Rethinking Indian Culture

Author : Esther Bloch
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135182795
Total Pages : 209 pages
Book Rating : 4.93/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rethinking Religion in India written by Esther Bloch and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-12-24 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book critically assesses recent debates about the colonial construction of Hinduism. Increasingly scholars have come to realise that the dominant understanding of Indian culture and its traditions is unsatisfactory. According to the classical paradigm, Hindu traditions are conceptualized as features of a religion with distinct beliefs, doctrines, sacred laws and holy texts. Today, however, many academics consider this conception to be a colonial ‘construction’. This book focuses on the different versions, arguments and counter-arguments of the thesis that the Hindu religion is a construct of colonialism. Bringing together the different positions in the debate, it provides necessary historical data, arguments and conceptual tools to examine the argument. Organized in two parts, the first half of the book provides new analyses of historical and empirical data; the second presents some of the theoretical questions that have emerged from the debate on the construction of Hinduism. Where some of the contributors argue that Hinduism was created as a result of a western Christian notion of religion and the imperatives of British colonialism, others show that this religion already existed in pre-colonial India; and as an alternative to these standpoints, other writers argue that Hinduism only exists in the European experience and does not correspond to any empirical reality in India. This volume offers new insights into the nature of the construction of religion in India and will be of interest to scholars of the History of Religion, Asian Religion, Postcolonial and South Asian Studies.

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 568 pages
Book Rating : 4.01/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rethinking Indian Culture written by and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contributed articles presented at the International Seminar on "Rethinking Indian Culture: Challenges and Responses" held in 1999 at Cuttack, Orissa.

Author : Nalini Iyer
Publisher : Rodopi
ISBN 13 : 9042025190
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.96/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Other Tongues written by Nalini Iyer and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 2009 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Other Tongues: Rethinking the Language Debates in India explores the implications of the energetic and, at times, acrimonious public debate among Indian authors and academics over the hegemonic role of Indian writing in English. From the 1960s the debate in India has centered on the role of the English language in perpetuating and maintaining the cultural and ideological aspects of imperialism. The debate received renewed attention following controversial claims by Salman Rushdie and V.S. Naipaul on the inferior status of contemporary Indian-language literatures. This volume: - offers nuanced analysis of the language, audience and canon debate; - provides a multivocal debate in which academics, writers and publishers are brought together in a multi-genre format (academic essay, interview, personal essay); - explores how translation mediates this debate and the complex choices that translation must entail. Other Tongues is the first collective study by to bring together voices from differing national, linguistic and professional contexts in an examination of the nuances of this debate over language. By creating dialogue between different stakeholders - seven scholars, three writers, and three publishers from India - the volume brings to the forefront underrepresented aspects of Indian literary culture.

Author : Ajay Gandhi
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108486789
Total Pages : 385 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rethinking Markets in Modern India written by Ajay Gandhi and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-10 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using historical and ethnographic analyses, this book shows how Indian markets are embedded in society and politically contested.

Author : Alf Hiltebeitel
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226340554
Total Pages : 575 pages
Book Rating : 4.55/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rethinking India's Oral and Classical Epics written by Alf Hiltebeitel and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-02-15 with total page 575 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout India and Southeast Asia, ancient classical epics—the Mahabharata and the Ramayana—continue to exert considerable cultural influence. Rethinking India's Oral and Classical Epics offers an unprecedented exploration into South Asia's regional epic traditions. Using his own fieldwork as a starting point, Alf Hiltebeitel analyzes how the oral tradition of the south Indian cult of the goddess Draupadi and five regional martial oral epics compare with one another and tie in with the Sanskrit epics. Drawing on literary theory and cultural studies, he reveals the shared subtexts of the Draupadi cult Mahabharata and the five oral epics, and shows how the traditional plots are twisted and classical characters reshaped to reflect local history and religion. In doing so, Hiltebeitel sheds new light on the intertwining oral traditions of medieval Rajput military culture, Dalits ("former Untouchables"), and Muslims. Breathtaking in scope, this work is indispensable for those seeking a deeper understanding of South Asia's Hindu and Muslim traditions. This work is the third volume in Hiltebeitel's study of the Draupadi cult. Other volumes include Mythologies: From Gingee to Kuruksetra (Volume One), On Hindu Ritual and the Goddess (Volume Two), and Rethinking the Mahabharata (Volume Four).

Author : Donald Lee Fixico
Publisher : UNM Press
ISBN 13 : 9780826318190
Total Pages : 154 pages
Book Rating : 4.93/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rethinking American Indian History written by Donald Lee Fixico and published by UNM Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using innovative methodologies and theories to rethink American Indian history, this book challenges previous scholarship about Native Americans and their communities.

