AP/HIST4795 6.0 A: Gender and Sexuality in Modern India
Offered by: HIST
Session
Fall 2024
Term
Y
Format
SEMR
Instructor
Calendar Description / Prerequisite / Co-Requisite
This course examines the histories of gender and sexuality in India from the late19th century to the present, with a particular focus on how wider social, political and economic developments have impacted and in turn, been shaped by the changing dynamics of gender. It traces transformations in gender norms and experiences and concurrent shifts in intimate life and sexual politics in colonial and postcolonial India.
Course Start Up
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rbarua@yorku.ca
This course examines the histories of gender and sexuality in India from the late19th century to the present, with a particular focus on how wider social, political and economic developments have impacted and in turn, been shaped by the changing dynamics of gender. It traces transformations in gender norms and experiences and concurrent shifts in intimate life and sexual politics in colonial and postcolonial India.
Students will learn about the significance of gender and sexuality in the histories of colonialism, anti-colonial mobilizations and postcolonial developments. In particular, the course considers how questions of gender have been historically grounded in caste, class, religious and racial politics. Some of the themes covered include, social reform, law and colonialism; the relationship between nationalism, conjugality and domesticity; racialization, gendered respectability and Empire; criminalization of same-sex intimacy; and the regulation of and tensions around romantic love. These themes will be examined through a number of theoretical and empirical texts, in addition to popular fiction, films and documentaries.
Through this course, students will not only gain an understanding of the shifts in gender discourses, norms, and practices but will also acquire a grasp of Indian history, society and politics in the colonial and postcolonial period.
*TENTATIVE*
Sangari, Kumkum, and Sudesh Vaid, eds. Recasting women: Essays in Indian colonial history. Delhi: Kali for Women, 1989.
Sarkar, Sumit, and Tanika Sarkar, eds. Women and social reform in modern India: a reader. Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2008.
*TENTATIVE Grade Breakdown*
Class Participation and Attendance: 20%
Source analysis: 20%
Film review: 10%
Group presentation: 20%
Research essay: 30%
This is a weekly in-person seminar. Students are expected to come to class with the assigned readings completed and prepared to engage in class discussions. Each session will consist of a brief lecture, smaller group activities and in-depth discussion of the assigned texts.
Upon completion of the course students will be able to:
- Critically analyze the politics of gender and sexuality in India from the 19th to the 21st
- Assess secondary literature, key concepts and historiographical debates around South Asian gender history.
- Evaluate and interpret a range of primary sources.
- Research and write an analytical essay on a specific historical question and develop a historically grounded argument using primary and secondary sources.
- Academic Honesty
- Student Rights and Responsibilities
- Religious Observance
- Grading Scheme and Feedback
- 20% Rule
No examinations or tests collectively worth more than 20% of the final grade in a course will be given during the final 14 calendar days of classes in a term. The exceptions to the rule are classes which regularly meet Friday evenings or on Saturday and/or Sunday at any time, and courses offered in the compressed summer terms. - Academic Accommodation for Students with Disabilities