Articles by Susan Visvanathan

The moment we stop asking questions or are killed for asking them a new kind of history writing takes place. And it is here that the works of three Jewish thinkers, Hannah Arendt, Martin Buber and Simone Weil, become significant. The connecting thread between them is their struggle for freedom in circumstances which were devoid of human reason. They dealt with violence and injustice in ways which were deeply rational and humane.

Susan Visvanathan Women as Subjects edited by Nita Kumar; Stree and Book Review Literary Trust,
WOMEN AS SUBJECTS is a non- controversial book on the question of gender analyses in Indian ethnography. The lack of polemic makes for safe, almost familial reading. Nothing in it could ruffle functionalist sociologists with pre-conceived notions about the biases of feminism and its impact on value-neutral sociology. Women's Studies, clearly, is here to stay. This book is about the stability and order of patriarchal systems, and how women have been able to negotiate within it, find positions of power and privilege, complementary to masculine structures. The first essay by Ann Gold, and the last essay by Nita Kumar are somewhat different, however, from the other essays.

This paper deals with the property rights and domestic relationships of the Orthodox/Jacobite Syrian Christians of Kerala at marriage, birth and death. There is an underlying thread which links what otherwise seem disparate events in the life cycle of individuals and domestic groups.