Meera Kosambi, sociologist & DD's daughter, expired
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 26 February 2015 16:41 IST
Meera Kosambi, a prominent Indian sociologist and last surviving daughter of D D Kosambi, expired today in Pune after brief illness.
Born on 24 April 1939, she was 76 and a single.
Following the legacy of her historian father as well as her grandfather and a Buddhist and Pali scholar Dharmanand Kosambi, Meera has contributed immensely to Indian sociology, especially urban sociology and women’s studies.
Retired as a Professor and Director of the Research Centre for Women’s Studies of SNDT Women’s University in Mumbai, Kosambi has written several research books in English as well as Marathi.
Her much acclaimed work is on India's 19th century feminist Pandita Ramabai, whose writings she compiled, edited and translated from Marathi. She recently also authored a well-researched biographical study on Pandita Ramabai in Marathi.
Kosambi was connected with Goa and had delivered a lecture on the contribution of her father at the first D D Kosambi Festival of Ideas in 2007.
She also visited Goa till last year to participate in the Goa Art and Literary Festival organised by International Centre Goa.
Her books include Mahatma Gandhi and Prema Kantak: Exploring a Relationship, Exploring History (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2013); Women Writing Gender: Marathi Fiction before Independence (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2012); Feminist Vision or ‘Treason against Men’? Kashibai Kanitkar and the Engendering of Marathi Literature (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2008); Pandita Ramabai’s American Encounter: ‘The Peoples of the United States’, 1889 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003); and Pandita Ramabai through her Own Words: Selected Works (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000).
Her writing also includes Gender, Culture and Performance: Marathi Theatre and Cinema before Independence.
