Real and imagined women : gender, culture, and postcolonialism

'Real & Imagined Women' is an essential addition to the postcolonial debate which offers a challenging mode of 'reading resistance' which destroys the stereotyped and sensationalised humanist image of the 'third world woman' as victim. How can the women-as-victim be read as a resisting subject? Real and Imagined Women explores the position of the female subject in a postcolonial state. Rajeswari Sunder Rajan investigates the problematic relationship between the theory' of the first world' against the matter' of the third' - that is, she brings postcolonial theory to bear on the politics of gender, religion and the culture of contemporary India, focussing on the practice and the representaion of sati. Her writing engages with such subjects as pre-colonial Tamil and Indian texts and colonial Imperialist texts; Indian writings and films; women's victimization by forms of sanctioned violence and their fraught, if passive, subject-position; contemporary novels by Indian women writers, and the elite' women-as-leader, focussing on the discourse generated by Indira Ghandi. Real and Imagined Women explores a series of fascinating and important questions for feminists working with postcolonial theory to offer a challenging mode of reading resistance' which destroys the stereotyped and sensationalised humanist image of the third world woman' as victim Book Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 4 Contents......Page 5 List of figures......Page 10 Acknowklegements......Page 11 INTRODUCTION: Subjectivity, representation and the politics of postcoloniality......Page 12 THE SUBJECT OF SATI: Pain and death in the contemporary discourse on sati......Page 26 REPRESENTING SATI: Continuities and discontinuities......Page 51 LIFE AFTER RAPE: Narrative, rape and feminism......Page 75 THE NAME OF THE HUSBAND: Testimony and taboo in the wife's discourse......Page 94 GENDER, LEADERSHIP AND REPRESENTATION: the 'case' of Indira Gandhi......Page 114 REAL AND IMAGINED WOMEN: Politics and/of representation......Page 140 Index......Page 0