everything.study
WGS.459

Women in South Asia from 1800 to Present

Undergraduate · Historical course

Fall 2006

This course is designed to introduce and help students understand the changes and continuities in the lives of women in South Asia from a historical perspective. Using gender as a lens of examining the past, we will examine how politics of race, class, caste and religion affected and continue to impact women in South Asian countries, primarily in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. We will reflect upon current debates within South Asian women's history in order to examine some of the issues and problems that arise in re-writing the past from a gendered perspective and these are found in primary documents, secondary readings, films, newspaper articles, and the Internet.

Readings

  • Forbes, Geraldine H. Women in Modern India . New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780521268127.
    Required
  • Sangari, Kumkum, and Sudesh Vaid, eds. Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780813515809.
    Required
  • Shinde, Tarabai. A Comparison Between Women and Men: Tarabai Shinde and the Critique of Gender Relations in Colonial India . OUP India; New Ed edition (February 3, 2000). ISBN: 9780195647365.
    Required
  • Devi, Jyotirmmayi. The River Churning: A Partition Novel . Translated from the original Bengali by Enakshi Chatterjee. New Delhi, India: Kali for Women, 1995. ISBN: 9788185107691.
    Required
  • Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourse.” In Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism . Edited by Chandra Talpade Mohany, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press,1991. ISBN: 9780253206329.
    Listed reading
  • Scott, Joan. “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis.” American Historical Review 91, no. 5 (December 1986): 1053-1075.
    Listed reading
  • Film: Dadi’s Family . Produced by James MacDonald, Rina Gill, and Michael Camerini, 1981. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Selections from The Laws of Manu. Translated by Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty and Brian K. Smith. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1991. ISBN: 9780140445404.
    Listed reading
  • Musallam, B. F. Sex and Society in Islam: Birth Control before the Nineteenth Century . New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 10-38. ISBN: 9780521248747.
    Listed reading
  • Roy, Kumkum. “Unraveling the Kamasutra.” In A Question of Silence: Sexual Economies in Modern India . Edited by Janaki Nair and Mary E. John. London, UK: Zed Books, 2001, pp. 52-76. ISBN: 9781856498920.
    Listed reading
  • Kozlowski, Gregory C. “Private Lives and Public Piety: Women and the Practice of Islam in Mughal India.” In Women in Medieval Islamic World . Edited by Gavin Hambly. Palgrave Macmillan; 1st ed edition (February 15, 1998). ISBN: 9780312210571.
    Listed reading
  • Talbot, Cynthia. “Rudrama-devi, the Female King: Gender and Political Authority in Medieval India.” In Syllables of Sky: Studies in South Indian civilization. Edited by David Dean Shulman and Velceru Narayanaravu . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 391-430. ISBN: 9780195635492.
    Listed reading
  • Film: Wedding of the Goddess , 1976. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Begin Reading A Comparison Between Men and Women . Please see study materials for discussion questions related to this reading. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Selections from Sarasyati, Pandita Ramabai. The High Caste Hindu Woman . New York, NY: Kessinger Publishing, LLC, 2007. ISBN: 9781430492382.
    Listed reading
  • Mani, Lata. “Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India.” In Recasting Women , pp. 88-126.
    Listed reading
  • Sarkar, Tanika. “Rhetoric Against the Age of Consent.” Economic and Political Weekly (September 4, 1993): 1869-1878.
    Listed reading
  • Minault, Gail. “Schools for Wives.” In Secluded Scholars: Women’s Education and Muslim Social Reform in Colonial India . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 215-266. ISBN: 9780195641905.
    Listed reading
  • Women in Modern India . Chapters 1 and 2.
    Listed reading
  • Hossein, Rokeya Shakhawat. “Sultana’s Dream.” In Sultana’s Dream: A Feminist Utopia and Selections from The Secluded Ones . Edited and translated by Roushan Jahan. Reprint ed. New York, NY: Feminist Press, 1988. ISBN: 9780935312836.
    Listed reading
  • Chatterjee, Partha. “The Nationalist Resolution of the Women’s Question.” In Recasting Women , pp. 233-53.
    Listed reading
