Name Ruth Vanita | Role Author | |
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Nominations Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Studies Books Love's Rite: Same‑Sex Marriage, Queering India: Same‑Se, Gender - Sex - and the City, Gandhi's Tiger and Sita's Smile, Sappho and the Virgin Ma | ||
Ruth vanita saleem kidwai on 377
Ruth Vanita (born 1955) is an Indian academic, activist and author who specialises in lesbian and gay studies, gender studies, British and South Asian literary history.
Contents
- Ruth vanita saleem kidwai on 377
- Ruth Vanita GFP Interview
- Early life and education
- Writings
- Major publications
- References
Ruth Vanita GFP Interview
Early life and education
Ruth was born in 1955 in Rangoon, Burma to a Christian family. In her late twenties she gradually began a return to Hinduism, which she sees not as a conversion but as a return to the practices of her ancestors. She has now been a Hindu for most of her life. Her father is of Tamilian origin while her mother is North Indian and she comes from a family of educators. She moved to New Delhi, India when she was two and grew up there. She attended Springdales school. When she was in 8th grade, the doctor advised her mother to discontinue her studies due to Ruth's acute myopia and as she had already received sufficient education for a girl, according to him. Her mother was a teacher and home schooled her, until Ruth graduated high school and went on to attend Miranda House college in Delhi University. She did her B.A and M.A and later became lecturer in English, Miranda House and Reader, Department of English, Delhi University between 1976-1997. She registered for a PhD, but left it midway to work on Manushi: A Journal about Women and Society. She later finished her PhD on the writings of Virginia Woolf. Her research for the book, later became the basis for the book Sappho and the Virgin Mary: Same-Sex Love and the English Literary Imagination (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). Abhishek Abhi Abhi Abhi
Writings
While living in Delhi in 1978, Vanita co-founded Manushi: A Journal about Women and Society, a journal that combined academic research and grassroots activism. She served as the journal's co-editor from 1979 to 1990. She also was a reader at Miranda House, and in the English Department of the University of Delhi. Author of several books and many literary translations, she has also published over 50 academic articles on a range of topics from Shakespeare to Virginia Woolf, and Indian literature in journals such as Shakespeare Survey, Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, Comparative Drama, Postcolonial Studies, GLQ and Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. She is now a professor at the University of Montana as director of the Global Humanities and Religions Program, and teaches many India-related courses, including Talking to God: the Bhagavad Gita.
Major publications
Vanita, Ruth ed., India and the World: Postcolonialism, Translation and Indian Literature (New Delhi: Pencraft, 2014). Vanita, Ruth, Dancing with the Nation: Courtesans in Bombay Cinema (forthcoming from Bloomsbury Press, New York, and Speaking Tiger, New Delhi)
Co-edited with Madhu Kishwar, "In Search of Answers: Indian Women’s Voices from Manushi" (London: Zed Books, 1984, revised edition Horizon Books, Delhi, 1991).* Vanita, Ruth (2005). Gandhi's Tiger and Sita's Smile: Essays on Gender, Sexuality and Culture. New Delhi: Yoda Press. ISBN 978-81-902272-5-4. OCLC 70008421.
Translations:
Alone Together: Selected Stories of Mannu Bhandari, Rajee Seth and Archana Varma (New Delhi: Women Unlimited Press, 2013).