06 – At the margins of the periodical: reading advertisements in early twentieth-century regional periodicals

October 1, 2025
1:45 pm
Triplex 1017
South Asian print cultures shaped reading publics and modern identities across British India. This panel turns to the literal margins of regional periodicals to explore what paratextual elements may tell us about the formation of not only national, but also (trans)/regional and global networks formed through advertisements. Many South Asian periodicals of the early twentieth century carried numerous advertisements of print materials, services and goods. When they are not stripped-off prior to being archived or digitized, they form a rich archive to scholars studying nation-formation and the fashioning of religious, caste, class, gender and other identities. This panel is directed at researchers who engage with periodicals in various South Asian languages published in colonial India. It seeks to explore the role advertisements may have played in shaping socio-economical, socio-political, religious-cultural, domestic, national and transnational identities and sensibilities. Advertisements also provide information about marketing and potential reader consumption habits and preferences. They testify to the establishment of local, regional, national and in a few instances imperial and international networks between the literary and economic spheres. Academic reasons to consult advertisements in periodicals are varied. Some scholars do so to delve into the history of a (brand-name) product or company, others do so to intervene in larger discourses on health, medicine, capitalism and consumption practices as well as the self-fashioning of the emerging middle classes. This panel aims to initiate an epistemological and methodological conversation on the form and economy of the periodical with advertisements at the center. To meet that objective, it invites presenters to reflect on the relationship of editor-publishers’ marketing interests and need to finance their publishing ventures in relationship to their respective periodicals’ supposed larger agendas.

Convenor

Shobna Nijhawan

Presentations

Creating a Reading Public: Advertising books and magazines in Hans (1930-1936)
Nanda Archit - Queen Mary University of London, Queen Mary University of London, London, United Kingdom
Shaping Young Minds: Advertisements in Urdu Children’s Periodicals from late colonial North India
Tignol Eve - CNRS/CESAH, EHESS, Paris, France
Repackaging Tradition: Ayurveda and the Shaping of National Identity in Marathi Advertising
Tagare Maithili - Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Gandhinagar, India
Periodicals as Archives: Book, Services and Goods Advertisements in the Hindi Public Sphere (early Twentieth Century)
Nijhawan Shobna - Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, York University, Toronto, Canada
Modern Girl Imagery in Tamil Magazines: Gender, Advertising, and Consumer Culture in the Swadesamitran Illustrated Weekly (1931-1945).
Mohapatra Anne - South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany
Drinking ‘Indian Tea’ in Assam: An analysis of tea advertisements in the Assamese language (1926-1940)
Misra Manashi - Zakir Husain Delhi College, University of Delhi, Delhi, India
Print, Products, and Patriotism: Decoding Advertising Culture and National Identity in The Modern Review, 1907-1947
Kulshrestha Tanmay - University of Leeds, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom
Gold Jewelry for Financial Crisis: The Moral Economies of Women’s Magazines (1930s.-1940s.)
Gravier Melina - South Asian Studies Department, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland