14 – Performing Womanhood: Women’s Language in Premodern South Asia

October 3, 2025
3:45 pm
H01
This panel examines women's language use through the lens of performance in premodern South Asia. We explore how, and to what effect, staged women figures used language across various mediums, including literature, performative arts, scholarly discourses, and other traditions. We define performance broadly as any enactment of cultural norms, social roles, or individual expression. We approach these voices as representations of womanhood, considering how predominantly male artists and audiences interpreted and imagined women's voices. By focusing on linguistic use, we aim to uncover the tensions between lived experiences and cultural constructions of femininity in premodern South Asia. This approach allows us to move beyond textual norms and emic conventions, considering the contextual, emotional, and embodied aspects of women's language use while examining the filters through which these performances have been received and recorded. Collaborating with scholars versed in diverse South Asian languages, regions, and literary and performative traditions, we seek to elucidate overarching patterns and interconnections within the South Asian context while also highlighting distinctive cultural expressions. By exploring the complex interplay between performance, representation, and social reality, we aim to provide methods and insights regarding the dynamic nature of gender construction in South Asian history. This multifaceted approach hopefully enables a better understanding of the nuances of gender representation and the role of language in shaping cultural perceptions of womanhood during this period.

Convenors

Sivan Goren-Arzony
Talia Ariav

Presentations

A Space to Speak: Female Voices from 15th Century Kerala
Goren-Arzony Sivan - The Department of Asian Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
Public Stages, Privy Chambers: Theatricality and Dual Performativity of Gaṇikā-Kulastrī Dynamics in Early Medieval Sanskrit Kāvyas (4 to 8 century CE)
Nair Anjana M - Department of History, School of Social Sciences, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India
Bahiṇābāī’s Early Modernity
Maini Kartik - Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, The University of Chicago, Chicago, United States
Multiple Voices in Akka Mahādēvi’s Devotional Poetry
Ben-Herut Gil - Department of Religious Studies, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, United States
Staged revisions of gendered labor:Voices from Early Maratha Thanjavur
Ariav Talia - Hebrew University, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel
Taxonomies of womanhood on the vernacular stage
Ganser Elisa - Institute of Indology and Tibetology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany
On Being a Woman: Śūrpanakhā on the Kūṭiyāṭṭam Stage
Nidbach Maayan - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, JERUSALEM, Israel
Power, Gender, and Vocal Guising in Annamayya’s Śṛṅgāra Songs
Kamath Harshita Mruthinti - Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, Emory University, Atlanta, United States