Creative Forces: Cultural Feminisms in Postcolonial India

Undergraduate / Graduate

In this course, we will study some of the most significant feminist interventions that were made through a range of cultural practices in postcolonial India, and in the Indian diaspora. Struggles for women's rights, demanding political empowerment and economic equality, or carrying out demonstrations for better access to health and education have a long history in South Asia. We will focus particularly on the cultural practices that have constituted waves of feminist thoughts over the last seven decades. We will explore how concerns around justice, social responsibility, and freedom of expression are mediated through literature, cinema, music, and self-fashioning. Keeping cultural productions as our archive, we will ask - what are the various meanings of feminism in postcolonial India? What were the political, economic, and social concerns that the artists and activists chose to highlight while addressing gendered inequalities? What are the intersections of caste, class, and sexual orientation that complicate our understanding of feminist representations? How were inequities sought to be negotiated creatively at different historical contexts? Taking an interdisciplinary approach, we will often find ourselves moving between genres, themes, and disciplines to locate marginal voices responding to contemporary anxieties. By working at the intersection of cultural history, anthropological and sociological scholarships, and media studies we will gain an understanding...