FORTHCOMING

Calcutta (now Kolkata), the capital of British-held territories in South and Southeast Asia until 1911, was an important port city in Indian Ocean maritime routes linking India and Japan. As a result, Bengal had become a conduit of knowledge about Japan. The swift rise of Japan after the Meiji Restoration and its victory over Russia had increased curiosity among the Bengalis to know and see Japan. Overseas travels by women were rare those days. In her lecture, Dr Lopamudra Malek will talk about the travelogues and memoirs of seven Bengali women, namely, Hariprabha Takeda, Saroj Nalini Dutta, Abala Basu, Shanta Devi, Parul Devi, Charubala Mitra, and Aparna Devi. Their vivid accounts provide rich insights of Bengali women’s perspectives of Japanese society and culture of modernising Japan.