Elizabeth Kolsky
Biographic Data
| ID | 257671 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Elizabeth Kolsky |
| GIVEN NAMES | Elizabeth |
| FAMILY NAME | Kolsky |
| SIGNATURE | KOLSKY E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Villanova University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5867-6068 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 110 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Gendered Legacies of Empire: Law and Feminicide in Postcolonial Pakistan
This paper uses the concept of feminicide, developed by Latin American feminists, to illuminate patterns of gendered governance in colonial India and postcolonial Pakistan. We argue that the British Empire in India was built on the structural subordination of women, the normalization of gendered violence, and the devaluation of women's lives. We trace the long trajectory of state complicity in gendered violence back to British colonial legislatio…
On Feminicide and Empire: Law and the Killing of Women in British Colonial India
No 'Signs of Weakness: Gendered violence and masculine authority on the North-West Frontier of British India
On 14 April 1923, in the dead of night, an English girl was kidnapped from her bedroom in a military bungalow in the Kohat Cantonment on India's North-West Frontier. The kidnapping is a notorious incident that has been told and retold in multiple languages, disciplines, and media for almost a century. From the colonial perspective, the kidnapping was seen as an 'outrage' that demonstrated the lawless savagery of the tribes who inhabited this stra…
Lauren Benton and Lisa Ford. Rage for Order: The British Empire and the Origins of International Law, 1800–1850
Lauren Benton and Lisa Ford’s coauthored book Rage for Order: The British Empire and the Origins of International Law, 1800–1850, offers the reader “an untold story of uncommon dimension” that is nuanced, erudite, and deeply thought-provoking (1). The monograph locates the origins of international law in British officials’ efforts to use law to remake their empire—and the world at large—in the first half of the nineteenth century. Taking as their…
Jill C. Bender. The 1857 Indian Uprising and the British Empire
Jill C. Bender’s The 1857 Indian Uprising and the British Empire is a compelling book based on a wide range of sources that broadens our understanding of the British imperial system. Bender takes a seminal moment in the history of British India—the revolt of 1857—and places it within the global context of empire. Drawing on methodologies developed in the “new imperial history,” the author traces flows of information back and forth across the colo…
The Colonial Rule of Law and the Legal Regime of Exception: Frontier “Fanaticism” and State Violence in British India
India in the Shadows of Empire: A legal and political history, 1774-1950 (review)
Reviewed by: India in the Shadows of Empire: A legal and political history, 1774-1950 Elizabeth Kolsky India in the Shadows of Empire: A legal and political history, 1774-1950 By Mithi Mukherjee. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010. Mithi Mukherjee's new book makes a major contribution to the growing historiography on law and legal institutions in colonial India and to the broader scholarship on colonial legal politics and ideologies of empi…
The Body Evidencing the Crime’: Rape on Trial in Colonial India, 1860–1947
The history of rape on trial in colonial India sheds new light on the colonial civilising mission and the claims made by white men about saving brown women from brown men. Through an analysis of almost a century of case law, this article concludes that the modernisation of law and the development of a new medico‐legal understanding of rape introduced evidentiary standards that placed a heavy burden on Indian women seeking judicial remedy in colon…
The Rule of Colonial Indifference: Rape on Trial in Early Colonial India, 1805-57
This article explores the history of intraracial (Indian-on-Indian) rape in early colonial India. Though at times uneven and unpredictable in their rulings, British judges created a set of evidentiary requirements and a body of legal decisions that were as harsh on rape victims as the precolonial Islamic system was presumed to be. Despite the colonial promise of a more modern and humane criminal law, the gradual displacement of Islamic law did li…
Legible Bodies: Race, Criminality and Colonialism (review)
Reviewed by: Legible Bodies: Race, Criminality and Colonialism Elizabeth Kolsky Legible Bodies: Race, Criminality and Colonialism. By Clare Anderson. (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2004) Clare Anderson’s Legible Bodies offers a richly detailed and well-written contribution to the interdisciplinary scholarship on the complex nexus between colonial knowledge and colonial power. The work of Edward Said opened up a whole new way of understanding the sco…
