The Home and the World: Women and Gender in South Asia
WAGS 207 / POSC 207
Fall 2011
Webster 220
Amrita Basu Krupa Shandilya
301 Cooper House 30E Johnson Chapel
x2942 x5464
Office hours: Wednesdays: 4-6 pm Office hours: M/W.:10-11 am
Course Materials
Books for Purchase:
Available from Food for Thought Books, 106 N. Pleasant Street, Amherst 413.253.5432
Rabindranath Tagore, Home and the World
Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain, Sultana’s Dream
Mahasweta Devi, Imaginary Maps
Amitav Ghosh, River of Smoke
Books for purchase are marked P on the syllabus. All other required readings for this course can be found on E-Reserve (E) and/or in the Course Reader packet – Multilith.
The Multilith is not a required purchase but is highly recommended. To buy it, you will need to submit a Multilith Order Form for Course Materials found on the WAGS homepage. Estimated cost is $35-50. You will receive an e-mail when it arrives.
Films are marked (F). We will be discussing the following films over the course of the semester:
Chokher Bali (dir. Rituparno Ghosh)
Mother India (dir. Mehboob Khan)
Khamosh Pani (dir. Sabiha Sumar)
Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi (dir. Sudhir Mishra)
Satta (dir. Madhur Bhandarkar)
The Terrorist (dir. Santosh Sivan) (F)
Fire (dir. Deepa Mehta)
Sarkar (dir. Ram Gopal Varma)
Khuda ke Liye (dir. Sohaib Mansoor)
Films will be streamed on the course website under the e-reserves tab. Please plan to see them before we discuss them.
Course Requirements
1. We expect you to attend class regularly and inform us by email if you miss a class.
2. Read the readings before class, not during or after class or right before the papers are due.
3. There will be three papers. The approximate weighting is as follows:
Paper 1: (4-5 pages) 20% of base grade
Paper 2: (4-5pages) 25% of base grade
Paper 3: (6-7 pages) 30% of base grade
Speaker Report : (4-5 pages) 10%
Class Attendance: 15%
Due dates for Papers: Paper 1: Friday Oct. 7th
Paper 2: Friday Nov. 4th
Speaker Report: Monday Nov. 28th
Paper 3: Friday Dec. 16th
WEEK 1
Wed. Sept. 7th
Introduction
WEEK 2:
Mon. Sept. 12th: Conceptualizing Gender Inequality
Uma Narayan, Dislocating Cultures: Identities, Traditions & Third World Feminism (1997), 3-39 & notes (E)
Lata Mani, “Multiple Mediations: Feminist Scholarship in the Age of Multinational Reception” Feminist Review (1990) 35, 24–41 (E)
Colonialism
Wed. Sept 14th:
Lata Mani, “Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India” Cultural Critique 7 (1987) (E)
Partha Chatterjee, “The Nationalist Resolution of the Women’s Question” Recasting Women (1990) 233-253 (E)
WEEK 3:
Mon. Sept. 19th:
Tanika Sarkar, “The Hindu wife and the Hindu nation: Domesticity and nationalism in nineteenth century Bengal” Studies in History August 1992 8: 213-235 (E)
Durba Ghosh, “Decoding the nameless: gender, subjectivity, and historical methodologies in reading the archives of colonial India” in A new imperial history (ed.) Kathleen Wilson (E)
*Chokher Bali (dir. Rituparno Ghosh) (F)
Wed. Sept 21st:
Katherine Mayo, Mother India Chapter 1 and 2 (E)
Mrinalini Sinha, Refashioning Mother India: Feminism and Nationalism in Late-Colonial India, Feminist Studies, Vol. 26, No. 3, Points of Departure: India and the South Asian Diaspora (autumn, 2000), pp. 623-644 (E)
WEEK 4:
Nationalism
Mon. Sept.26th
Sumathi Ramaswamy, The Goddess and the Nation: Mapping Mother India, Chp. 6 (E)
*Mother India (F) (dir. Mehboob Khan)
Wed. Sept. 28th
Rabindranath Tagore, Home and the World (1916) (Part 1) (P)
M.K. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj Chapters 4, 13 (E)
WEEK 5
Mon. Oct. 3rd
Rabindranath Tagore, Home and the World (1916) (Part 2) (P)
Mahua Sarkar, “Muslim Women and the Politics of Invisibility in Late Colonial Bengal,” Journal of Historical Sociology, 14.2 (June 2001): 226-250 (E)
Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain, Sultana’s Dream (1905) (P)
Partition
Wed. Oct. 5th
Ritu Menon, “Reproducing the Legitimate Community,” Appropriating Gender (ed.) Patricia Jeffery and Amrita Basu (1997): 15-32 (E)
Sadat Hasan Manto, “Open it,” Stories about the Partition of India (ed.) Alok Bhalla (E)
