Published in 2023
208 pages
Nita Kumar is Professor Emerita, Claremont McKenna College, California, and Honorary Director, NIRMAN, Varanasi. Her research includes the history and anthropology of education, children, women, artisans, and Banaras. Her publications include The Artisans of Banaras (1988), Friends, Brothers, and Informants (1992), Lessons from Schools (2000), and The Politics of Gender, Communities, and Modernity (2007).
What is this book about?
Women, Gender and History in India examines Indian history through a thematic lens of women and gender across different contexts.
Through an inter-disciplinary approach, Nita Kumar uses sources from literature, folklore, religion, and art to discuss historical and anthropological ways of interpreting the issues surrounding women and gender in history. As part of the scholarly movement away from a Grand Narrative of South Asian history and culture, this volume places emphasis on the diversity of women and their experiences. It does this by including analyses of many different primary sources together with discussion around a wide variety of theoretical and methodological debates – from the mixed role of colonial law and education to the conundrum of a patriarchy that worships the Goddess while it strives to keep women in subservience.
This textbook is essential reading for those studying Indian history and women and gender studies.
