Sanjukta Dasgupta

Malashri Lal

This book critiques literary and cultural representations of the Indian family to explore the manner in which the family and its structure are in transition. The papers explore (and expose) how the Indian family, whether in India or in diaspora, needs to be redefined in the current context-in this age of rapid industrialization, globalization (both cultural and economic), and the emergence of new technologies. The family is viewed from a variety of perspectives, as represented in film, theatre, and literature-both English and vernacular. Including reflective pieces by several well-known scholars, this volume offers a holistic understanding of local and global shifts and fissures that shape the family today.

Reading Literary and Cultural Texts

The Indian Family in Transition

Chinmoy Guha

This volume of 22 essays spans a wide trajectory, foregrounding the texts of Tagore and Tagore as text. The Tagorean spirit that makes the bard so relevant in the 21st century forms the basis of this compilation. Tagore's travels to various parts of the world, his reception and response to diverse cultures, his scepticism about the rigid parameters of nationalism all establish the perception that Tagore was remarkably at home in the world. Tagore's concern was with life, play and contingency-with the momentary as well as the eternal. It is this strain of unacknowledged modernism and life-affirming vision that make his work powerful. A believer in freedom of the individual, creative freedom and freedom of all, his words are as pertinent in today's context as they were in his time. This volume analyses how the constrictions of the specificities of place, location and geographies have always been interrogated by Tagore for whom space was a defining trope. With contributions from some leading Tagore experts both from India and abroad, this volume enables us to re-read Tagore as a messenger of world harmony and peace.

Tagore-At Home in the World

Dipankar Sinha

Sudeshna Chakravarti

In contemporary India, as one side of the coin celebrates traditional stereotypes, the other side subverts the same image, sometimes subtly, but often radically. The push and pulls of these factors are changing the cultural landscape of India decisively. This volume critiques media representations of popular culture and gender since the 1950s and tracks the changes that have taken place in Indian society. The authors give us incisive analyses of these transformations, represented through the candid lens of the camera in films, television, advertisements and magazines, all of which focus on gender and familial representations and patriarchal norms in Indian society. The strength of this book is that it rejects grand narratives in favor of the micro-politics of daily living. In the course of exploring the metamorphosis of India, the authors succeed in dissolving the boundaries between mass/low culture, elite/high culture and local/national/global affiliations.

Tracking Change and Continuity

Media, Gender, and Popular Culture in India

Devaleena Das

This volume explores the subterfuges, strategies, and choices that Australian women writers have navigated in order to challenge patriarchal stereotypes and assert themselves as writers of substance. Contextualized within the pioneering efforts of white, Aboriginal, and immigrant Australian women in initiating an alternative literary tradition, the text captures a wide range of multiracial Australian women authors’ insightful reflections on crucial issues such as war and silent mourning, emergence of a Australian national heroine, racial purity and Aboriginal motherhood, communism and activism, feminist rivalry, sexual transgressions, autobiography and art of letter writing, city space and female subjectivity, lesbianism, gender implications of spatial categories, placement and displacement, dwelling and travel, location and dislocation and female body politics. Claiming Space for Australian Women’s Writing tracks Australian women authors’ varied journeys across cultural, political and racial borders in the canter of contemporary political discourse.

Sanjukta Dasgupta

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