholarship identifies Gun Island as Amitav Ghosh’s direct narrative response to the theoretical "imaginative failure" he identified in The Great Derangement. Ghosh argues that modern bourgeois realism, with its focus on regularity and the banality of everyday life, is structurally incapable of representing the "uncanny" scale of the climate crisis. Consequently, Gun Island marks a shift toward a "poetics of the Anthropocene," where the environmental uncanny defined as the confrontation with non-human forces suddenly asserting agency replaces the passive backdrops of traditional fiction. This transition allows the "improbable" (extraordinary coincidences and weather anomalies) to become "probable" in a world where reality is outpacing fiction.

Myth as an Allegory for Ecological Wisdom

Central to the novel’s structure is the reclamation of myth, specifically the Bengali legend of Manasa Devi and the Gun Merchant. Scholars argue that this myth serves as a "historical mirroring" of the Little Ice Age in the 17th century, a period of severe climatic disruption that Ghosh links to the modern Anthropocene. Through linguistic archaeology, the novel reveals that bundook (gun) refers metonymically to Venice (al-Bunduqiyya), collapsing the distance between local folklore and global history. This myth functions as an "epistemological bridge," reactivating pre-modern wisdom to suggest that nature’s "wrath" is not a supernatural curse but a response to human hubris and the "conflict between profit and nature".

Multispecies Migration and Non-Human Agency

A recurring theme in the literature is the blurring of boundaries between human and non-human mobility. The novel foregrounds the "multispecies muddle," where the forced displacement of Irrawaddy dolphins, yellow-bellied snakes, and brown recluse spiders mirrors the journeys of human refugees. Scholars suggest that Ghosh attributes "agency" to these species; they are not merely symbols of distress but active participants that guide the protagonist and shape the plot. This planetary environmentalism calls for an ethical rethinking of coexistence, where the "miraculous" intervention of whales and birds at the novel’s climax represents a form of "multispecies justice" that transcends human politics.

The Precarity of Migration and "Fortress Europe"

The literature extensively analyzes the socio-economic precarity of climate refugees. Characters like Tipu and Rafi embody the "ecological imperative" of migration, fleeing a Sundarbans rendered uninhabitable by "slow violence" gradual coastal erosion and salination. However, current scholarship highlights a legal vacuum: the 1951 Refugee Convention does not recognize "climate change" as a valid motive for asylum. This forces migrants into the status of "homo sacer" (bare life), where they are dehumanized and subjected to the horrific "moving-people industry," including human trafficking and organ theft.

The Role of Digital Borders and Information Systems

Finally, the sources identify technology as a pivotal force in modern migration. The internet and smartphones are described as the "migrants’ magic carpet," creating a digitized border that facilitates both the dreams of movement and the predatory networks of traffickers. This digital mediation reframes human navigation of physical space, turning the internet into a "conveyor belt" for those seeking to breach the walls of "Fortress Europe".

Research Gap: The Long-Term Impact of Digital Surveillance on Multispecies Climate Survival
While the sources discuss technology as a "magic carpet" for human migrants and briefly mention GPS tracking for dolphins, there is a distinct research gap concerning the intersection of digital surveillance, information systems, and long-term multispecies survival strategies. Existing research focuses on the immediate act of crossing borders, but it under-explores how the "digital border" affects the long-term biological and cultural resilience of both humans and animals once they are displaced.

Hypotheses

H1: In the Anthropocene, digital information systems act as a "secondary ecosystem" that determines the survival rate of climate-induced human migrants by providing non-traditional navigation pathways that bypass failing physical infrastructures.

H2: The application of "multispecies justice" as a legal framework (inspired by the novel’s climax) is currently obstructed more by the digital coding of "Fortress Europe" surveillance systems than by traditional physical border patrols.

Research Questions

R.Q: 1How do digital borders and the ubiquity of information systems shift the "agency" of climate refugees from physical endurance to technological navigation within the legal vacuum of the EU?

R.Q: 2In what ways does the "environmental uncanny" serve as a psychological driver for both human and non-human migration patterns, and can this be quantified through digital humanities corpus analysis of climate fiction?

R.Q: 3To what extent can religious-led environmental mobilization (as proposed by Ghosh) utilize digital networks to offer a viable alternative to the failed "rationalist" policies of modern nation-states?