Review: 'Women Contesting Culture: Changing Frames of Gender Politics in India'. Edited by Kavita Panjabi and Paromita Chakravarti. Stree, Kolkata, 2012, pp. 381, Rs. 500.00

"...the finest scholarship has come out of the convergence of the women’s movement and women’s/gender studies research..." 

"A few pioneering WS departments have also developed curricula and teaching-learning resources in different languages and for different levels of students. But there have been a few comprehensive publication projects. One such is that of the School of Women’s Studies (SWS), Jadavpur University, Kolkata. Women Contesting Culture: Changing Frames of Gender Politics in India is the second of a series of four Readers2 being published for SWS by the independent feminist publisher Stree, Kolkata. Samita Sen, Director of SWS and Series Editor, says the ‘enormous expansion in teaching’ WS in Bachelors’ and Masters’ courses, and even as a subject in the National Eligibility Test, ‘demanded a response from us’. As everyone engaged in the field knows, the finest scholarship has come out of the convergence of the women’s movement and women’s/gender studies research. As the editors of Women Contesting Culture Kavita Panjabi and Paromita Chakravarti remark, this is a matter of pride and celebration. The Reader reflects this celebration, even as it replays the fraught cultural politics of gender, marked by contestations, resistance and transformations over the last 25 years."

Review by: Sumi Krishna
The Book Review Literary Trust
VOLUME XXXVII NUMBER 2-3 February/March 2013

Read full review at http://www.thebookreviewindia.org/articles/archives-1185/2013/februarymarch/2-3/documenting-research-and-action.html