Sourav Chatterjee

This course studies popular print cultures in South Asia from the 19th century to the present. Concentrating on multiple non-Western understandings of media, gender, and sexuality, this course provides a broad overview of bodily practices, anti-imperial resistances, and gender performances in South Asia. The course demonstrates to students methods of interpreting various print ephemera and verbal-visual representations of colored bodies, which further helps them form opinions on how gender, empire, and media are tied to questions of nation, caste, class, and aesthetics.

This course explores gender, culture, and power in early modern South Asia. It will situate concepts of 'gender' and 'power' within broader discussions of British imperialism, conflict zones, modernity, desire, revolution, and representation. We will read literary fiction, literary essays, scholarly articles, a memoir, and graphic narratives, and watch films that analyze these topics. The diverse reading materials will offer students perspectives on how the understanding of imperial rule, access to intellectual labor, social ordering on the grounds of caste, religious morality, modesty, devotion, desire, kingship, heroism, homosocial relations, and homoerotic practices were constituted and negotiated historically. In the course, we will discuss four overarching themes: gender and empire; gender and desire; gender and nation; and gender and labor.