In this timely study, Batra examines contemporary drama from India, Jamaica, and Nigeria in conjunction with feminist and incipient queer movements in these countries. Postcolonial drama, Batra contends, furthers the struggle for gender justice in both these movements by contesting the idea of the heterosexual, middle class, wage-earning male as the model citizen and by suggesting alternative conceptions of citizenship premised on working-class sexual identities. Further, Batra considers the possibility of Indian, Jamaican, and Nigerian drama generating a discourse on a rights-bearing conception of citizenship that derives from representations of non-biological, non-generational forms of kinship. Her study is one of the first to examine the ways in which postcolonial dramatists are creating the possibility of a dialogue between cultural activism, women’s movements, and an emerging discourse on queer sexualities.

Contents

List of Illustrations Permissions Acknowledgments Introduction: Feminist Visions and Queer Futures Part 1: Jamaica 1: Making Citizens: Community, Kinship, and the National Imaginary in Dennis Scott’s Echo in the Bone (1974) and Dog (1978) 2: "We shouldn’t shame to talk": Postcolonial Sexual Citizenship in Sistren Theatre Collective’s Bellywoman Banagarang and QPH Part 2: India 3: A People’s Theatre from Delhi in Alliance with the Women’s Movement 4: Queering the Subaltern: Postcolonial Performativity in Mahesh Dattani’s Seven Steps Around the Fire and Mahasweta Devi and Usha Ganguli’s Rudali Part 3: Nigeria 5: Resistant Citizenship: Reading Feminist Praxis and Democratic Renewal in Nigeria through Femi Osofisan’s Morountodun 6: "Daughters who know the languages of power:" Community, Sexuality, and Postcolonial Development in Tess Onwueme’s Tell it to Women Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index

Author Bio

Kanika Batra is Assistant Professor in the Department of English, Texas Tech University