Promotional Information

Raman reflects on the various ways in which Indian women have developed and expressed their own feminist agenda.

Table of Contents

Volume 1 - Early India Preface List of Abbreviations Map of India - Physical Introduction 1. Region, environment, gender 2. Vedic goddesses and women 3. Mothers and wives in the smriti texts 4. Buddhist and Jaina nuns and laywomen 5. Women in classical art and literature 6. The divine feminine: Devis, yoginis, Taras 7. Queens, saints, courtesans Bibliography Volume 2 Later India 8. Muslim women in pre-modern India 9. Women in the colonial era 10. Male reformers and womens rights 11. Feminists and nationalists 12. Conclusion: Women in India today Map of India - Political Bibliography

About the Author

SITA ANANTHA RAMAN is Associate Professor Emerita, History, Santa Clara University, California; Member of the Board of Directors, Pacific Coast Immigration Museum; and History Adjunct, University of Georgia, Athens. She is the author of Getting Girls to School: Social Reform in the Tamil Districts, 1870-1930 (1996) and A. Madhaviah: A Biography and a Novella (2004).

Reviews

…Women in India is a collection of scholarly essays that roughly follows a chronological order. As such, it makes for a good starting point for academic research and is highly recommended for college and university libraries.
*Library Journal*

In this two-volume set, Raman (history, Santa Clara U. and U. of Georgia, Athens) discusses the role of women in the social and cultural history of India, with a focus on gender and female sexuality in terms of representations in male texts of the premodern era; their later use by men and women for contemporary social and political purposes; women's narratives in their social contexts; and the issues of female agency and objectification. She addresses women's subordinate nature in India, but also their active resistance, avenues for self-expression, negotiations with patriarchy, and support of oppressive traditions. Included in chapters is discussion of goddesses, queens and courtesans, nuns, women saints, motherhood, representations in art, education, castes, feudal norms of sati and domesticity, Western influences, laws, marriage and divorce, Indian feminism and suffrage, and individuals such as Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. She organizes the text by two chronological sections: the premodern era from antiquity to the early medieval Hindu kingdoms and the later era under Turko- Afghan and Mughal dynasties, colonial rule, and the independent state after 1947.
*Reference & Research Book News*

. . . this is a top pick for any women's issues or cultural collection.
*Midwest Book Review*

… a timely addition to the growing number of scholarly works on the historical status and development of women in India. … Women in India definitely fills a gap in the reference literature. Other works on this topic are more narrowly focused or cover the issues on a more intermediate level; none has the range, depth, or level of scholarship of this set. This is a must for academic libraries with programs in Indian history, and it will be a valuable addition for general reference collections in many academic and public libraries.
*Feminist Collections*