Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Book Chapter Book Chapter Faculty Publications- Book Chapter Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sexual realism?: (Hetero)sexual excess and the birth of obscenity in malayalam literature Description An account of the resource Introduction The 1930s and 1940s were a period when the reform-centric language of Malayalam literature came under blistering attack from a group of authors who initiated a movement called Jeevatsahithyam - meaning literature close to life. This signified a new momentum in the career of modern Malayalam literature in Keralam in the southern part of India with social realism being introduced as a mode of challenging erstwhile trends. Jeevatsahithyam heralded a novel attempt to eliminate the distance between literature and social realities. Its authors deliberately opposed the hegemony of reform language in literature - a product of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century reform movement. According to them, the language of the reform movement which continued to dominate Malayalam literature was clearly embedded in a vicious circuit consisting of caste, class, and morality. This, as it was commonly argued, was a stumbling block in the realistic representation of social realities in the realm of literature. Jeevatsahithyam was renamed in 1944 as Purogamana Sahithya Sangham (Progressive Literature Society - from here on PLS) (Chandrasekharan 1999; Kumaramkandath 2013). Openly declaring itself against the established morals operating then, its ideological base, however, had to be justified by incorporating the term progress (purogamanam) in its title. Thus, in a larger sense, it signified progressive realism rather than simply social realism. This chapter attempts to delve inside the debates around social realism in Malayalam literature where an ideological battle was staged in the regional public sphere around the questions of, broadly put, aesthetics and morality. It maps the discursive sequences of textual practices from the 1940s to the early 1970s when the depiction of desire in literature was a point of heated debates. I concentrate more on the early debates, particularly in the 1940s and early 1950s because they literally mediated between the rising social (progressive) realisms transgressive writings and the erstwhile reform concerns of engendering disciplined subjects (Devika 2007). As a cultural era, the mid-twentieth century was deeply embedded in the old reform discourses of sexual discipline and the postcolonial euphoria of political freedom. The ensuing concerns over building the nation had a profound impact on the patterns of imagining the sexual in literature. Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla 2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kumaramkandath R. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived (Hi)Stories of Desire: Sexualities and Culture in Modern India, pp. 58-78. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Cambridge University Press Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-01-01 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108637770.005" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108637770.005</a> <br /><br /><a href="https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85097689685&amp;doi=10.1017%2F9781108637770.005&amp;partnerID=40&amp;md5=f3f762f1d9de2ee149a3facad4eb0e30" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85097689685&amp;doi=10.1017%2f9781108637770.005&amp;partnerID=40&amp;md5=f3f762f1d9de2ee149a3facad4eb0e30</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Restricted Access Relation A related resource ISBN: 978-110863777-0; 978-110849441-0 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Online Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Book chapter Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Kumaramkandath R., CHRIST (deemed to be) University, Bengaluru, India