Author: Chandrakala Padia
Editor(s): Chandrakala Padia
Publisher: Indian Institute of Advanced Study
Year: 2002
Language: English
Pages: 410
ISBN/UPC (if available): 817986023X
Description
Two major excellencies make this volume significant: its relevance and richness. The lot of women in India today is by no means satisfactory and ways have to be found to remedy the ills. But would it be proper to quietly acquiesce in, and follow the measures suggested by feminist writers in the West? It is such questions which this work addresses and analyses..
Our own writers on feminism have made it very clear, with the help of both argument and well-researched evidence. But the mere diagnosis is hardly enough. We have to find ways to remedy the ills.
Would it be proper to quietly acquiesce in, and follow the measures suggested by feminist writers in the West? Or do we have to look at what still saves the Indian family from utter dissolution, and turn a new to our ancient text, often misconstrued, for some sage counsel that may help us in the present? Does modernity call for a wholesale rejection of our time-honoured values? And does it make sense to impose alien modes of thought and conduct on any society without paying due heed to what has kept it up so long?
It is such questions of the moment, which the present work addresses and analyses and suggestions are provided by eminent scholars from diverse fields. Political scientists, sociologists, histories, creative writers, and philosophers-all have contributed to make this work a potential academic stimulus. It may even prove to be an influence.
Contents
Foreword
Preface
Message
Introduction: Chandrakala Padia
OBSESSION WITH THE WEST: RETRIEVING THE INDIAN
Hindu Women, Traditions and Modernity
Constructing an Indian theory of Feminism:
Problems and Potentialities
A JOURNEY THROUGH LITERATURE
Literary Feminism in India: In Search of Theory
Exploring the Icons: Sita and Radha
Imaging of woman in Indian Literature:
The Archetype, the Stereotype and the Real
In-between: Locating tradition and Modernity
in the works of Maitreyi Pushpa
Androgyny in Search of modernity:
Fiction and Reality
Pen and Needle: The Changing Metaphors of
Self in Autobiographies by Women in
Post-Independence India
Re-exploring Stereotypes: A Study of Erica Jong’s
Fear of flying and Ranjinder Singh Bedi’s Lajwanti
Infidel Heteroglossia? Postmodernist Feminist
Configurations in Githa Hariharan’s The Art of dying
DHARMASASTRAS: FETTERS OF FREEDOM?
How to Read the Manusmrti
Feminism, Tradition and Modernity:
An Essay in Relation to Manusmrti
Ontological Status of Women in the Dharma Sastras:
Discrepancies between the Positive Perception and the Negative
Spirituality as Panacea for Misplace Feminism
Tradition & Modernity as Determinants of
Women’s Roles & Status: Romance & reality
The Therigatha: A Study in Tradition and Modernity
BRAVING THE CHALLENGES
Evolving Traditions, Retreating Modernities:
Women and the Gendered Social Reality
Ecofeminism: Patriarchy through the Backdoor
Patriarchal Discourse-Construction and Subversion:
A Case Study of the Nineteenth Century Maharashtra
Feminist Issues: Action, Research and Women’s Studies
Feminism, Tradition and Modernity in
Relation to the Representation of Tribal Women in Modern Indian Writing
A Contemporary Reading of Ancient Women’s Vrata
Gandhi on Women and Liberty
Contributors