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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Redeeming Indian ‘Christian’ Womanhood?: Missionaries, Dalits, And Agency In Colonial India, Chad M. Bauman
Redeeming Indian ‘Christian’ Womanhood?: Missionaries, Dalits, And Agency In Colonial India, Chad M. Bauman
Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS
This study of dalit Christians in colonial North India suggests that women who converted to Christianity in the region often experienced a contraction of the range of their activities. Bauman analyzes this counterintuitive result of missionary work and then draws on the work of Saba Mahmood and others to interrogate the predilection of feminist historians for agents, rabble-rousers, and gender troublemakers. The article concludes not only that this predilection represents a mild form of egocentrism but also that it prevents historians from adequately analyzing the complexity of factors that motivate and influence human behavior.
Postcolonial Anxiety And Anti-Conversion Sentiment In The Report Of The Christian Missionary Activities Enquiry Committee, Chad M. Bauman
Postcolonial Anxiety And Anti-Conversion Sentiment In The Report Of The Christian Missionary Activities Enquiry Committee, Chad M. Bauman
Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS
Conversion to Christianity is one of the most politically charged issues in contemporary India and has recently been very much in the news.1 For example, in 2006, on the fiftieth anniversary of B. R. Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism2 hundreds of dalits gathered to convert, some to Buddhism and others to Christianity, rejecting Hinduism, a religion they claim oppresses and demeans them. In attacks on Christians in Orissa at the end of 2007 (and associated reprisals), dozens of churches, homes, and businesses were destroyed, hundreds of people were injured, and thousands were displaced.