Sadat Hasan Manto, “Cold Meat,” Stories about the Partition of India (ed.) A. Bhalla (E)
Rajinder Singh Bedi, “Lajwanti,” Stories about the Partition of India (ed.) A. Bhalla (E)
Lalithambika Antharjanam, “A Leaf in the Storm,” Stories about the Partition of India (ed.) A. Bhalla (E)
Friday Oct. 7th: Paper 1 Due
WEEK 6
Mon Oct. 10th: FALL BREAK
Wed. Oct. 12th
Kavita Daiya, “‘Honourable Resolutions’: Gendered Violence, Ethnicity and the Nation,” Alternatives: Global Local Political vol. 27, no. 2 April-June 2002 (E)
*Khamosh Pani (F) (dir. Sabiha Sumar)
WEEK 7
Mon. Oct. 17th: Democracy and its critics
Basu, Women, Political Parties and Social Movements in South Asia (E)
*Satta (F) (dir. Madhur Bhandarkar)
Wed. Oct. 19th: Authoritarianism and its Critics
Amina Jamal, “Transnational Feminism as Critical Practice: A Reading of Feminist Discourses in Pakistan, Meridians Vol. 5, No. 2 (2005), pp. 57-82 (E)
*Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi (F) (dir. Sudhir Mishra)
WEEK 8
Inequality: Caste, Class, Ethnicity, Sexuality
Caste:
Mon. Oct. 24th:
Anupama Rao, "Understanding Sirasgaon: Notes Towards Conceptualizing the Role of Law, Caste, and Gender in a Case of 'Atrocity',” Thamyris, Vol. 4. 1, Spring 1997: 103-136 (E)
Ranajit Guha, "Chandra's Death", Subaltern Studies V (Delhi: Oxford, 1987), pp. 135-165 (E)
Wed. Oct. 26th:
Mahasweta Devi, “Douloti the Bountiful” Imaginary Maps Trans., G. Spivak, (1995): 19-94 (P)
WEEK 9
Class
Mon. Oct. 31st: Amitav Ghosh, River of Smoke (P)
Wed. Nov. 2nd: Amitav Ghosh, River of Smoke (P) [Class Visit]
Friday Nov. 4th: Paper 2 due
WEEK 10
Class
Mon. Nov. 7th: Amitav Ghosh, River of Smoke (P)
Raka Ray, Cultures of Servitude, Chapter 2: 32-64, and Chapter 5: 119-144 (E)
Arvind Rajagopal, “Thinking about the New Indian Middle Class” (E)
Wed. Nov. 9th: Ethnicity
Neloufer de Mel, “Agent or Victim? The Sri Lankan Woman Militant in the Interregnum” Women & the nation's narrative: gender and nationalism in twentieth century Sri Lanka. (E)
Malathi de Alwis, “Motherhood as a Space of Protest” Appropriating Gender (E)
*The Terrorist (F) (dir. Santosh Sivan) (F)
WEEK 11
Mon. Nov. 14th : Sexuality
Jigna Desai, “Homo on the Range: Mobile and Global Sexualities” Social Text, Volume 20.4, (2002): 65-89 (E)
Arvind Narrain, “Queer Struggles Around the Law: The Contemporary Context” Sexualities (ed.) Nivedita Menon (E)
*Fire (F) (dir. Deepa Mehta)
Women and the Law
Wed. Nov. 16th
Pathak, Z., and R. Sunder Rajan, "Shahbano".' Signs 14.3: 558-582 (1989) (E)
Srimati Basu, “Cutting to Size” Signposts: gender issues in post-independence India (ed.) Rajeswari Sunder Rajan (E)
Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, The Scandal of the State, Chapter 5 (E)
WEEK 12: THANKSGIVING BREAK
WEEK 13:
Mon. Nov. 28th: Speaker Report Due
Mon. Nov. 28th:
Women’s Leadership
Rajeswari Sundar Rajan, “Gender, Leadership and Representation: The Case of Indira Gandhi” in Real and imagined women: gender, culture, and postcolonialism by Rajeswari Sunder Rajan (E)
Biswas, “The Women Who Rule India” (E)
Mydans, “Family Vaults Women to Leadership in Asia” (E)
Wed. Nov. 30th Hindu Nationalism
Amrita Basu, Violence and Democracy, chapter 4 pp. 101-122 (E)
Menon, Everyday Nationalism chapters 5 and 6 (E)
*Sarkar (F) (dir. Ram Gopal Varma)
WEEK 14
Mon. Dec. 5th: Islamization: Bangladesh
Shehabuddin, Reshaping the Holy, Chapters 1, 3, 6 (E)
Wed. Dec. 7th: Islamization: Pakistan
Charles Hirschkind and Saba Mahmood “Feminism, the Taliban, and Politics of Counter-Insurgency” Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 75, No. 2 (spring, 2002): 339-354 (E)
*Khuda ke Liye (F) (dir. Sohaib Mansoor)
Resistance
WEEK 15
Mon. Dec. 12th: Everyday Resistance
J. Scott, Domination And The Arts Of Resistance, pp 1-16, 183-201 (E)
Veena Oldenburg, "Lifestyle as Resistance'' in Contesting Power (ed.) Haynes (E)
Mahasveta Devi, "Draupadi" trans. by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Critical Inquiry, Vol. 8, No. 2, Writing and Sexual Difference (Winter 1981), pp. 381-402 (E)
Wed. Dec. 14th: Feminism/Women’s Movements
Women’s Movements in a Global Era, Basu ed., Chapters 3, 4 pp. 89-156 (E)
Friday Dec. 16th: Paper 3 Due