GENDER STEREOTYPES IN CORPORATE INDIA: A Glimpse

Title: GENDER STEREOTYPES IN CORPORATE INDIA: A Glimpse
Author: SUJOYA BASU
ISBN: 9788178298511
Binding: Paper
Date: September 2008
Publisher: Sage India
Number of Pages: 240/-
Price: INR 270/-

A stereotype is a conceptual image that may lead to a simplified view of a person or a thing. Inaccurate stereotypes serve to constrict and limit vision and perception. Gender Stereotypes in Corporate India: A Glimpse explores the theme of `understated` gender stereotypes in the corporate domain in India, while delving into the antecedents and outcomes.

Studies suggest that only an insignificant percentage of women managers ever reach the higher echelons of management in most organizations—a phenomenon which can be attributed to the glass ceiling, and the differential treatment meted out to women managers in terms of career mobility, recruitment, evaluation, compensation and other factors. Studies also suggest that gender stereotypes contribute largely to such phenomena. Through three broad studies, the book, a first of its kind, explores existing managerial gender stereotypes in Indian corporates, the antecedents of such stereotypes and the possibility of reducing such stereotypical inaccuracies. The book argues that a basic transformation at the level of policy making, along with a collective will for changing the mindset of the people, is needed to overcome gender differences in organizations as well as educational institutions. This book will interest a wide readership including women professionals, students and trainers in corporate training schools and business schools, sociologists, and organizational psychologists.

WHISTLING IN THE DARK: Twenty-one Queer Interviews

Title: WHISTLING IN THE DARK: Twenty-one Queer Interviews
Author: R RAJ RAO, DIBYAJYOTI SARMA
ISBN: 9788178299211
Binding: Paper
Date: December 2008
Publisher: Sage India
Number of Pages: 300


Price: INR 375/-

Whistling in the Dark: Twenty-one Queer Interviews focuses on issues like sexuality, sexual identity, marriage, gay marriage, heteronormativity, gay utopia, gay activism, gay bashing, police atrocities and the laws vis-à-vis these. The interviewees represent a cross section of society ranging from university professors, gay rights activists and students, on the one hand, to working class men such as office boys, auto-rickshaw drivers and even undertrials who have served prison sentences, on the other.
The thought-provoking narratives in this book are the outcome of probing and incisive questions put to the respondents by the editors R. Raj Rao and Dibyajyoti Sarma. Appealing to a wide readership, the narratives go beyond the conventional and provide a rare insight into the private lives of the respondents. Besides being a must read for gay activists and organisations, the book will also be a useful resource for post-graduate students and academics working in the fields of sexuality studies, feminism and alternative literature.

FASCINATING HINDUTVA: Saffron Politics and Dalit Mobilisation

Title: FASCINATING HINDUTVA: Saffron Politics and Dalit Mobilisation
Author: BADRI NARAYAN
ISBN: 9788178299068
Binding: Paper
Date: December 2008
Publisher: SAGE India
Number of Pages: 216

Price: INR 295/-

In the present socio-political scenario of India, Dalits have emerged as a major force in the electoral arena and politically mobilising them has almost become a compulsion for all political parties.
Fascinating Hindutva: Saffron Politics and Dalit Mobilisation is a deconstruction of the fascinating tactics used by the Hindutva forces to politically mobilise Dalits. Based on original empirical data from extensive field work in UP and Bihar, the book documents how the Hindutva forces are adept at digging out the myths, memories and legends of Dalit castes that are popular at the local level and reinterpreting them in a Hinduised way. They project the heroes of these myths and popular folk narratives either as brave Indian warriors who protected the Hindu religion and culture from the Muslim invaders of the medieval period, or as reincarnations of Lord Rama, so as to link the myths of these Dalit castes with the unified Hindu meta-narrative. The author has also tried to deconstruct the making of the ‘popular’ in the North Indian rural society and investigate the communal elements induced in it.
Interestingly, the author argues that this reinterpretation of the past serves as a powerful cultural capital for the Dalit communities, who use it, on the one hand, to seek acceptance from the upper caste Hindus by glorifying their caste position and, on the other, to subvert the dominance of the upper castes.
The book will interest a wide readership including students, academicians and researchers in the fields of History, Political Science, Anthropology and South Asian Studies, as well as political activists.

The Vagina Monologues: The V-Day Edition (Paperback)

Title: The Vagina Monologues: The V-Day Edition (Paperback)
Author: Eve Ensler
ISBN10: 0375756981 ISBN-13: 978-0375756986
Binding: Paper
Date: 2001
Publisher: Villard
Number of Pages: 185
Price: INR 384/-

Ensler, famous, maybe notorious, for her witty, wildly popular meditation on female sexuality, The Vagina Monologues (1998), is as much journalist as playwright. Even her more traditional plays, such as this one, are based on extensive research. For Necessary Targets, she went to Bosnia to interview women who had survived the recent, brutal war. As in the Vagina Monologues , her hard work pays off. The play is a sobering reminder of the barbarism committed in the name of national sovereignty. Its accounts of the Serbian use of terror, especially rape, as a weapon against civilians are especially chilling. But the play is more than another news account of the war. Ensler shapes her findings into a series of compelling, highly characterized portraits of the refugees and a pair of well-meaning, sometimes misguided American women who come to help them. Ensler's portrayals avoid the easy cliches of quick-hit news stories and convey human experience in all its painful complexity. Jack HelbigCopyright © American Library Association.

