Join us for a lecture that dismantles the idea of masculinity as natural, singular, or stable, and instead reveals it as a historical and political project shaped by power, violence, and exclusion.
About the Lecture
Masculinity is often treated as self-evident: something biological, timeless, and universally understood. This lecture begins from the opposite premise.
Drawing on decades of scholarship in gender history and Critical Masculinity Studies, this session examines masculinity as plural, contingent, and deeply relational, produced through caste, religion, sexuality, nationalism, and colonial power. Focusing on colonial and postcolonial India, the lecture traces how masculine ideals were forged, contested, and weaponised across institutions, communities, and everyday life.
Moving across themes of colonial rule, nationalist reform, asceticism, violence, and regulation of sexuality, the lecture explores:
- How colonialism masculinised power and feminised the colonised subject
- The emergence of hegemonic masculinities tied to nationalism, discipline, and violence
- The policing of male sexuality through asceticism, brahmacharya, and moral reform
- The marginalisation of subordinate masculinities, particularly queer and Dalit manhoods
Flow of the Evening
4:00 PM - Doors open; come in, find your seat, and get comfortable.
4:05 - 4:20 PM - Place your orders, and start a few conversations.
4:30 PM - The learning begins
5:15 PM - An open Q&A and discussion with the speaker and the room.
5:30 PM onwards there's more eating, more drinking, more conversations.
PS: Your ticket includes a complimentary beverage or snack at the venue
About the Speaker
Charu Gupta is Professor of Modern Indian History in the Department of History at the University of Delhi. Her work focuses on gender, sexuality, masculinity, caste, religious identities, and vernacular literatures in early twentieth-century North India.
She is the author of Sexuality, Obscenity, Community and The Gender of Caste, and has edited and co-edited several influential volumes on gender, caste, and print cultures in South Asia. Her scholarship has appeared across leading journals, and her work has been translated into multiple Indian languages.
Charu Gupta received her PhD from SOAS University of London, and has held visiting and fellowship positions at institutions including University of Oxford, Yale University, the University of Vienna, and the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. She currently serves on the editorial boards of several international journals and is working on a new project examining vernacular life narratives and utopian imaginations in early twentieth-century India.
About unLecture
unLecture brings experts out of classrooms and into cafés, bars and neighbourhood spaces across Delhi. Created by three friends from St. Stephen’s, Delhi who wanted learning to feel warm, social and alive. unLecture turns an otherwise ordinary evening into a conversation you may think about long after it ends.
About Veera Foundation
Address : Fort City Brewing, E-17, Market Ln, Hauz Khas Market, Block E, Hauz Khas, Delhi, New Delhi, Delhi 110016, India