  • Chakravarti, Uma. “Whatever Happened to the Vedic Dasi? Orientalism, Nationalism and Script for the Past.” In Recasting Women .
    Listed reading
  • Amin, Sonia N. “Childhood and Role Models in the Andar Mahal: Muslim Women in the Private Sphere in Colonial Bengal.” In Embodied Violence: Communalizing Women’s Sexuality in South Asia . Edited by Kumari Jayawardena and Malathi de Alwis. London, UK: Zed Books, 1996, pp. 71-88. ISBN: 9781856494489.
    Listed reading
  • Banerjee, Nirmala. “Working Women in Colonial Bengal: Modernization and Marginalization.” In Recasting Women .
    Listed reading
  • Women in Modern India . Chapters 3 and 6.
    Listed reading
  • Film: Home and the World . Directed by Satyajit Ray, 1984. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Begin Reading The River Churning .
    Listed reading
  • Selections from Mayo, Katherine. Mother India . Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780472067152. Please see study materials for discussion questions related to this reading. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Kishwar, Madhu. “Women and Gandhi.” Economic and Political Weekly 5 and 12 (October 1985): 1691-1702 and 1753-1758.
    Listed reading
  • Ramusack, Barbara N. “Embattled Advocates: The Debate over Birth Control in India, 1920-1940.” Journal of Women’s History 1, no. 2 (1989): 34-64.
    Listed reading
  • Women in Modern India . Chapters 4 and 5.
    Listed reading
  • Select stories from Manto, Sa’ādat Hasan. Kingdom’s End and Other Stories. Translated by Khalid Hasan. New York, NY: Verso, 1988. ISBN: 9780860911838.
    Listed reading
  • Select stories from Sidhwa, Bapsi. ed. City of Sin and Splendour: Writings on Lahore . New Delhi, India: Penguin Global, 2006. ISBN: 9780143031666.
    Listed reading
  • Butalia, Urvashi, “Muslims and Hindus, Men and Women: Communal Stereotypes and the Partition of India.” In Women and the Hindu Right . Edited by Tanika Sarkar and Urvashi Butalia. New Delhi, India: Kali for Women, 1995, pp. 58-81. ISBN: 9788185107660.
    Listed reading
  • Oldenburg, Veena Talwar. “Writing Lives, Underwriting Silences: Understanding Dowry Death in Contemporary India.” In Dowry Murder: The Imperial Origins of a Cultural Crime . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 175-226. ISBN: 9780195150711.
    Listed reading
  • Menon, Nivedita. “Elusive Woman: Feminism and Women’s Reservation Bill.” Economic and Political Weekly (October 28, 2000): 3835-3844.
    Listed reading
  • Women in Modern India. Chapter 7.
    Listed reading
  • Anderson, Nancy Fix. “Benazir Bhutto and Dynastic Politics: Her Father’s Daughter, Her People’s Sister.” In Women as National Leaders . Edited by Michael A. Genovese. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1992, pp. 41-69. ISBN: 9780803943384.
    Listed reading
  • Basu, Amrita. “Feminism Inverted: The Real Women and Gendered Imagery of Hindu Nationalism.” Bulletin for Concerned Asian Scholars 25, no. 4 (1992): 25-36.
    Listed reading
  • D’Costa, Bina. “Coming to Terms with the Past in Bangladesh: Naming Women’s Truths.” In Feminist Politics, Activism and Vision: Local and Global Challenges . Edited by Luciana Ricciutelli, Angela R. Miles, and Margaret McFadden. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Zed Books, 2005, pp. 227-247. ISBN: 9781842773512. (Also available as: Feminist Politics, Activism and Vision: Local and Global Challenges as published by Zed Books. ISBN: 9781842773512.)
    Listed reading
  • Chowdhury, Prem. “Lustful Women, Elusive Lovers: Identifying Males as Objects of Female Desire.” In Re-Searching Indian Women . Edited by Vijaya Ramaswamy. New Delhi, India: Manohar, 2003, pp. 175-208. ISBN: 9788173044960.
    Listed reading
  • Film: Father, Son and Holy War . Directed by Anand Patwardhan, 1994. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Banerjee, Nirmala. “Whatever Happened to the Dreams of Modernity? The Nehruvian Era and Women’s Position.” EPW (April 1998): WS 2-7.
    Listed reading
  • Kumar, Radha. “From Chipko to Sati: The Contemporary Indian Women’s Movement.” In The Challenge of Local Feminisms . Edited by Amrita Basu. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995, pp. 58-86.
    Listed reading
  • Jahan, Roushan. “Men in Seclusion, Women in Public: Rokeya’s Dream and Women’s Struggles in Bangladesh.” Chapter 8 in Women in Modern India. Edited by Basu. pp. 87-109.
    Listed reading
  • Film: When Women Unite : The Story of an Uprising . Directed by Shabnam Virmani, 2003. (Women’s Anti-Arrack Struggle in India). Read an article about the film from the online newspaper The Hindu . ↗
    Listed reading
Sources