Speaking of the Self: Gender, Performance, and Autobiography in South Asia

Cover......Page 1
Contents......Page 8
Acknowledgments......Page 10
Introduction: Gender, Performance, and Autobiography in South Asia / Anshu Malhotra and Siobhan Lambert-Hurley......Page 12
Part I. Negotiating Autobiography: Between Assertion and Subversion......Page 42
1. A Passion for Reading: The Role of Early Twentieth-Century Urdu Novels in the Construction of an Individual Female Identity in 1930s Hyderabad / Sylvia Vatuk......Page 44
2. Pentimento: The Self beneath the Surface / Ritu Menon......Page 67
3. Interrupted Stories: The Self-Narratives of Nazr Sajjad Hyder / Asiya Alam......Page 83
4. Kailashbashini Debi’s Janaika Grihabadhur Diary: A Woman “Constructing”  Her “Self” in Nineteenth-Century Bengal? / Shubhra Ray......Page 106
Part II. Forms and Modes of Self-Fashioning......Page 130
5. Betrayal, Anger, and Loss: Women Write the Partition in Pakistan / Uma Chakravarti......Page 132
6. Tawa’if as Poet and Patron: Rethinking Women’s Self-Representation / Shweta Sachdeva Jha......Page 152
7. Masculine Modes of Female Subjectivity: The Case of Jahanara Begam / Afshan Bokhari......Page 176
Part III. Destabilizing the Normative: The Heterogeneous Self......Page 214
8. Performing a Persona: Reading Piro’s Kafis / Anshu Malhotra......Page 216
9. The Heart of a Gopi: Raihana Tyabji’s Bhakti Devotionalism as Self-Representation / Siobhan Lambert-Hurley......Page 241
10. Performing Gender and Faith: In Indian Theater Autobiographies / Kathryn Hansen......Page 266
Select Bibliography......Page 292
Contributors......Page 312
A......Page 316
C......Page 317
H......Page 318
M......Page 319
R......Page 320
S......Page 321
V......Page 322
Z......Page 323