Synopses & Reviews
This
Handbook brings together works that represent the best of feminist scholarship on India in multiple fields ranging from historical to contemporary India. The contributions from eminent feminist and gender scholars are categorized thematically and cover the following areas: law, sexuality, masculinity, caste, media, religion, labor, environment, and women's movements.
In each key area of debate, a classic essay is paired with another that reflects the state of the field today or the vibrant new directions toward which the field is moving. The Introduction provides a unique analytical perspective on the trajectory of gender scholarship in India as well as a comparative approach vis-a-vis western discourse on gender.
About the Author
Raka Ray is Professor of Sociology and South and Southeast Asia Studies, and Chair of the Center for South Asia Studies at the University of California-Berkeley.
Table of Contents
The Politics of Knowledge: The Women's Movement and Gender Scholarship in India,
Raka RayPart I: Law
1. The Foundations of Modern Legal Structures in India, Janaki Nair
2. Conjugality, Property, Morality and Maintenance, Flavia Agnes
Part II: Sexuality
3. Uneven Modernities and Ambivalent Sexualities: Women's Constructions of Puberty in Coastal Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, Kalpana Ram
4. Outing Heteronormativity: Nation, Citizen, Feminist Disruptions, Nivedita Menon
Part III: Masculinity
5. Potent Protests: The Age of Consent Controversy, 1891, Mrinalini Sinha
6. Style, Lawrence Cohen
Part IV: Caste
7. Whatever Happened to the Vedic Dasi? Orientalism, Nationalism, and a Script for the Past, Uma Chakravarti
8. A Cartography of Resistance: The National Federation of Dalit Women, Kalpana Kannabiran
Part V: Media
9. Dharma and Desire, Freedom and Destiny: Rescripting the Man-woman Relationship in Popular Hindi Cinema, Patricia Uberoi
10. Forbidden Love and Passionate Denials: A Dialogue on Domesticities and Queer Intimacy, Shohini Ghosh
Part VI: Religion
11. Heroic Women, Mother Goddesses: Family and Organization in Hindutva Politics, Tanika Sarkar
12. Feminist Theory, Agency, and the Liberatory