Teaching/Writing Resistance

Women’s studies in India occupies a special place in history. Emerging with a radical women’s movement in the 1970s that was committed to social, economic, and sexual justice and premised on a discourse of emancipation, the newly-founded ‘women’s studies centres’ challenged received wisdom about social norms and structures. They introduced a new interdisciplinary focus based on social identity, sparking important transformations in the academy and in public discourse. However, the position of women’s studies within higher education is becoming increasingly precarious. Teaching/Writing Resistance brings together a diverse set of essays around women’s studies as a formal discipline, and raises important questions: What are its achievements, and equally, what are its historical blind spots and faultlines? Has women’s studies emerged as a critical space within the academy—as its pioneers envisioned—or does it remain limited by institutional bias and social inequality? Drawing on the perspectives of stalwarts of women’s movements who fought to establish the discipline.

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