Himani Bannerji

Himani Bannerji
Born1942 (age 83–84)
British India
Alma materVisva-Bharati University, B.A.
Jadavpur University, M.A.
University of Toronto, M.A.
University of Toronto, Ph.D.

Himani Bannerji (born 1942) is a Bengali-Canadian author and sociologist.[1][2][3]

Early life and education

Bannerji was born in what is now Bangladesh, then a part of British India.[4][1][5] She studied in Dhaka then in Kolkata.[1][4] She received her B.A. and M.A. in English from Visva-Bharati University and Jadavpur University respectively, becoming a lecturer at the latter from 1965 to 1969.[4] She then received her M.A. from the University of Toronto and taught at Victoria College and Atkinson College.[3][4] She started work on a PhD in sociology in 1980 and it was completed in 1988 with the title: The Politics of Representation: A Study of Class and Class Struggle in the Political Theatre of West Bengal.[1][4]

Career

She is a Senior Scholar in the Department of Sociology[6] and has taught in the Graduate Program in Social and Political Thought and the Graduate Program in Women's Studies at York University in Canada.[3]

Bannerji works in the areas of Marxist, feminist, and anti-racist theory.[2] She is especially focused on reading colonial discourse through Karl Marx's concept of ideology and putting together a reflexive analysis of gender, race and class.[7] Bannerji also lectures about the gaze and the othering and silencing of women who are marginalized.[3]

She was awarded the 2005 Rabindra Memorial Prize for her book Inventing Subjects: Studies in Hegemony, Patriarchy and Colonialism.[8]

She has also written poetry and children's fiction.[1] Two of her articles have been published in Rungh magazine.[9][10]

Bibliography

Non-fiction

  • The ideological condition: selected essays on history, race and gender. Leiden: Brill. 2020. ISBN 978-90-04-44161-3.
  • Demography and democracy: essays on nationalism, gender and ideology. Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press. 2011. ISBN 978-1-55130-389-5.[11]
  • Inventing subjects: studies in hegemony, patriarchy, and colonialism. New Delhi: Tulika. 2001. ISBN 978-81-85229-47-8.
  • The dark side of the nation: essays on multiculturalism, nationalism and gender. Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press. 2009. ISBN 978-1-55130-172-3.
  • The writing on the wall: essays on culture and politics. Toronto: TSAR. 1993. ISBN 978-0-920661-30-7.
  • Thinking through: essays on feminism, Marxism and anti-racism. Toronto: Women's Press. 1995. ISBN 978-0-88961-208-2.
  • The mirror of class: essays on Bengali theatre. Calcutta: Papyrus. 1998.

Fiction

  • Coloured pictures. Toronto: Sister Vision Press. 1991. ISBN 978-0-920813-86-7.
  • "Her mother's ashes" in Aziz, Nurjehan, ed. (1994). Her mother's ashes and other stories by South Asian women in Canada and the United States. Toronto: TSAR. ISBN 978-0-920661-40-6.

Poetry

  • Doing time: poems. Toronto: Sister Vision. 1986. ISBN 978-0920813010.
  • A separate sky. Toronto: Domestic Bliss. 1982. Includes her English translation of Bengali poems by Subhas Mukhapadhyay, Manbendra Bandyopadhyay, and Shamshur Rahman.

As co-author

  • Bannerji, Himani; Mojab, Shahrzad; Whitehead, Judith, eds. (2001). Of Property and Propriety: The Role of Gender and Class in Imperialism and Nationalism. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1-4426-7800-2.

As editor

  • Unsettling relations: the university as a site of feminist struggles. Boston: South End Press. 1992. ISBN 978-0-89608-452-0.
  • Returning the gaze: essays on racism, feminism, and politics. Toronto: Sister Vision. 1993. ISBN 978-0-920813-55-3.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Himani Bannerji". Toronto Metropolitan University. Archived from the original on 19 January 2026. Retrieved 25 November 2020.
  2. ^ a b "Himani Bannerji". Canadian Scholars. Retrieved 25 November 2020.
  3. ^ a b c d Mandal, Somdatta (15 June 2017). "An Interview with Himani Bannerji". Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature. 11 (1). doi:10.31436/asiatic.v11i1.970. ISSN 1985-3106.
  4. ^ a b c d e Kain, Geoffrey (2000). "Himani Bannerji". In Nelson, Emmanuel S. (ed.). Asian American novelists: a bio-bibliographical critical sourcebook. Greenwood Press. pp. 8–12. ISBN 978-0-313-30911-3.
  5. ^ Kandiuk, Mary (2007). Caribbean and South Asian writers in Canada: a bibliography of their works and of English-language criticism. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-5883-1.
  6. ^ "Himani Bannerji". York Centre for Asian Research. Retrieved 6 March 2026.
  7. ^ Bannerji, Himani (2005). "Building from Marx: Reflections on Class and Race". Social Justice. 32 (4 (102)): 144–160. ISSN 1043-1578.
  8. ^ "York professor receives prestigious Indian literary prize". YFile. 26 September 2005. Retrieved 6 March 2026.
  9. ^ Bannerji, Himani (1998). "A Letter from the Gulf". Rungh. Vol. 4, no. 1/2. p. 35.
  10. ^ Bannerji, Himani (1993). "Reorganizing Orientalist Constructions". Rungh. Vol. 6, no. 4.
  11. ^ Bannerji, Himani (2001). Inventing subjects: studies in hegemony, patriarchy, and colonialism. New Delhi: Tulika. ISBN 978-81-85229-47-8.