Elusive Lives

Zusatztext "Siobhan Lambert-Hurley's Elusive Lives: Gender, Autobiography, and the Self in Muslim South Asia is a deeply researched, sophisticated, and beautifully written study of South Asian Muslim women's autobiographical life writing from the earliest known examples to the late twentieth century. Lambert-Hurley brings rich perspective to her study." Informationen zum Autor Siobhan Lambert-Hurley is Reader in International History in the Department of History at the University of Sheffield. Klappentext Siobhan Lambert-Hurley is Reader in International History in the Department of History at the University of Sheffield. Zusammenfassung Muslim South Asia is widely characterized as a culture that idealizes female anonymity: women's bodies are veiled and their voices silenced. Challenging these perceptions! Siobhan Lambert-Hurley highlights an elusive strand of autobiographical writing dating back several centuries that offers a new lens through which to study notions of selfhood. In Elusive Lives ! she locates the voices of Muslim women who rejected taboos against women speaking out! by telling their life stories in written autobiography. To chart patterns across time and space! materials dated from the sixteenth century to the present are drawn from across South Asia - including present-day India! Pakistan and Bangladesh. Lambert-Hurley uses many rare autobiographical texts in a wide array of languages! including Urdu! English! Hindi! Bengali! Gujarati! Marathi! Punjabi and Malayalam to elaborate a theoretical model for gender! autobiography! and the self beyond the usual Euro-American frame. In doing so! she works toward a new! globalized history of the field. Ultimately! Elusive Lives points to the sheer diversity of Muslim women's lives and life stories! offering a unique window into a history of the everyday against a backdrop of imperialism! reformism! nationalism and feminism. Inhaltsverzeichnis Contents and AbstractsIntroduction: The ultimate unveiling chapter abstract What does it mean to write autobiography in a cultural context, like Muslim South Asia, that idealizes women's anonymity? Framed as "the ultimate form of unveiling," the introduction links the book to a feminist project of decoding a gendered self and a history of the everyday. South Asian Muslim women are defined as a category before their autobiographical writings are introduced as a largely modern phenomenon connected to Muslim reformism. The book's analysis is situated within the context of Muslim autobiography and historical approaches to autobiography. Methods and sources are also considered in terms of the book's move beyond individual authors and texts to a broad base of materials constituting the autobiographical sample. It elucidates the complicated and sometimes haphazard research process by which materials were recovered from smaller libraries and private collections in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh-with the home, the street, and the market as an archive. 1Life/history/archive chapter abstract A major concern of theorists has been to define autobiography as a genre apart from other literary forms. Applying these debates to Muslim South Asia, chapter 1 considers how to find and fit "real-life" historical sources into the theoretical boxes dreamt up by academics often limited to European and North American materials. In doing so, it explores the range of possible sources to be included in a "life history archive"-from autobiographical biographies and biographical autobiographies to travelogues, reformist literature, novels, devotionalism, letters, diaries, interviews, speeches, film, and ghosted narratives. Ultimately, it settles on the term autobiographical writing to capture the constructed life in written form while linking to autobiography's global canon. The heterogeneous practices of South Asian Muslim women-not always complete, coh...

"Siobhan Lambert-Hurley's Elusive Lives: Gender, Autobiography, and the Self in Muslim South Asia is a deeply researched, sophisticated, and beautifully written study of South Asian Muslim women's autobiographical life writing from the earliest known examples to the late twentieth century. Lambert-Hurley brings rich perspective to her study."

Auteur
Siobhan Lambert-Hurley is Reader in International History in the Department of History at the University of Sheffield.

Résumé

Muslim South Asia is widely characterized as a culture that idealizes female anonymity: women's bodies are veiled and their voices silenced. Challenging these perceptions, Siobhan Lambert-Hurley highlights an elusive strand of autobiographical writing dating back several centuries that offers a new lens through which to study notions of selfhood. In Elusive Lives, she locates the voices of Muslim women who rejected taboos against women speaking out, by telling their life stories in written autobiography. To chart patterns across time and space, materials dated from the sixteenth century to the present are drawn from across South Asia including present-day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Lambert-Hurley uses many rare autobiographical texts in a wide array of languages, including Urdu, English, Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi and Malayalam to elaborate a theoretical model for gender, autobiography, and the self beyond the usual Euro-American frame. In doing so, she works toward a new, globalized history of the field. Ultimately, Elusive Lives points to the sheer diversity of Muslim women's lives and life stories, offering a unique window into a history of the everyday against a backdrop of imperialism, reformism, nationalism and feminism.

Contenu

Contents and AbstractsIntroduction: The ultimate unveiling chapter abstractWhat does it mean to write autobiography in a cultural context, like Muslim South Asia, that idealizes women's anonymity? Framed as "the ultimate form of unveiling," the introduction links the book to a feminist project of decoding a gendered self and a history of the everyday. South Asian Muslim women are defined as a category before their autobiographical writings are introduced as a largely modern phenomenon connected to Muslim reformism. The book's analysis is situated within the context of Muslim autobiography and historical approaches to autobiography. Methods and sources are also considered in terms of the book's move beyond individual authors and texts to a broad base of materials constituting the autobiographical sample. It elucidates the complicated and sometimes haphazard research process by which materials were recovered from smaller libraries and private collections in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh-with the home, the street, and the market as an archive. 1Life/history/archive chapter abstract A major concern of theorists has been to define autobiography as a genre apart from other literary forms. Applying these debates to Muslim South Asia, chapter 1 considers how to find and fit "real-life" historical sources into the theoretical boxes dreamt up by academics often limited to European and North American materials. In doing so, it explores the range of possible sources to be included in a "life history archive"-from autobiographical biographies and biographical autobiographies to travelogues, reformist literature, novels, devotionalism, letters, diaries, interviews, speeches, film, and ghosted narratives. Ultimately, it settles on the term autobiographical writing to capture the constructed life in written form while linking to autobiography's global canon. The heterogeneous practices of South Asian Muslim women-not always complete, coherent, linear, self-centered, or driven by personality-are thus opened to analysis. 2The sociology of authorship chapter abstract This study is limited to the autobiographical writings of South Asian Muslim women. The majority of authors from the sixteenth century into the twenty-first century may be characterized as elite: upper…