ASIAN 227GL: Gender & Sexuality in South Asia

This course critically examines the portrayal of gender and sexuality in South Asian cultural texts. It employs literature and film to focus on culture and society in South Asia. It specifically addresses gender, as a form of social and historical inequality in South Asia, which is home to diverse socio-cultural communities, which are further divided from within by languages, class, religious affiliations, and regional differences. By reading the stories of individuals and groups in these contexts, the course explores how socio-cultural notions of gender and sexuality, often deeply embedded among communities; perpetuate inequalities among South Asian subjects. It utilized life history, the novel, film, political critique and other literary genres to examine cultural and material foundations of inequality in contemporary South Asia, especially among women of particular religions, class, caste, and ethnicities.