A Note on the Study of Indian Legal History
In his commentary, “The Historiography of Difference,” Kunal Parker hits on two crucial and interrelated themes that form the framework for debates in modern South Asian history: colonialism and subaltern agency. In this short response to Parker's comment, I address both of these issues and also offer some insights about methodological obstacles in the writing of Indian legal history
Codification and the Rule of Colonial Difference: Criminal Procedure in British India
On July 10, 1833, an aspiring young English lawyer named Thomas Babington Macaulay stood before the Parliament and presented an impassioned argument about the future role of British governance in India. Whereas in Europe, as Macaulay saw it, “The people are everywhere perfectly competent to hold some share, not in every country an equal share, but some share of political power,” in India, Macaulay asserted, “you cannot have representative institu…
Codification and the Rule of Colonial Difference: Criminal Procedure in British India
On July 10, 1833, an aspiring young English lawyer named Thomas Babington Macaulay stood before the Parliament and presented an impassioned argument about the future role of British governance in India. Whereas in Europe, as Macaulay saw it, “The people are everywhere perfectly competent to hold some share, not in every country an equal share, but some share of political power,” in India, Macaulay asserted, “you cannot have representative institu…
The Colonial Rule of Law and the Legal Regime of Exception: Frontier “Fanaticism” and State Violence in British India
The Body Evidencing the Crime’: Rape on Trial in Colonial India, 1860–1947
The history of rape on trial in colonial India sheds new light on the colonial civilising mission and the claims made by white men about saving brown women from brown men. Through an analysis of almost a century of case law, this article concludes that the modernisation of law and the development of a new medico‐legal understanding of rape introduced evidentiary standards that placed a heavy burden on Indian women seeking judicial remedy in colon…
A Note on the Study of Indian Legal History
In his commentary, “The Historiography of Difference,” Kunal Parker hits on two crucial and interrelated themes that form the framework for debates in modern South Asian history: colonialism and subaltern agency. In this short response to Parker's comment, I address both of these issues and also offer some insights about methodological obstacles in the writing of Indian legal history
The Rule of Colonial Indifference: Rape on Trial in Early Colonial India, 1805-57
This article explores the history of intraracial (Indian-on-Indian) rape in early colonial India. Though at times uneven and unpredictable in their rulings, British judges created a set of evidentiary requirements and a body of legal decisions that were as harsh on rape victims as the precolonial Islamic system was presumed to be. Despite the colonial promise of a more modern and humane criminal law, the gradual displacement of Islamic law did li…
No 'Signs of Weakness: Gendered violence and masculine authority on the North-West Frontier of British India
On 14 April 1923, in the dead of night, an English girl was kidnapped from her bedroom in a military bungalow in the Kohat Cantonment on India's North-West Frontier. The kidnapping is a notorious incident that has been told and retold in multiple languages, disciplines, and media for almost a century. From the colonial perspective, the kidnapping was seen as an 'outrage' that demonstrated the lawless savagery of the tribes who inhabited this stra…
A Note on the Study of Indian Legal History
In his commentary, “The Historiography of Difference,” Kunal Parker hits on two crucial and interrelated themes that form the framework for debates in modern South Asian history: colonialism and subaltern agency. In this short response to Parker's comment, I address both of these issues and also offer some insights about methodological obstacles in the writing of Indian legal history
Codification and the Rule of Colonial Difference: Criminal Procedure in British India
On July 10, 1833, an aspiring young English lawyer named Thomas Babington Macaulay stood before the Parliament and presented an impassioned argument about the future role of British governance in India. Whereas in Europe, as Macaulay saw it, “The people are everywhere perfectly competent to hold some share, not in every country an equal share, but some share of political power,” in India, Macaulay asserted, “you cannot have representative institu…
