Literature
The Politics of Sexuality: Through Manto’s License
Manto’s writings reflected both his own context and more. His stories dealt with eternal issues like love, deceit, pain, friendship and materialism. They also dealt with the specificity of national liberation movements, partition and the class-caste-religion matrix influencing human relationships in the particular context of South Asia.
By Rashmi Gopi
March 2, 2020
Video Page: Feminist Publishing
When a literary canon is created and upheld, which are the voices that are amplified and which are the voices that are lost in the fray? Can marginalised bodies and experiences truly find representation in such a canon?
By Curated Content
March 2, 2020
Windows: My Introduction To Sexuality Through Literature
All these works have made me acutely aware of how gender, sexuality, and religion, are so deeply intertwined in the social fabric. Also, how conditioning can significantly influence one’s understanding of literature, or the lack of it.
By Asmi
March 2, 2020
Under His Eye: The Women and Unwomen in The Handmaid’s Tale
The Handmaid’s Tale leads one to re-examine these two forms of social hierarchy that women have to navigate: one where they apparently have equal sexual rights as men but have to bear most of the brunt of unwanted pregnancies, reproductive burdens and the like, and the other extreme where their decisions including those about sexual identity and procreation are institutionalised and they are robbed of all agency and autonomy.
By Pooja Priyamvada
Finding Lit’s Political Potentials
Fiction is often relegated to a secondary stow because fact-based forms of knowledge are becoming more and more valued. To be informed is to stay with the facts. Yet I think fiction allows us to stay just about as informed.
By Shweta Krishnan
March 2, 2020
The Moment
You held my hand, we hugged each other / I was lost in your love, wanting to go further
By Shilpa Sachdeva
March 2, 2020
Brushstrokes:The Lurid Covers of 20th-Century Pulp Fiction
Considering how sexuality was a running (and selling) theme in pulp fiction stories, and female sexuality was employed as a means to titillate and attract readers, the covers often reflected this.
By Curated Content
Book Review: Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows
Much like any good erotic encounter, Balli Kaur Jaswals’ 2017 novel, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows, is a delightful romp that comes to a satisfying, sweet climax and an urge to fall back on the pillows.
By Sheena D'Lima
March 2, 2020
Interview – Kiran Bhat
Kiran Bhat is an author and polyglot who speaks 12 languages, and has written in English, Kannada, Spanish, Portuguese, and Mandarin. His recently published book, We Of the Forsaken World, has been described as “the tales of not just sixteen strangers, but many different lives, who live on this planet, at every second, everywhere”.
By Shikha Aleya
March 2, 2020
Finding Feminism
Standing behind the camera, with a microphone in one hand, I have felt this power imbalance first hand. The camera may humanise the person in front of it more than a text analysis would, but the modes of production remain in someone else’s hands.
By Surbhi Dewan
March 2, 2020
मर्दानगी के सामाजिक आधार
मर्दानगी के निर्माण में शर्मिंदगी की भूमिका, और नायक के खुद के विकास के लिए आत्मविश्वास और क्षमता पर इसका प्रभाव, विशेष रूप से उनके प्रारंभिक वर्षों में, खूबसूरती से सामने लाया गया है।
By Abhiruchi Chatterjee
March 2, 2020
Bodice-Rippers and Bad Education: Do Romance Novels Lead to Sexual Mistakes?
While we’ve grown used to hearing porn blamed for society’s ills, it’s now the medium’s comparatively matronly cousin – romance novels – that have come under scrutiny.
By Curated Content
Beyond Premchand and Manto: Hindi Theatre is Finding Inspiration in the Writings of Vijaydan Detha
Every contemporary debate, from homophobia and intolerance, finds an echo in the Rajasthani writer’s stories. Vijaydan Detha’s Dohri Zindagi starts…
By Curated Content
