Women & the Nation's Narrative

Women & the Nation's Narrative
Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages : 320
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0742518078
ISBN-13 : 9780742518070
Rating : 4/5 (78 Downloads)

Synopsis Women & the Nation's Narrative by : Neloufer De Mel

This book explores the development of nationalism in Sri Lanka during the past century, particularly within the dominant Sinhala Buddhist and militant Tamil movements. Tracing the ways women from diverse backgrounds have engaged with nationalism, Neloufer de Mel argues that gender is crucial to an understanding of nationalism and vice versa. Traversing both the colonial and postcolonial periods in Sri Lanka's history, the author assesses a range of writers, activists, political figures, and movements almost completely unknown in the West. With her rigorous, historically located analyses, de Mel makes a persuasive case for the connections between figures like actress Annie Boteju and art historian and journalist Anil de Silva; poetry whether written by Jean Arasanayagam or Tamil revolutionary women; and political movements like the LTTE, the JVP, the Mother's Front, and contemporary feminist organizations. Evaluating the colonial period in light of the violence that animates Sri Lanka today, de Mel proposes what Bruce Robbins has termed a 'lateral cosmopolitanism' that will allow coalitions to form and to practice an oppositional politics of peace. In the process, she examines the gendered forms through which the nation and the state both come together and pull apart. The breadth of topics examined here will make this work a valuable resource for South Asianists as well as for scholars in a wide range of fields who choose to consider the ways in which gender inflects their areas of research and teaching.

Stories of Women

Stories of Women
Author :
Publisher : Manchester University Press
Total Pages : 268
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0719068789
ISBN-13 : 9780719068782
Rating : 4/5 (89 Downloads)

Synopsis Stories of Women by : Elleke Boehmer

This text combines Boehmer's keynote essays on the mother figure and the postcolonial nation, with incisive new work on male autobiography, 'daughter' writers, the colonial body, the trauma of the post-colony, and the nation in a transnational context.

En-Gendering India

En-Gendering India
Author :
Publisher : Duke University Press
Total Pages : 210
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780822382805
ISBN-13 : 0822382806
Rating : 4/5 (05 Downloads)

Synopsis En-Gendering India by : Sangeeta Ray

En-Gendering India offers an innovative interpretation of the role that gender played in defining the Indian state during both the colonial and postcolonial eras. Focusing on both British and Indian literary texts—primarily novels—produced between 1857 and 1947, Sangeeta Ray examines representations of "native" Indian women and shows how these representations were deployed to advance notions of Indian self-rule as well as to defend British imperialism. Through her readings of works by writers including Bankimchandra Chatterjee, Rabindranath Tagore, Harriet Martineau, Flora Annie Steel, Anita Desai, and Bapsi Sidhaa, Ray demonstrates that Indian women were presented as upper class and Hindu, an idealization that paradoxically served the needs of both colonial and nationalist discourses. The Indian nation’s goal of self-rule was expected to enable women’s full participation in private and public life. On the other hand, British colonial officials rendered themselves the protectors of passive Indian women against their “savage” male countrymen. Ray shows how the native woman thus became a symbol for both an incipient Indian nation and a fading British Empire. In addition, she reveals how the figure of the upper-class Hindu woman created divisions with the nationalist movement itself by underscoring caste, communal, and religious differences within the newly emerging state. As such, Ray’s study has important implications for discussions about nationalism, particularly those that address the concepts of identity and nationalism. Building on recent scholarship in feminism and postcolonial studies, En-Gendering India will be of interest to scholars in those fields as well as to specialists in nationalism and nation-building and in Victorian, colonial, and postcolonial literature and culture.

The Promise of Patriarchy

The Promise of Patriarchy
Author :
Publisher : UNC Press Books
Total Pages : 286
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781469633947
ISBN-13 : 1469633949
Rating : 4/5 (47 Downloads)

Synopsis The Promise of Patriarchy by : Ula Yvette Taylor

The patriarchal structure of the Nation of Islam (NOI) promised black women the prospect of finding a provider and a protector among the organization's men, who were fiercely committed to these masculine roles. Black women's experience in the NOI, however, has largely remained on the periphery of scholarship. Here, Ula Taylor documents their struggle to escape the devaluation of black womanhood while also clinging to the empowering promises of patriarchy. Taylor shows how, despite being relegated to a lifestyle that did not encourage working outside of the home, NOI women found freedom in being able to bypass the degrading experiences connected to labor performed largely by working-class black women and in raising and educating their children in racially affirming environments. Telling the stories of women like Clara Poole (wife of Elijah Muhammad) and Burnsteen Sharrieff (secretary to W. D. Fard, founder of the Allah Temple of Islam), Taylor offers a compelling narrative that explains how their decision to join a homegrown, male-controlled Islamic movement was a complicated act of self-preservation and self-love in Jim Crow America.

Women Through the Lens

Women Through the Lens
Author :
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages : 350
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0824825322
ISBN-13 : 9780824825324
Rating : 4/5 (22 Downloads)

Synopsis Women Through the Lens by : Shuqin Cui

"Women Through the Lens will appeal to scholars and students in the fields of film, gender, and Asian studies, and to general readers interested in Chinese cinema."--Jacket.