Legible Bodies: Race, Criminality and Colonialism (review)
Reviewed by: Legible Bodies: Race, Criminality and Colonialism Elizabeth Kolsky Legible Bodies: Race, Criminality and Colonialism. By Clare Anderson. (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2004) Clare Anderson’s Legible Bodies offers a richly detailed and well-written contribution to the interdisciplinary scholarship on the complex nexus between colonial knowledge and colonial power. The work of Edward Said opened up a whole new way of understanding the sco…
The Body Evidencing the Crime’: Rape on Trial in Colonial India, 1860–1947
The history of rape on trial in colonial India sheds new light on the colonial civilising mission and the claims made by white men about saving brown women from brown men. Through an analysis of almost a century of case law, this article concludes that the modernisation of law and the development of a new medico‐legal understanding of rape introduced evidentiary standards that placed a heavy burden on Indian women seeking judicial remedy in colon…
The Rule of Colonial Indifference: Rape on Trial in Early Colonial India, 1805-57
This article explores the history of intraracial (Indian-on-Indian) rape in early colonial India. Though at times uneven and unpredictable in their rulings, British judges created a set of evidentiary requirements and a body of legal decisions that were as harsh on rape victims as the precolonial Islamic system was presumed to be. Despite the colonial promise of a more modern and humane criminal law, the gradual displacement of Islamic law did li…
India in the Shadows of Empire: A legal and political history, 1774-1950 (review)
Reviewed by: India in the Shadows of Empire: A legal and political history, 1774-1950 Elizabeth Kolsky India in the Shadows of Empire: A legal and political history, 1774-1950 By Mithi Mukherjee. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010. Mithi Mukherjee's new book makes a major contribution to the growing historiography on law and legal institutions in colonial India and to the broader scholarship on colonial legal politics and ideologies of empi…
The Colonial Rule of Law and the Legal Regime of Exception: Frontier “Fanaticism” and State Violence in British India
Jill C. Bender. The 1857 Indian Uprising and the British Empire
Jill C. Bender’s The 1857 Indian Uprising and the British Empire is a compelling book based on a wide range of sources that broadens our understanding of the British imperial system. Bender takes a seminal moment in the history of British India—the revolt of 1857—and places it within the global context of empire. Drawing on methodologies developed in the “new imperial history,” the author traces flows of information back and forth across the colo…
Lauren Benton and Lisa Ford. Rage for Order: The British Empire and the Origins of International Law, 1800–1850
Lauren Benton and Lisa Ford’s coauthored book Rage for Order: The British Empire and the Origins of International Law, 1800–1850, offers the reader “an untold story of uncommon dimension” that is nuanced, erudite, and deeply thought-provoking (1). The monograph locates the origins of international law in British officials’ efforts to use law to remake their empire—and the world at large—in the first half of the nineteenth century. Taking as their…
No 'Signs of Weakness: Gendered violence and masculine authority on the North-West Frontier of British India
On 14 April 1923, in the dead of night, an English girl was kidnapped from her bedroom in a military bungalow in the Kohat Cantonment on India's North-West Frontier. The kidnapping is a notorious incident that has been told and retold in multiple languages, disciplines, and media for almost a century. From the colonial perspective, the kidnapping was seen as an 'outrage' that demonstrated the lawless savagery of the tribes who inhabited this stra…
Gendered Legacies of Empire: Law and Feminicide in Postcolonial Pakistan
This paper uses the concept of feminicide, developed by Latin American feminists, to illuminate patterns of gendered governance in colonial India and postcolonial Pakistan. We argue that the British Empire in India was built on the structural subordination of women, the normalization of gendered violence, and the devaluation of women's lives. We trace the long trajectory of state complicity in gendered violence back to British colonial legislatio…
On Feminicide and Empire: Law and the Killing of Women in British Colonial India
History (10 works) · Colonialism (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · History (6 works) · Colonialism, slavery, and trade (5 works) · Empire (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Archaeology (4 works)