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Delve into the intricacies of female incarceration in Indian prisons, as seen, experienced, and recounted by two former political activists turned writers. This book juxtaposes their narratives with readings of Michel Foucault, unveiling the complex subjectivities within prison walls where stories of hope and despair converge, resulting in profound liminal experiences.
An intervention in the field of dissenting writings by women political detainees in India in the 1970s, and it straddles three interlinked areas: politics, prison and writing. It focuses on writings arising out of Bengal's Naxalite movement (1967-1975) and from the pan-Indian period of Emergency (1975-1977).
Concerned chiefly with views and events of the 19th and 20th centuries. Discusses deviations from a putative ideal of femininity characterised by chastity and inactivity.
In this volume of writings from Bangla and Urdu literature, editors Rakhshanda Jalil and Debjani Sengupta raise issues of language, identity, nationhood and varied aspects of feminism and women's writings in the Indian subcontinent. Both the languages have lived a life across political borders and are spoken, read and loved by people across diverse geographical sites, including a large diaspora. They have had an afterlife after 1947 that helped them to refashion their cultural spheres in a divided land. Women's Writings from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh brings these languages together, to speak to each other and to showcase their strengths. By creating a platform for contemporary literary works, especially by women, it provides a new, radical view of the ways in which these languages have shaped women's creative universes.
The Naxalbari movement marks a significant moment in the postcolonial history of India. Beginning as an armed peasant uprising in 1967 under the leadership of radical communists, the movement was inspired by the Marxist-Leninist theory of revolution and involved a significant section of the contemporary youth from diverse social strata with a vision of people’s revolution. It inspired similar radical movements in other South Asian countries such as Nepal. Arguing that the history and memory of the Naxalbari movement is fraught with varied gendered experiences of political motivation, revolutionary activism, and violence, this book analyses the participation of women in the movement and the...
This book addresses emancipatory narratives from two main sites in the colonial world, the Indian and southern African subcontinents. Exploring how love and revolution interrelate, this volume is unique in drawing on theories of affect to interrogate histories of the political, thus linking love and revolution together. The chapters engage with the affinities of those who live with their colonial pasts: crises of expectations, colonial national convulsions, memories of anti-colonial solidarity, even shared radical libraries. It calls attention to the specific and singular way in which notions of ‘love of the world’ were born in a precise moment of anti-colonial struggle: a love of the world for which one would offer one’s life, and for which there had been little precedent in the history of earlier revolutions. It thus offers new ways of understanding the shifts in global traditions of emancipation over two centuries.
This is an investigation of arts and aesthetics in their widest senses and experiences, presenting a variety of perspectives which range from the metaphysical to the political. Moving beyond art as an expression of the inner mind and invention of the individual self, the volume bridges the gap between changing perceptions of contemporary art and aesthetics, and maps globalizing currents in a number of contexts and regions.The volume includes an impressive variety of case studies offered by established leaders in the field and original and emerging scholarly talent covering areas in India, Nepal, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Rwanda, and Germany, as well as providing transnational or diasporic perspectives. From the contradictory demands made on successful artists from the south in the global art world such as Anish Kapoor, to images of war and puppetry created by female political prisoners, the volume compels creative and political interpretations of the ever-changing and globalizing terrain of arts and aesthetics.
Like other pre-colonial socio-economic formations, the profession of prostitution underwent a dramatic change in Bengal soon after the British take-over. Under the Raj explores the world of the prostitute in nineteenth century Bengal. It traces how, from the peripheries of pre-colonial Bengali rural society, they came to dominate the center-stage in Calcutta, the capital of British India--thanks to the emergence of a new clientele brought forth by the colonial order. Sumanta Banerjee examines the policies the British administration implemented to revamp the profession to suit its needs, as well as to screen its practitioners in a bid to protect its minions in the army from venereal diseases. He also analyzes the class structure within the prostitute community in nineteenth century Bengal, its complex relationship with the Bengali bhadralok society--and, what is more important and fascinating for modern researchers in popular culture--the voices of the prostitutes themselves, which we hear from their songs, letters, and writings, collected and reproduced from both oral tradition and printed sources.
This collection pulls together a wide range of perspectives to explore the possibilities and the boundaries of the paradigm of English studies in India. It examines national identity and the legacy of colonialism through a study of comparative and multi ethnic literature, education, English language studies and the role ICT now plays in all of these fields. Contributors look at how the issue of identity can be addressed and understood through food studies, linking food, culture and identity. The volume also considers the timely and very relevant question of gender in Indian society, of the role of the woman, the family and the community in patriarchal contemporary Indian society. Through the lens of literature, culture, gender, politics, this exciting volume pulls together the threads which constitute modern Indian identity.
Covering nearly 225 years, this volume tries to capture a broad spectrum of the situation of women performers from Gerasim Lebedeff's time (1795), who are considered to be the first performers in modern Bengali theatre, to today's time. The moot question is whether the role of women as performers evolved down the centuries. Whether this question will lead us to their subjugation to their male counterparts, producers, and directors has been explored here to give readers an understanding of when, where, by whom the politics began, and, by tracing the footprints, we have tried to understand if the politics has changed, or remains unchanged, or metamorphosed with regard to the woman's question i...