Abstract

Reading Krishna Sobti’s Mitro Marjani (To Hell with You Mitro 1967) and Surajmukhi Andhere Ke (Sunflowers of the Dark 1972), this reading group will explore the (re)production of heteronormative sexualities across the caste, gender, and sexuality spectrum in postindependence India.  While Mitro (Mitro Marjani) revels in a sensual exploration of her sexuality, Ratika (Surajmukhi Adhere Ke) inhabits a traumatic darkness, holding on to the memories of her sexual abuse as a child. These women are constantly measured on a scale of morality, impinged by factors like shame and honour.

The discussion will explore how Sobti’s creative spectrum challenges the dominant structures of the state and the Indian women’s movement which consider women’s expression of sexuality (both within and without marriage) as entwined with either violence or sexual excess. By so doing, it attempts to de-link the idea of woman’s sexuality from the constraints of the patriarchal epistemology, exploring instead, what Gloria Anzaldúa (1987) calls ‘sexual and spiritual borderlands’ (3) that would heal women’s subjectivities, making them full citizens of the nation state.

Registration

If you wish to participate online via Teams, please follow this link: https://readingdecoloniality.warwick.ac.uk/join/

Contact

Bharti Arora, AIAS-AUFF Fellow, Aarhus University,  barora@aias.au.dk 

Claire French, Postdoc, Dramaturgy, Aarhus University, clairefrench@cc.au.dk