Author : David N. Lorenzen
Publisher : Yoda Press
ISBN 13 : 9788190227261
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.62/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Who Invented Hinduism written by David N. Lorenzen and published by Yoda Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who Invented Hinduism? presents ten masterly essays on the history of religious movements and ideologies in India by the eminent scholar of religious studies, David N. Lorenzen. Stretching from a discussion on the role of religion, skin colour and language in distinguishing between the Aryas and the Dasas, to a study of the ways in which contact between Hindus, on the one hand, and Muslims and Christians, on the other, changed the nature of the Hindu religion, the volume asks two principal questions: how did the religion of the Hindus affect the course of Indian history and what sort of an impact did the events of Indian history have on the Hindu religion. The essays cast a critical eye on scholarly Arguments which are based as much on current fashion or on conventional wisdom as on evidence available in historical documents. Taking issue with renowned scholars such as Louis Dumont, Romila Thapar, Thomas Trautmann and Dipesh Chakrabarty on some central conceptions of the religious history of India, Lorenzen establishes alternative positions on the same through a thorough and compelling look at a vast array of literary sources. Touching upon some controversial arguments, this well-timed and insightful volume draws attention to the unavoidably influential role of religion in the history of India, and in doing so, it creates a wider space for further discussion focusing on this central issue.

Author : Amritjit Singh
Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 1498531059
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Revisiting India's Partition written by Amritjit Singh and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2016-06-15 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revisiting India’s Partition: New Essays on Memory, Culture, and Politics brings together scholars from across the globe to provide diverse perspectives on the continuing impact of the 1947 division of India on the eve of independence from the British Empire. The Partition caused a million deaths and displaced well over 10 million people. The trauma of brutal violence and displacement still haunts the survivors as well as their children and grandchildren. Nearly 70 years after this cataclysmic event, Revisiting India’s Partition explores the impact of the “Long Partition,” a concept developed by Vazira Zamindar to underscore the ongoing effects of the 1947 Partition upon all South Asian nations. In our collection, we extend and expand Zamindar’s notion of the Long Partition to examine the cultural, political, economic, and psychological impact the Partition continues to have on communities throughout the South Asian diaspora. The nineteen interdisciplinary essays in this book provide a multi-vocal, multi-focal, transnational commentary on the Partition in relation to motifs, communities, and regions in South Asia that have received scant attention in previous scholarship. In their individual essays, contributors offer new engagements on South Asia in relation to several topics, including decolonization and post-colony, economic development and nation-building, cross-border skirmishes and terrorism, and nationalism. This book is dedicated to covering areas beyond Punjab and Bengal and includes analyses of how Sindh and Kashmir, Hyderabad, and more broadly South India, the Northeast, and Burma call for special attention in coming to terms with memory, culture and politics surrounding the Partition.

Author : Dwijendra Narayan Jha
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317490339
Total Pages : 128 pages
Book Rating : 4.33/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rethinking Hindu Identity written by Dwijendra Narayan Jha and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-18 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent years have seen the emergence of a virulent version of Hindu nationalism and fundamentalism in India under the banner of Hindutva. This xenophobic movement has obfuscated and mystified the notion of Hindu identity and reinforced its stereotypes. Its arguments range from the patently unscientific - humankind was created in India, as was the first civilisation - to historical whitewash: Hinduism has continued in one, unchanged form for 5000 years; Hinduism has always been a tolerant faith. 'Rethinking Hindu Identity' offers a corrective based on a deep and detailed reading of Indian history. Written in a riveting style, this study provides a fresh history of Hinduism - its practices, its beliefs, its differences and inconsistencies, and its own myths about itself. Along the way, the book systematically demolishes the arguments of Hindu fundamentalism and nationalism, revealing how the real history of Hinduism is much more complex.

Author : Bhikhu C. Parekh
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674009950
Total Pages : 396 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rethinking Multiculturalism written by Bhikhu C. Parekh and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bhikhu Parekh argues for a pluralist perspective on cultural diversity. Writing from both within the liberal tradition and outside of it as a critic, he challenges what he calls the "moral monism" of much of traditional moral philosophy, including contemporary liberalism--its tendency to assert that only one way of life or set of values is worthwhile and to dismiss the rest as misguided or false. He defends his pluralist perspective both at the level of theory and in subtle nuanced analyses of recent controversies. Thus, he offers careful and clear accounts of why cultural differences should be respected and publicly affirmed, why the separation of church and state cannot be used to justify the separation of religion and politics, and why the initial critique of Salman Rushdie (before a Fatwa threatened his life) deserved more serious attention than it received. Rejecting naturalism, which posits that humans have a relatively fixed nature and that culture is an incidental, and "culturalism," which posits that they are socially and culturally constructed with only a minimal set of features in common, he argues for a dialogic interplay between human commonalities and cultural differences. This will allow, Parekh argues, genuinely balanced and thoughtful compromises on even the most controversial cultural issues in the new multicultural world in which we live.