Indian Feminisms: Concepts and Issues

ABOUT THE COURSE:This course aims to engage with the multiple constructions of ‘women’ through history especially with the intention to enhance the concepts pertaining to gender and sexualities in the Indian context. The questions that this course deals with are: How is the category, ‘woman,’ conceptualized in India? What are the specific impacts/consequences of gender and sexuality in India? What issues/frameworks become important in the articulations by Indian feminisms? The areas that this course explores are broadly: construction of the Indian womanhood; intersecting structures of gender, caste, class, religion, and sexuality; body and violence; evolution of ‘gender’ and ‘sexuality’ through history; contemporary ruminations. This course intends to identify Indian feminism not as a monolithic homogeneous narrative, but as one rooted in different epistemic practices. As such this course is premised on the notion of particularity rather than universalism. In the process, this course will analyse how the notions of patriarchy as constituted of gender binarism, has come to be challenged through the intersectional lenses of class, religion, sexuality and so on.INTENDED AUDIENCE: Students across various disciplines from Literature, Sociology, Women's studies and Gender studies doing either their Bachelor's or Master's, and even PhD, will benefit from this course.

Week 1:Indian Feminism: A Historical OverviewWeek 2:Nation and its WomenWeek 3:Violence and its After-EffectsWeek 4:Labour and Identity