In this Episode we talk to Ira Raja, Professor of English at the University of Delhi and she held the Potsdam Postcolonial Chair for Global Modernities in the 2022 Summer Semester. The conversation centres on her article titled, “Nation and Ageing: Mother India’s Mutable Body”, from The Handbook to Ageing, forthcoming from Bloomsbury. We start from the ways in which imaginaries of the nation are often constructed through motherly figures, and how in India, certain mothers, such as Dalit and Muslim mothers, cannot be abstracted to stand in for the nation. Ira then talks about the ambivalence inherent in the figure of the ageing mother as either a token of postcolonial decline, or in the reading she offers, as having great potential in signalling a nation more porous and open to change, crucial in a time of rampant Hindutva.
For links, a list of references, and more information about our guest please visit https://minor.hypotheses.org/podcast
Our amazing intro track is by Shane Cooper, called "Bass in the Bathroom", from the album "Small Songs for Big Times", March 2020. For more, please visit shanecopper.bandcamp.com/