Session Abstract

This multi-session workshop will explore new directions in the study of non-Western gender and sexuality, more generally, by bringing a range of critical perspectives and areal competences in gender and sexuality studies to bear on a critical appraisal of South Asian feminist scholarship. By so doing, this workshop will ask scholars who work across temporal and geographical boundaries-from early modernity, to the postcolonial and the postsocialist; and from the United States to Iran-to bring their areal competences and theoretical perspectives into conversation with emerging feminist scholarship in South Asia around issues such as: alternative genealogies of the feminist subject, religious and political identity-formation, and questions of affect and intimacy in social life. In the process, we hope to create a model for addressing productive affinities and meaningful divergences in the study of non-Western gender as it relates to socio-cultural specificity, as well as the universality of "theory." The discussion among participants (Cott; Levine; Najmabadi; Zheng) will circulate around a framing presentation by Mrinalini Sinha, entitled "The Futures of Feminist Historiography: What's South Asia Got To Do With It" The workshop is co-sponsored by the Society for Advancing the History of South Asia.