Figuring the Female : Women\'s Discourse, Art and Literature

Contents: 1. Women\'s empowerment: a woman-centered approach. 2. Of Garlands and nudity: women\'s discourse and the poetics of Bhakti. 3. Raja Rao and Jhabvala: two variant versions of the Indian widow. 4. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala\'s : "The Widow" reading the subtext. 5. The private as the public: some theoretical issues in women\'s autobiography. 6. Women in the paintings of Raja Ravi Varma. 7. Feminist critiques and art practices. 8. New Structures of signification: re-viewing the marginal in Keri Hulme\'s The Bone People. 9. Memory and meaning: the literary experience. 10. The third eye: image of women on popular television in India. 11. Simone de Beauvoir: woman extraordinaire.

"The major concern of the essays in this book is to trace the emancipating values induced through the recognition of multiple perspectives as opposed to the socially maintained hegemonial standpoints. Each essay although starting off from various cultural locales and theoretical positions-whether it is about autobiography or painting-attempts for the most a rediscovery of woman\'s history and culture, particularly in the case of non-European communities that have nurtured female creativity. Most of these have appeared variously in journals like Indian literature, Kalakalpa, New Quest, the Literary Criterion, The Journal of Indian writing in English, LittCritt, revaluations, review of social sciences, The Literary Half yearly, Samyukta and the Journal of Literature and Aesthetics.

Figuring the Female: Women\'s Discourse, Art and Literature, in general, examines the devaluation and silencing of the woman\'s experience, through a close exploration of the socio-cultural space wherein she is marginalized, and strives to expose its motives and strategies. The interdisciplinary nature of these essays would certainly be of interest to anyone seriously concerned with gynocriticism, gender issues and ideology etc." (jacket)