Gender and Nation

Gender and Nation
Author :
Publisher : SAGE
Total Pages : 273
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781446240779
ISBN-13 : 1446240770
Rating : 4/5 (79 Downloads)

Synopsis Gender and Nation by : Nira Yuval-Davis

Nira Yuval-Davis provides an authoritative overview and critique of writings on gender and nationhood, presenting an original analysis of the ways gender relations affect and are affected by national projects and processes. In Gender and Nation Yuval-Davis argues that the construction of nationhood involves specific notions of both `manhood′ and `womanhood′. She examines the contribution of gender relations to key dimensions of nationalist projects - the nation′s reproduction, its culture and citizenship - as well as to national conflicts and wars, exploring the contesting relations between feminism and nationalism. Gender and Nation is an important contribution to the debates on citizenship, gender and nationhood. It will be essential reading for academics and students of women′s studies, race and ethnic studies, sociology and political science.

All the Single Ladies

All the Single Ladies
Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Total Pages : 368
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781476716572
ISBN-13 : 1476716579
Rating : 4/5 (72 Downloads)

Synopsis All the Single Ladies by : Rebecca Traister

"Today, only twenty percent of Americans are wed by age twenty-nine, compared to nearly sixty percent in 1960. The Population Reference Bureau calls it a 'dramatic reversal.' [This book presents a] portrait of contemporary American life and how we got here, through the lens of the single American woman, covering class, race, [and] sexual orientation, and filled with ... anecdotes from ... contemporary and historical figures"--

Gendered Paradoxes

Gendered Paradoxes
Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Total Pages : 239
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780226006901
ISBN-13 : 0226006905
Rating : 4/5 (01 Downloads)

Synopsis Gendered Paradoxes by : Fida J. Adely

In 2005 the World Bank released a gender assessment of the nation of Jordan, a country that, like many in the Middle East, has undergone dramatic social and gender transformations, in part by encouraging equal access to education for men and women. The resulting demographic picture there—highly educated women who still largely stay at home as mothers and caregivers— prompted the World Bank to label Jordan a “gender paradox.” In Gendered Paradoxes, Fida J. Adely shows that assessment to be a fallacy, taking readers into the rarely seen halls of a Jordanian public school—the al-Khatwa High School for Girls—and revealing the dynamic lives of its students, for whom such trends are far from paradoxical. Through the lives of these students, Adely explores the critical issues young people in Jordan grapple with today: nationalism and national identity, faith and the requisites of pious living, appropriate and respectable gender roles, and progress. In the process she shows the important place of education in Jordan, one less tied to the economic ends of labor and employment that are so emphasized by the rest of the developed world. In showcasing alternative values and the highly capable young women who hold them, Adely raises fundamental questions about what constitutes development, progress, and empowerment—not just for Jordanians, but for the whole world.

Acts of Narrative Resistance

Acts of Narrative Resistance
Author :
Publisher : University of Virginia Press
Total Pages : 216
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780813930572
ISBN-13 : 081393057X
Rating : 4/5 (72 Downloads)

Synopsis Acts of Narrative Resistance by : Laura J. Beard

This exploration of women's autobiographical writings in the Americas focuses on three specific genres: testimonio, metafiction, and the family saga as the story of a nation. What makes Laura J. Beard’s work distinctive is her pairing of readings of life narratives by women from different countries and traditions. Her section on metafiction focuses on works by Helena Parente Cunha, of Brazil, and Luisa Futoranksy, of Argentina; the family sagas explored are by Ana María Shua and Nélida Piñon, of Argentina and Brazil, respectively; and the section on testimonio highlights narratives by Lee Maracle and Shirley Sterling, from different Indigenous nations in British Columbia. In these texts Beard terms "genres of resistance," women resist the cultural definitions imposed upon them in an effort to speak and name their own experiences. The author situates her work in the context of not only other feminist studies of women's autobiographies but also the continuing study of inter-American literature that is demanding more comparative and cross-cultural approaches. Acts of Narrative Resistance addresses prominent issues in the fields of autobiography, comparative literature, and women's studies, and in inter-American, Latin American, and Native American studies.

A Nation Can Rise No Higher Than Its Women

A Nation Can Rise No Higher Than Its Women
Author :
Publisher : Lexington Books
Total Pages : 201
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780739176542
ISBN-13 : 0739176544
Rating : 4/5 (42 Downloads)

Synopsis A Nation Can Rise No Higher Than Its Women by : Bayyinah S. Jeffries

A Nation Can Rise No Higher Than Its Women: African American Muslim Women in the Movement for Black Self Determination, 1950–1975 challenges traditional notions and interpretations of African American, particularly women who joined the Original Nation of Islam during the Civil Rights-Black Power era. This book is the first major investigation of the subject that engages a wide scope of women from “The Nation” and utilizes a wealth of primary documents and personal interviews to reveal the importance of women in this community. Jeffries reveals that women were respected in the movement and maintained a very clear and often sought after voice in the advancement of the Original Nation of Islam. A Nation Can Rise No Higher Than Its Women replaces the typical portrait of the subservient and irrelevant African American Muslim woman with a far more accurate picture of their integral leadership and substantial contributions to the rise of Islam and black consciousness in the self-determination movement in the United States and beyond during the Civil Rights-Black Power era.