Rhetoric and Reality
Gender and the Colonial Experience in South Asia
Published in June 2006
Book
Hardback
328 pages
978-0-19-567704-1 (ISBN)
Description
This collection of essays focuses on the relationship between ideas and practice, rhetoric and reality, with specific reference to gender in colonial India. Taking the period from about 1870 to the late 1930s, it provides numerous case studies from Bengali narratives about childhood and medical missionaries learning and teaching about birth control to a Muslim modernist on women's rights and the professionalization of Indian nursing to explore this historical moment when received perspectives on gender roles first began to interplay with colonial and indigenous discourses on the implications of modernity in the Indian context. In doing so, it highlights three main themes: domesticity, the body, and modernity. In placing India at center stage, "Rhetoric and Reality" attempts to do justice to the significant regional differences within the sub continent by including papers on a range of localities, notably Bengal, Punjab and Central India.
It also seeks to balance attention and explore reciprocity and contestation between colonial and Indian agency and recipiency, while subaltern agency is recovered in many of the papers through investigation of elite interfaces with servants, pupils, nurses and plaintiffs.
It also seeks to balance attention and explore reciprocity and contestation between colonial and Indian agency and recipiency, while subaltern agency is recovered in many of the papers through investigation of elite interfaces with servants, pupils, nurses and plaintiffs.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New Delhi
India
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 223 mm
Width: 144 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
552 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-567704-1 (9780195677041)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Content
INTRODUCTION: PROBLEMATIZING DISCOURSE AND PRACTICE AVRIL A. POWELL AND SIOBHAN LAMBERT-HURLEY; CHAPTER 1. CHILD, MOTHER AND SERVANT: MOTHERHOOD AND DOMESTIC IDEOLOGY IN COLONIAL BENGAL SWAPNA M. BANERJEE; CHAPTER 2. REDESIGNING THE ZENANA: DOMESTIC EDUCATION IN EASTERN BENGAL IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY ASHA ISLAM NAYEEM AND AVRIL A. POWELL; CHAPTER 3. QUESTIONABLE MOTIVES, FLIMSY ALIBIS: REINVESTIGATING THE MURDER OF FEMALE INFANTS IN COLONIAL PUNJAB VEENA TALWAR OLDENBURG; CHAPTER 4. THE BODY AS METAPHOR FOR THE NATION: CASTE, MASCULINITY AND FEMININITY IN THE SATYARTH PRAKASH OF SWAMI DAYANANDA SARASVATI ANSHU MALHOTRA; CHAPTER 5.LEARNING AND TEACHING ABOUT BIRTH CONTROL: THE CAUTIOUS ACTIVISM OF MEDICAL MISSIONARIES IN 1930S INDIA RUTH COMPTON BROUWER; CHAPTER 6. MAKING AND MOULDING THE NURSING OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE : RECASTING NURSES IN COLONIAL INDIA ROSEMARY FITZGERALD; CHAPTER 7. NEGOTIATING MODERNITIES: THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE WORLDS OF DR. HAIMABATI SEN GER; ALDINE FORBES; CHAPTER 8. AN EMBASSY OF EQUALITY? QUAKER MISSIONARIES IN BHOPAL STATE, 1890-1930 SIOBHAN LAMBERT-HURLEY; CHAPTER 9. ISLAMIC MODERNISM AND WOMEN S STATUS: THE INFLUENCE OF SYED AMEER ALI AVRIL A. POWELL; 5. SWAPNA M. BANERJEE TEACHES SOUTH ASIAN/ASIAN HISTORY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA, GAINESVILLE, USA; RUTH COMPTON BROUWER IS PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AT KING'S COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO, LONDON, CANADA; ROSEMARY FITZGERALD ORIGINALLY TRAINED AS A MEDICAL SOCIOLOGIST IS NOW IN THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AT THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON; GERALDINE FORBES IS A DISTINGUISHED TEACHING PROFESSOR IN THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AT THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK OSWEGO, USA; ANSHU MALHOTRA IS READER IN HISTORY AT SRI VENKATESWARA COLLEGE, DELHI UNIVERSITY, INDIA; ASHA ISLAM NAYEEM IS ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF DHAKA, BANGLADESH; VEENA TALWAR OLDENBURG IS ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AT BARUCH COLLEG; E AND THE GRADUATE CENTER AT THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK, USA