The Phantasmal City and Its Others: Kolkata, Gender, and the Urban Imaginary in the 1960s
Author(s): Dr. Debalina Ghosh
Authors Affiliations:
- State Aided College Teacher, Department of History, Vidyasagar College for Women, Kolkata, India.
Abstract
This article examines the construction of Kolkata as a gendered urban imaginary in the literary and cultural productions of the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on the concept of the city as both a physical and phantasmal space — what Shibaji Bandyopadhyay terms the kayik and mayik dimensions of urban existence — the article argues that the multiple, contradictory representations of Kolkata in the literature of this period constitute a site of contested gender perceptions. The city, figured simultaneously as a space of revolutionary possibility and moral degeneration, was also a space in which the norms governing gender relations were both challenged and reaffirmed. The article traces these negotiations across literary texts, memoirs, and cultural commentary of the period.
Dr. Debalina Ghosh (2026); The Phantasmal City and Its Others: Kolkata, Gender, and the Urban Imaginary in the 1960s, International Journal for Innovative Research in Multidisciplinary Field, ISSN(O): 2455-0620, Vol-12, Issue-4, Available on – https://www.ijirmf.com/
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