Friday, March 12, 2021 | 6PM to 8PM
This presentation focuses on the writings and performances of Dr. Anandibai Joshee, who graduated from the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1886 and became the first Indian woman to gain a degree in medicine. The story behind why Anandibai was forced to travel across the world to study weaves together histories of British colonialism, Hindu patriarchy, as well as U.S. higher education. Within this matrix of competing power interests, the international student as embodied by Anandibai emerges as a powerful subversive figure with the capacity to build transnational solidarities. During her time as an international student, in addition to working diligently towards her degree, Anandibai spoke widely about the multiple ways in which Indian women were oppressed, as well as created networks of support to raise the material resources to support her feminist cause.
Param Ajmera investigates how Anandibai used the influence provided by her university to develop relationships with the American feminist movement to gain support for the social and economic upliftment of women in India. Conventional theories stage the international student as a tool that not only perpetuates antiblackness through the “model minority” myth, but also exports U.S. ideology through their transnational social worlds. Ajmera troubles this dominant theorization by turning to a history that brings out the international student’s insurgent potential.
