CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2013
| Author | Varga, Zsuzsanna |
|---|---|
| Title | Negotiating Respectability:The Anti-Dance Campaign in India, 1892-1910 |
| Summary | The thesis studies the British participation in the anti-dance campaign in colonial India as an act of negotiating boundaries of colonial British society and as an attempt to prescribe acceptable British attitude to a form of Indian entertainment. The thesis attempts a new interpretation of the British anti-dance campaign by applying Michel Foucault concept of biopower (1978) and by situating the anti-dance campaign in Ann Stoler‟s postcolonial theoretical framework (Stoler 1996, Stoler 2002). The discourse analysis of the British anti-dance campaign has revealed, that the British reformers identified sexuality connected to Indian dance entertainements as a form of dangerous sexuality violating late nineteenth century Western-centric conventions about respectability. These conventions were embedded in eugenic understandings of the body, health and morality as signifying race and nation. The anti-dance campaign shared sexual anxieties with the metropole, at the same time reflected colonial anxieties, such as defining proper European behaviour in the colonies. Keywords:anti-dance campaign, demarcation of colonial boundaries, discursive formation of sexualities |
| Supervisor | Hadley Z. Renkin |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2013/varga_zsuzsanna.pdf |
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