In the 1980s, gender was acknowledged as a useful and necessary category of analysis. The first generation of feminist scholars defined the new field and provided a rich corpus of works; later generations of scholars and activists then expanded it through their writings on culture, film and media, and sexuality.

Thinking Gender, Doing Gender focuses on these issues, as well as on pedagogy and classroom practice, theoretical obstacles created by disciplinary constraints, and practices in the performing arts from a gender perspective. This volume focuses more on doing gender rather thinking gender: in classrooms, in the making of curricula, in the writing and recall of history, in reading literature and cinema, and in the practice of culture in theatre and urban spaces.

Uma Chakravarti is a feminist historian who taught at Miranda House, Delhi University for over three decades. She writes on early Indian history, the 19th century and on contemporary issues. She has been associated with the women's movement and the movement for democratic rights since the early 1980s and in this capacity she has been part of many investigations into communal and caste based violence and state violence in conflict zones. 

Introduction

Section I: Feminist Pedagogies

1.Education as Truttiya Ratna: Phule, Ambedkar and Pedagogical Practice
Sharmila Rege 

2. Women, Men and Others in the Class and in the Past: The Challenges of Mainstreaming Gender in History
Kumkum Roy

3. Reading Gender in School Textbooks: The Tussle Between Tradition and Modernity
Dipta Bhog, Disha Mullick and Purwa Bharadwaj

4. Chatra Prabhodhan: Tacking Modern Education to Tradition
Swati Dyahadroy

5. Feminist Activism in the Pedagogy and Practice of Science: An Interactionist Approach
Chayanika Shah

 Section II: History and Memory

6. Feminist Epistemology and Oral History as Method
Mahua Sarkar

7. The ‘Man-Made’ Famine and Women’s Responses to Hunger: The Pivotal Dynamics of Food in the Tebhaga Movement
Kavita Panjabi

8. Memory as Ritual, Memory as Renewal: Some Thoughts on Feminist History-writing
V. Geetha

 Section III: Along the Bylanes: Reading Culture, Doing Culture

9. Devadasi and/or ‘Prostitute’: Analysing ‘Jogtin Prostitute’ in Post-colonial Rural Maharashtra
Anagha Tambe

10. ‘Mitro Marjani’: Recasting Women and Subversion
Shubhra Nagalia

11. Gender and Commodity Aesthetics in Tamilnadu 1950–70
S. Anandhi

12. Reimagining Nation: Redefining Region and Gender and Identity in the Cinema of the 1950s
Vaishali Diwakar

13. Women in Theatre: Journeys From ‘Respectability’ to Agency
Lata Singh

14. Staging Feminist Theatre
A. Mangai

15. Building Blocks: Casting a Woman’s Eye on the Built Environment 
Vani Subramanium

 About the Editor and Contributors
Index