Women and Power in Indian History
Spring 2013
Purpose This course addresses women’s roles and statuses, means of gaining and using power, and contributions in political and other realms, during four millennia of South Asian history. With emphasis on the modern, but with relevant background in Indian mythology, classical history and literature, medieval Islamic chronicles, autobiographies, and eyewitness accounts, we will examine original sources, social science studies, fictional works, and secondary material on the following issues: origins, persistence, and revision of socially and religiously constructed gender identities; typologies of autonomy vs. dependence, security vs. risk, oppression vs. liberation; medieval and modern women as political actors and exemplars; female infanticide, self-immolation of widows, and bride-burning; education, health and workplace; Western and Asian feminisms; and women power brokers in what is now India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bangladesh. No previous acquaintance with South Asia, or with history, is assumed.
Requirements Evaluation will rest on class discussion (30%), ten-minute presentations on individually-assigned readings (20%), a book review (20%), and three quizzes (30%). No presentations may be postponed without either 24 hours’ advance notice or a life-changing emergency. Presenters will write a one-page outline of their oral presentation, copied and distributed to classmates. Signups for oral presentations and book reviews must be on my syllabus copy only, to avoid duplicate choices. (Write your name clearly on the LEFT margin of my syllabus copy to sign up) Written reviews to classmates are of books whose titles are at the end of this syllabus; tell me your choice, and sign up on my syllabus, sooner than later.
Texts and assignments: The following are available from UVa Bookstore and on line.
- Shahla Haeri, No Shame for the Sun: Lives of Professional Pakistani Women (Syracuse, 2002)
- Sumit & Tanika Sarkar, Women and Social Reform in Modern India: A Reader (Indiana U. Press, 2008)
- Geraldine Forbes, Women in Modern India (Cambr. Univ. Press,1998)
