Queering India : same-sex love and eroticism in Indian culture and society / edited by Ruth Vanita.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Vanita, Ruth.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Homosexuality--India.

Homosexuality.

India.

Physical Description:

252 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Routledge, 2002.

Summary:

Little is known about same-sex love and eroticism in Indian culture, but this once forbidden subject is slowly receiving more attention. Here for the first time, this largely uninvestigated area of Indian culture is uncovered in Vanita's provocative collection of original essays. The topics are wide-ranging, covering film, literature, popular culture, historical and religious texts, law, and other aspects of life in India. With a comprehensive scope, contributors discuss a diverse range of examples, including the recent controversial lesbian film, Fire; a case of same-sex love and murder in colonial India; homophobic fiction and homoerotic advertising in current day India; and queering the Kama Sutra. "Queering India" provides a profoundly important new understanding of gay and lesbian life.

Contents:

Part 1 Colonial Transitions

1. The Politics of Penetration: Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code / Suparna Bhaskaran 15

2. Sultan Mahmud's Makover: Colonial Homophobia and the Persian-Urdu Literary Tradition / Scott Kugle 30

3. Doganas and Zanakhis: The Invention and Subsequent Erasure of Urdu Poetry's "Lesbian" Voice / Carla Petievich 47

4. Alienation, Intimacy, and Gender: Problems for a History of Love in South Asia / Indrani Chatterjee 61

5. Eunuchs, Lesbians, and Other Mythical Beasts: Queering and Dequeering the Kama Sutra / Michael J. Sweet 77

Part 2 The Visions of Fiction

6. Loving Well: Homosexuality and Utopian Thought in Post/Colonial India / Leela Gandhi 87

7. "Do I Remove My Skin?": Interrogating Identity in Suniti Namjoshi's Fables / Anannya Dasgupta 100

8. Queernesses All Mine": Same-Sex Desire in Kamala Das's Fiction and Poetry / Rosemary Marangoly George 111

9. Homophobic Fiction/Homoerotic Advertising: The Pleasures and Perils of Twentieth-Century Indianness / Ruth Vanita 127

10. What Mrs. Besahara Saw: Reflections on the Gay Goonda / Lawrence Cohen 149

Part 3 Performative Pleasures in Theater, TV, and Cinema

11. A Different Desire, a Different Femininity: Theatrical Transvestism in the Parsi, Gujarati, and Marathi Theaters, 1850-1940 / Kathryn Hansen 163

12. Queer Bonds: Male Friendships in Contemporary Malayalam Cinema / Muraleedharan T. 181

13. "I Sleep behind You": Male Homosociality and Homoeroticism in Indian Parallel Cinema / Thomas Waugh 193

14. Queer Pleasures for Queer People: Film, Television, and Queer Sexuality in India / Shohini Ghosh 207

15. On Fire: Sexuality and Its Incitements / Geeta Patel 222

16. After the Fire / Monica Bachmann 234.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0415929490

0415929504

OCLC:

45879600