Democracy- Charles Tilly

Title: Democracy
Author: Charles Tilly
ISBN: 978-0-521-70153-2
Binding: Paper

Date: 2008
Publisher: Cambridge
Number of Pages: 234
Price: $19.99

'In this compelling work, Charles Tilly brings his unrivaled historical knowledge to bear on fundamental questions of democracy. His argument focuses on long-run social processes, not only those that further democratization but also those that often rapidly undermine it. In restoring the centrality of history to scholarship on democratization, he sets a research agenda that will occupy scholars for some time to come.' Elisabeth Jean Wood, Yale University and the Santa Fe Institute 'Accessibly written, the volume will reward a broad readership.' Political Studies Review 'Tilly presents the book as the 'culmination and synthesis' (p. xii) of his democratisation work and its final pages contain a provocative challenge to those in the democratisation business. ... those interested in promoting democracy should focus on supporting the three process-based developments he identifies. Accessibly written, the volume will reward a broad readership." Political Studies Review

50 Drawings to Murder Magic- Antonin Artaud

Title: 50 Drawings to Murder Magic
Author: Antonin Artaud
ISBN: 978-1905422661
Binding: Hard bound

Date: 2008
Publisher: Seagull Books
Number of Pages: 82
Price: INR 950/-

For the poet, theorist, philosopher, playwright, actor, and director, Antonin Artaud, magic was always a central concept and positive force, capable of healing the rift between words and things, culture and life. But during his nine years of incarceration in mental asylums, magic seemed to lose its illuminating transformative power and to become demonic and persecutory. Artaud entered the realm of spectres and vampires which he believed were sucking the vitality from his mind and body. Artaud later filled twelve little exercise books with an account of his struggles to escape this physical, psychological and artistic hell. The first eleven books are filled with fragments of writing and extraordinary sketches of totemic figures, pierced bodies and enigmatic machines. Two months before his death, he took a twelfth exercise book and wrote a remarkable, incantatory text, 50 Drawings to Murder Magic. It was the last thing he wrote.

The School Among the Ruins: Poems 2000-2004- Adrienne Rich

Title: The School Among the Ruins: Poems 2000-2004
Author: Adrienne Rich
ISBN 10: 0393327558ISBN-13: 978-0393327557
Binding: Paper
Date: 2006
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Number of Pages: 113
Price: $13.95

What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics,

Title: What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics,
Author: Adrienne Rich
ISBN 10: 0393312461ISBN-13: 978-0393312461
Binding: Paper
Date: 2003
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Number of Pages: 321
Price: $12.95

Precarious Life: The Power of Mourning and Violence

Title: Precarious Life: The Power of Mourning and Violence
Author: Judith Butler
ISBN 10: 1844675440ISBN-13: 978-1844675449
Binding: paperback
Date: 2006
Publisher: Verso
Number of Pages: 192 pages
Price: £9.99

Judith Butler is one of America's most daring and vibrant thinkers. In this profound appraisal of post-September 11th America, now with a new foreword, Judith Butler considers the conditions of heightened fear and aggression that followed the attack on the Twin Towers, and the US government's decision to attack Afghanistan and Iraq. She critiques this use of violence as a response to loss and grief, and argues that the vulnerability the West now feels offers a chance to imagine a world without violence, a world where the interdependency of peoples and nations becomes the basis for a global political community.

Through five impassioned and personal essays, Butler responds to the current US policies to wage perpetual war, and calls for a deeper understanding of how mourning and violence might instead inspire solidarity and a quest for global justice.

Music at the limits- Edward Said

Title: Music at the limits

Author: Edward Said

ISBN: 9780747597780

Binding: Hard Back

Date: August 2008

Publisher: Bloomsburry UK

Number of Pages: 352 pages

Price: 995/-

Though best known for his political writings (Orientalism), Said was also, from 1986 until his death in 2003, the music critic for the Nation, and this collection draws together reviews from that publication and other magazines. Said had very firm opinions and lashed out against New York City's classical music scene in the 1980s and early '90s for producing safe but grimly uninteresting performances and repertories. Instead of simply blaming the intellectual cowardice of most contemporary musicians, however, he was able to provide detailed technical critiques of a conductor's handling of a Beethoven symphony or a singer's inadequacies in a Wagnerian role. Glenn Gould's intellectualized style of playing was a source of fascination to the critic, and new biographies or films about the pianist would inevitably draw his attention. Said also writes about his friendship with Daniel Barenboim (who contributes an introduction), which leads to one of the few discussions of Middle Eastern politics; a review of the controversial opera The Death of Klinghoffer sparks another. For the most part, however, his attention is strictly on the music, and he proves himself to have been astute and passionately engaged. (Nov.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

M/C Reviews by Tim Roberts