HIST 2190 - [Women and Gender in South Asia]

(crosslisted) ASIAN 2219, FGSS 2190
(GB) (HA-AS)

Spring. Next offered 2016-2017. 4 credits.

D. Ghosh.

This course is a discussion-based reading seminar on the history of women and the construction of gender in South Asia. The readings consider broad themes that have historically affected the status of South Asian women: discourses about backwardness, domesticity, nationalism, family and property rights, the law, violence, labor, and social activism. Working chronologically from the pre-colonial through the colonial and post-colonial periods, we will raise questions about the relative status of South Asian men and women within their communities. A significant theme of the course addresses the importance of gender to the making of South Asian nationalisms, and the forms of postcolonial governance it gave rise to after independence.