Full Description
The book examines the representation of women, their agency and subjectivity and gender relations in 18th- and 19th-century India. The chapters in the volume interrogate notions and discourses of 'women' and 'gender' during the period, historically shaped by multiple and even competing actors, practices and institutions. They highlight the 'making of the woman' across a wide spectrum of subject areas, regions and roles and attempt to understand the contradictions and differences in social experiences and identity formations of women. The volume also deals with prevalent notions of masculinity and femininity, normative and non-conformist expressions of gender and sexual identity and epistemological concerns of gender, especially in its intersectional interplay with other axes of caste, class, race, region and empire.
Presenting unique understandings of our gendered pasts, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of history, gender studies and South Asian studies.
Contents
Introduction Part I -The Private and the Public Worlds 1. Interrogating the Colonial categorization of female dancers: The case of Hafizas in Kashmir 2. Redefining the 'Private' as 'Public': Representation of the Awadhi zenana as an instrument of the state in the Ishqnama Part II - Questioning the Normative 3. The Politics of 'becoming' a Mirza: Shifting masculine norms and gender binary in the Mughal society 4. Virangana women: Dalit counter-histories of 1857 5. Gender and 'Tribal' identity in western India 6. Could Kali be Bharat Mata? Interrogating iconicity in Indian goddesses Part III - The Problematic 'Others' 7. Looking beyond a glorified past: Re-examining the category of the Tawaif in eighteenth--century Awadh 8. Re-Imagining Tawaifs: A study of courtesans in eighteenth-century Delhi 9. Leaving a lineage in stone: Eunuchs in socio-spatial setup of Mughal India Part IV - Narratives of Femininity 10. Situating Women in Tamil Mahabharatas: Questioning Frames, Breaking Moulds 11. Conceptualising the girl child in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Bengal through Aagomoni songs 12. The emerging 'Woman': Women's writing and the contours of domesticity and femininity in colonial Assam
