Biography

She was born in 1937 and educated at Presidency College, Kolkata

Presidency College, Kolkata

Presidency University, Kolkata, formerly Hindu College and Presidency College, is a unitary, state aided university, located in Kolkata, West Bengal. and one of the premier institutes of learning of liberal arts and sciences in India. In 2002 it was ranked number one by the weekly news magazine...

, Somerville College, Oxford

Somerville College, Oxford

Somerville College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, and was one of the first women's colleges to be founded there...

, and New Hall, Cambridge

New Hall, Cambridge

Murray Edwards College is a women-only constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It was founded as "New Hall" in 1954, at a time when Cambridge had the lowest proportion of women undergraduates of any university in the United Kingdom, and when only two other colleges admitted women...

. The larger part of her working life was spent at Jadavpur University

Jadavpur University

Jadavpur University , is a premier educational and research institution in India.It is located in Kolkata, West Bengal and comprises two campuses - the main campus at Jadavpur and the new campus at Salt Lake...

, where she was Professor of English. She is married to the economist

Economist

An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...

, Amiya Kumar Bagchi

Amiya Kumar Bagchi

Amiya Kumar Bagchi is a distinguished Indian political economist. His contributions have spanned economic history, the economics of industrialization and de-industrialization, and development studies from an overall Marxist perspective, incorporating insights from other schools of radical...

.

In 1988 she became the Founder-Director of the School of Women's Studies at Jadavpur University, in which capacity she led the activities of the centre until her retirement in 1997. She is also one of the founder members of the feminist organisation Sachetana in Kolkata

Kolkata

Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...

.

Her focus areas of research include women's studies, women's writings, 19th century English and Bengali

Bengali language

Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...

 literature, the reception of Positivism

Positivism

Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....

 in Bengal, motherhood and the Partition of India

Partition of India

The Partition of India was the partition of British India on the basis of religious demographics that led to the creation of the sovereign states of the Dominion of Pakistan and the Union of India on 14 and 15...

.

She initiated and spearheaded the pioneering Bengali Women Writers Reprint Series edited by the School of Women's Studies, Jadavpur University, which continues to bring out new editions of writers such as Jyotirmoyee Devi. She was also Chairperson of the West Bengal Commission for Women until April 2008.

Books (authored, edited, and co-edited)

• Literature, Society, and Ideology in the Victorian Era
  Victorian era
  The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
  
  (edited volume), (1992)
• Indian Women: Myth and Reality (edited volume), (1995)
• Loved and Unloved: The Girl Child in the Family (with Jaba Guha and Piyali Sengupta)(1997)
• Gem-like Flame: Walter Pater
  Walter Pater
  Walter Horatio Pater was an English essayist, critic of art and literature, and writer of fiction.-Early life:...
  
   and the 19th Century Paradigm of Modernity (1997)
• Thinking Social Science in India: Essays in Honour of Alice Thorner (co-edited with Krishna Raj and Sujata Patel
  Sujata Patel
  Sujata Patel is a sociologist at the University of Hyderabad.An historical sensibility and a combination of four perspectives-Marxism, feminism, spatial studies and post structuralism/ post colonialism influences her work which covers diverse areas such as modernity and social theory, history of...
  
  )(2002)
• The Trauma and the Triumph: Gender
  Gender
  Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
  
   and Partition in Eastern India (co-edited with Subhoranjan Dasgupta) (2003)
• The Changing Status of Women in West Bengal
  West Bengal
  West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...
  
  1970-2000: The Challenges Ahead (edited volume), (2005)

External links

• Freedom in an Idiom of Loss
• "Partition Through A Woman's Eye", article about Bagchi's academic work on gender and partition in eastern India. http://www.sawf.org/newedit/edit03062000/reflections.asp
• "Gender Justice", Bagchi on gender perspectives in law reform, ADB Review, 2005 http://www.adb.org/Documents/Periodicals/ADB_Review/2005/vol37-2/gender-justice.asp
• "The Woman Shaped by Mother", Article on Bagchi's co-edited volume on Indian women's personal narratives http://www.boloji.com/wfs4/wfs433.htm
• "The Devi Cult and the Girl Child". Article on the girl child drawing on Bagchi's co-edited volume on the girl child in Bengal http://www.sawf.org/newedit/edit09192005/gendervoices.asp