Dr. Ania Loomba is a Catherine Bryan Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research involves subjects such as early modern literature, histories of race and colonialism, postcolonial studies, feminist theory, and contemporary Indian literature and culture. She has published multiple works, including Rethinking Feminism in Early Modern Studies: Gender, Race and Sexuality, A Cultural History of Western Empires in the Renaissance, and her latest work, Revolutionary Desires: Women, Communism, and Feminism in India.
The graduate workshop will engage with comparative methodology by examining the intersections of gender, caste and race in South Asia and the world. Students will read two articles by Ania Loomba. The first “Race and the Possibilities of Comparative Critique’ (New Literary History 2009) explores the interconnection of Indian and Early Modern historiography and suggests a cautious comparativism that can make visible global histories of race. The second article “Intercaste Marriage and the Liberal Imagination: Vijay Tendulkar’s Kanyadaan” (Economic and Political Weekly 2013) reads the depiction of inter-caste marriage in the context of Tendulkar’s particular engagement with Dalit Panther’s literature. This workshop will interest graduate scholars interested in the history and theory of race, gender and sexuality, caste, postcolonial studies, Early Modern Studies, South Asia and comparative studies.
Please RSVP for the workshop with the Department of English through Eventbrite.com.
In addition to the workshop, Dr. Loomba will also be giving a public lecture following the workshop, titled "Revolutionary Desires: Women in Radical Politics," at 5pm in 311 Denney Hall.
This event is co-sponsored by The South Asia Graduate Studies Association, The Department of English, and the Department of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies.