Gender, Femininity, and Family in North Indian Texts, circa 1870-1945

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel

Abstract

Historians and literary scholars of South Asia have examined how the ideologies and institutions of colonialism shaped gender identities in India, especially the construction of ideal models for girls and women, and their roles both in and outside domestic spaces. Yet in investigating femininity, scholars have focused on new types of texts, such as the novel, that emerged in emulation of western forms, and were encouraged by colonial institutions as harbingers of modernity.

The aim of this panel is to investigate the construction of femininity in a wider range of texts and genres, and to ask how these constructions influenced subsequent generations of textual production within traditional genres. We examine changing ideals and models for femininity within a variety of literary, intellectual, and religious genres from North India, whose roots predate the colonial reform movements of the late nineteenth century. These papers offer perspectives on the methodological challenges that arise when using literary genres and literary tropes for the purposes of social historiography.

Taken together, these papers consider gender, femininity, and family within a range of textual traditions and religious communities from North India. In the first paper, Alam explores discussions of Muslim women’s education and the role of women in the family found in texts on ethics (akhlaq). Next, Knapczyk considers models for women’s resistance and articulations of family honor in the Shi’i elegy (marsiyah). Focusing on the writings of Bhai Vir Singh, in the third paper, Manchanda investigates constructions of girlhood among Panjabi Sikhs. Finally, in the fourth paper, Ahmad examines the shifting characterizations of gender in the tropes surrounding the beloved in the Urdu lyric (ghazal) tradition.

Area of Study

• South Asia

Session Organizer

• Peter Knapczyk, University of Colorado Boulder

Chair

• Peter Knapczyk, University of Colorado Boulder

Individual Presentations

• Akhlaq, Women and Family: Transformation of Ethics Tradition in Islamicate South Asia, circa 1870-1900 - Asiya Alam, Louisiana State University

• Femininity and Resistance in the Urdu Shi’i Elegy and Colonial Awadh - Peter Knapczyk, University of Colorado Boulder

• The Valorized Model of Girlhood: Examining Colonial Girlhood and Religious Identity through the Writings of Bhai Vir Singh (1898-1945) - Mahima Manchanda, University of Mississippi

• The Voice and Gender of the Beloved in the Early Modern Urdu Ghazal - Jameel Ahmad, University of Washington