Unfinished Gestures: Devadasis, Memory, and Modernity in South India (South Asia Across the Disciplines)

__Unfinished Gestures__ presents the social and cultural history of courtesans in South India who are generally called__devadasis__, focusing on their encounters with colonial modernity in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Following a hundred years of vociferous social reform, including a 1947 law that criminalized their lifestyles, the women in__devadasis__communities contend with severe social stigma and economic and cultural disenfranchisement. Adroitly combining ethnographic fieldwork with historical research, Davesh Soneji provides a comprehensive portrait of these marginalized women and unsettles received ideas about relations among them, the aesthetic roots of their performances, and the political efficacy of social reform in their communities.Poignantly narrating the history of these women, Soneji argues for the recognition of aesthetics and performance as a key form of subaltern self-presentation and self-consciousness. Ranging over courtly and private salon performances of music and dance by __devadasi__s in the nineteenth century, the political mobilization of__devadasis__identity in the twentieth century, and the post-reform lives of women in these communities today, __Unfinished Gestures__ charts the historical fissures that lie beneath cultural modernity in South India. Unfinished Gestures presents the social and cultural history of courtesans in South India who are generally called devadasis , focusing on their encounters with colonial modernity in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Following a hundred years of vociferous social reform, including a 1947 law that criminalized their lifestyles, the women in devadasis communities contend with severe social stigma and economic and cultural disenfranchisement. Adroitly combining ethnographic fieldwork with historical research, Davesh Soneji provides a comprehensive portrait of these marginalized women and unsettles received ideas about relations among them, the aesthetic roots of their performances, and the political efficacy of social reform in their communities.Poignantly narrating the history of these women, Soneji argues for the recognition of aesthetics and performance as a key form of subaltern self-presentation and self-consciousness. Ranging over courtly and private salon performances of music and dance by devadasi s in the nineteenth century, the political mobilization of devadasis identity in the twentieth century, and the post-reform lives of women in these communities today, Unfinished Gestures charts the historical fissures that lie beneath cultural modernity in South India. Unfinished Gestures presents the social and cultural history of courtesans in South India who are generally called devadasis, focusing on their encounters with colonial modernity in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Following a hundred years of vociferous social reform, including a 1947 law that criminalized their lifestyles, the women in devadasis communities contend with severe social stigma and economic and cultural disenfranchisement. Adroitly combining ethnographic fieldwork with historical research, Davesh Soneji provides a comprehensive portrait of these marginalized women and unsettles received ideas about relations among them, the aesthetic roots of their performances, and the political efficacy of social reform in their communities. Poignantly narrating the history of these women, Soneji argues for the recognition of aesthetics and performance as a key form of subaltern self-presentation and self-consciousness. Ranging over courtly and private salon performances of music and dance by devadasis in the nineteenth century, the political mobilization of devadasis identity in the twentieth century, and the post-reform lives of women in these communities today, Unfinished Gestures charts the historical fissures that lie beneath cultural modernity in South India. 'unfinished Gestures' Presents The Social And Cultural History Of Courtesans In South India, Focusing On Their Encounters With Colonial Modernity In The 19th And Early 20th Centuries. On Historical, Social, And Aesthetic Borderlands -- Producing Dance In Colonial Tanjore -- Whatever Happened To The South Indian Nautch?: Toward A Cultural History Of Salon Dance In Madras -- Subterfuges Of Respectable Citizenship: Marriage And Masculinity In The Discourse Of Devadāsā Reform -- Historical Traces And Unfinished Subjectivity: Remembering Devadāsā Dance At Viralimalai -- Performing Untenable Pasts: Aesthetics And Selfhood In Coastal Andhra Pradesh -- Coda: Gesturing To Devadāsā Pasts In Today's Chennai. Davesh Soneji. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Davesh Soneji is associate professor of South Asian religions at McGill University. He is coeditor of Performing Pasts: Reinventing the Arts in Modern South India and editor of Bharatanatyam: A Reader .