Overview

This book offers a critical lens on understanding jatra as a historical-cultural performance and reveals its impact on class and gender politics across India. It challenges colonial authority and navigates complex political nuances across cultures. Through exclusive interviews, the book articulates how jatra, as a performance form, has been marginalized and ""othered"" due to entrenched class and gender-based hegemony. It explores the fusion of multiple “folk” forms and their ideals within jatra, resulting in its hybrid identity. Each chapter examines the historical exchanges between performance and cultural practices. It sheds light on how class and gender identities intertwined with “folk” forms and street performances have influenced contemporary jatra's hybrid identity formation. It is an intriguing book for scholars in Theatre and Performance Studies, Cultural Studies, South Asian Studies, Gender and Queer Studies, and Postcolonial Studies. Also, it offers valuable insights for scholars in modern Indian languages and those exploring “folk” performances in contemporary India. It is a valuable resource for theatre and literary theory classrooms, graduate seminars, and scholars examining the challenges of translating culturally specific texts.

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9789819522736

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Dr. Jashodhara Sen is Assistant Professor of Theatre History and Literary Criticism, and Dramaturgy at the University of Florida. Her research traces the political and cultural histories of Bengali jatra as a socially charged form of grassroots engagement, while also examining liberatory performances across South Asia and the diaspora. Drawing on postcolonial, decolonial, and subaltern studies, her work bridges theatre history, cultural studies, gender and sexuality studies, and autoethnography. Sen’s scholarship has been featured in leading journals including Asian Theatre Journal, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Ecumenica, New England Theatre Journal, and Texas Theatre Journal. Her Routledge chapter, “Crossing Borders and Transforming Gender Identities: Mahesh Dattani and Manjula Padmanabhan” (2024), explores gender and contemporary Indian theatre. She also translates Bengali and Hindi plays, often unpublished or out of print, as acts of cultural preservation and revitalization, bringing vital yet overlooked voices to new audiences and ensuring their continued presence on global stages. Her creative practice includes “Leaving Home, Finding Home,” a digital storytelling platform that engages with South Asian immigrant women and redefines audience-participant relationships in alternative theatrical spaces. Sen brings her commitment to cultural sustainability and inclusive pedagogy into the classroom at the University of Florida’s School of Theatre and Dance, where she treats teaching itself as a radical act of performance and cultural renewal.

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