Queering India: Same-Sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society / Edition 1

by Ruth Vanita

Overview

Queering India is the first book to provide an understanding of same-sex love and eroticism in Indian culture and society. The essays focus on pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial gay and lesbian life in India to provide a comprehensive look at a much neglected topic. The topics are wide-ranging, considering film, literature, popular culture, historical and religious texts, law and other aspects of life in India. Specifically, the essays cover such issues as Deepa Mehta's recent and controversial film, Fire, which focused on lesbian relationships in India; the Indian penal code which outlaws homosexual acts; a case of same-sex love and murder in colonial India; homophobic fiction and homoerotic advertising in current day India; and lesbian subtext in Hindu scripture. All of the essays are original to the collection. Queering India promises to change the way we understand India as well as gay and lesbian life and sexuality around the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415929509
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	11/16/2001
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ruth Vanita is Associate Professor of Liberal Studies and Women's Studies at the University of Montana. She is the co-editor of Same-Sex Love in India: Readings fromLiterature (2000).

Table of Contents

Introduction,Ruth Vanita
Part One: Colonial Transitions
1. The Politics of Penetration: Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, Suparna Bhaskaran
2. Sultan Mahmud's Make-Over: Colonial Homophobia and the Persian-Urdu Literay Tradition, Scott Kugle
3. Doganas and Zanakhis: The Invention and Subsequent Erasure of Urdu Poetry's "Lesbian" Voice, Carla Petievich
4. Alienation, Intimacy, and Gender: Problems for a History of Love in South Asia, Indrani Chatterjee
5. Eunuchs, Lesbians, and Other Mythical Beasts: Queering and De-Queering the Kamasutra, Michael Sweet
Part Two: The Visions of Fiction
6. Loving Well: Homosexuality and Utopian Thought in Post/Colonial India, Leela Gandhi
7. "Do I Remove My Skin?": Interrogating Indentity in Suniti Namjoshi's Fables, Anannya Dasgupta
8. "Queernesses All Mine": Same-Sex Desire in Kamala Das's Fiction and Poetry, Rosemary Marangoly George 9. Homophobic Fiction/Homoerotic Advertising: The Pleasures and Perils of Twentieth-Century Indianness, Ruth Vanita
10. What Mrs. Besahara Saw: Reflections on the Gay Goonda, Lawrence Cohen
Part Three: Performative Pleasures in Theater, TV, and Cinema
11. A Different Desire, A Different Femininity: Theatrical Transvestism in the Parsi, Gujarati, and Marathi Theaters, 1850-1940, Kathryn Hansen
12. Queer Bonds: Male Friendships in Contemporary Malayalam Cinema, Muraleedharan T.
13. "I Sleep Behind You": Male Homosociality and Homoeroticism in Indian Parallel Cinema, Thomas Waugh
14. Queer Pleasures for Queer People: Film, Television, and Queer Sexuality in India, Shohini Ghosh
15. OnFire: Sexuality and its Incitements, Geeta Patel
16. After the Fire: Smoldering Questions about Representation, Monica Bachmann
Notes on Contributors

Editorial Reviews

" Queering India provides a fascinating, livley, and historically grounded discussionof the impact of same-sex love on Indian culture. Spanning a range of disciplines, these essays shatter the myth that homosexuality is a Western or Northern experience. This is an excellent collection"
--Urvashi Vaid, co-editor of CreatingChange: Public Policy, Sexuality, and Civil Rights."
"Ruth Vanita's wonderful project bears fruit. She has assembled a superb collection of essays that establish the queerness of desis, the sexual struggle of Indian history. Queering India will annoy the despots, but forces of desire do not give in without a few good books."
--Vijay Prashad, author of The Karma of BrownFolk."
""Queering India" offers exactly what the best scholarship is supposed to. The book contains an impressive variety of ways to view a vast array of experiences, expressions, and perspectives on the lives of a complex and diverse part of the world. This collection will undermine any shallow assumptions or stereotypes one might hold about sexuality, gender, and daily life in South Asia"
--Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of Copyrights andCopywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How itThreatens Creativity."

From the Publisher