An Alternative Reading of the Other in The Mahabharata
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This book studies gender, sexuality, and representation in The Mahabharata. Drawing on Feminist theory, Queer theory and Deconstructivist theory, it revisits the epic as a saga of agency, empowerment, and subversion, and examines how it gives the gendered marginal — the women and the queer — a voice. The authors argue that in a fluid text like The Mahabharata, there is ample scope for contradiction and conformation, as well as conflict and resolution, which gives the marginal an opportunity to document resistance. They analyse the stories of Draupadi, Kunti, Renuka, Ulupi, and Hidimba within an anti-patriarchal, non-normative, post-modern theoretical framework. They also examine liminal figures like Shikhandi, Yuvanashwa, Sudyumna and Bhangashwan, who are uniquely placed in conversation involving queer space, marginalization, and resistance. An important addition to the study of Indian epics, this book will be indispensable for scholars and researchers of cultural studies, subaltern studies, Indian literature, English literature, gender studies, sexuality studies, queer studies, women’s studies, exclusion studies, and postcolonial studies.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.005 | 0.005 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.022 | 0.004 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".