Gender and Media in South Asia
Instructor: Ruhi Grover. Email was: rgm2k@virginia.edu

Course number: Drama 283
Location/Time: Cabell 241 / T & Th. 9:30-10:45

The interplay and contradiction between the images and the reality of gender identity in South Asia continues to raise concerns of representation. This course deals with the construction of gender identities, and explores some essentializing categories--traditional vs. modern, oppression vs. liberation--that have been used to understand the position of women (and men) in South Asia. One way of doing this is by examining the way in which media--both visual and print--has treated gender, and the extent to which it has been able to disseminate the "truth" or capture the "real lives" of women in the economic and social sphere. In sum, this course highlights how images and representations of gender illustrate a South Asian understanding of itself.

Requirements
*Class participation (20 %)
* Midterm (30 %)
* Final - A 10-page paper on any issue that is discussed in class. The students willhave to refer to relevant films, newspapers, and magazines for this paper (50 %)
This will also include a class presentation of the final paper.

Readings

Classes --

January 15: Introduction: problematizing gender and media

Jan. 20: Women in media
   Reading: Mrinal Pande, The subject is woman. New Delhi, Sanchar Pub. House, 1990
   Arjun Appadurai & Carol Breckeridge, "public modernity in India," CR
[CR= Clemons Library Reserve materials]

Jan. 22: Why media?
   Reading: Usha Reddi, "Media and Culture in Indian Society: Conflict or Co-operation?" CR
   Graham Murdoch, "Communications and the cost of modernity." CR

Jan. 27: The visual medium: cinema
   women, nation, and the outsider in Indian cinema
   film clippings: mother India; coolie; saaz (based on Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhonsle)

Jan. 29: Discussion of the films and readings
   Readings: Leela Rao, "woman in Indian films - a paradigm of continuity & change;"
    Rosie Thomas, "melodrama and the negotiation of morality mainstream hindi films."
   Aruna Vasudeva, "The woman: vamp or victim"
   Rita Manchanda, "hype and heroines: is the new..."

Feb. 3: The public and the private
   Film: Bandit Queen

Feb. 5: Discuss the film
    Readings: Molly Heskel, "From reverence to rape," pp. 505-534, CR
   Madhu Kishwar, "The Bandit Queen," Manushi, no. 84, Sept.-Oct. 1994, CR

Feb 10: S. Asian women filmmakers abroad
   Gurinder Chadha
   What do you call an Indian woman who's funny?" VHS8431
   Interview with Mira Nair, Newstrack, April 1992

Feb. 12: Documenting success stories
   film: Kamala and Raji: working women of SEWA

Feb. 17: Zooming into the private
   Dadi's family

Feb. 19: Discuss the documentaries
   Readings: SEWA: Women in Movement, CR

Feb. 24: Television in a new avatar
   Newstrack: Jan. 1990, "Media: unmuzzling Doordarshan and AIR"
   Newstrack: May 1992, "Media Revolution: Glasnost at last"
   Readings: A. Rajagopal, "The rise of national programming: the case of Indian television." CR
   Arvind Rajagopal, "Mediating Modernity" CR

Feb. 26: Construction of feminity on television
   Reading: Prabha Krishnan and Anita Dighe, Affirmation and Denial
   Mary Ellen Brown, "Introduction: Feminist Cultural Television Criticism - Culture, Theory and Practice," "Conclusion: Consumption and Resistance - The Problem of Pleasure." CR

March 3: Is the media bias?
   Readings: "re-marketing the whore," "hidden face of patriarchy, "struggling for space," "action for change"
   John Corner, "television in theory," CR
   * Mid-term will be distributed in class

March 5: Reading between the lines: newspaper coverage
   Reading: Whose News? Dowry, Rape, the Shah bano Controversy
   Newstrack: August 89 "final push over the edge," TOI Sesquicentennial

* mid-term papers due
SPRING BREAK

March 17: Newspaper coverage (continued)
   Female Foeticide, Roop Kanwar Tragedy

March 19: Magazine scene
   India Today, Cosmopolitan, Stardust, Manushi, (Kanwal to send magazines)
   Reading: "Birthing Terrible Beauties," EPW, vol. 26, no. 43, 1991

March 24 : Dalda 13: First woman photo-journalist in India

March 26: Women in media
   Newstrack: June 1990: Kiran Bedi, Shabana Azmi
   Newstrack: Oct. 1991: Shobha De
   Sept. 1992: Medha Patekar
   PRESENTATIONS IN CLASS

March 31: Urvashi Butalia, "English textbooks, Indian Publishers." CR

April 2: Advertizing a "product."
   Reading: Prabha Krishnan, "Applauding Servility: Images of women in advertisements." Nandini Prasad, "Commercial advertising and portrayal of women." CR Read Times of India sesquicentennial publication of advertisements.

April 7: Radio: A woman's place on the air?

April 9: Changing Media history through women's history

April 14: Students will present their papers

April 16:    - do-

April 21:   - do-

April 23:   - do-

April 28: Summing up: Communication and the public sphere
   Reading: John Keane, "Structural transformations of the public sphere." CR

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[Originally (1999-2000?) located at as a University of Virginia Center for South Asian Studies Teaching Resource]

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