Material Acts In Everyday Hindu Worlds

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Material Acts in Everyday Hindu Worlds

Author : Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 143848013X
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

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Book Synopsis Material Acts in Everyday Hindu Worlds by : Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger

Download or read book Material Acts in Everyday Hindu Worlds written by Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2020-10-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Material Acts in Everyday Hindu Worlds, Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger analyzes the agency of materiality—the ability of materials to have an effect on both humans and deities—beyond human intentions. Using materials from three regions where Flueckiger conducted extensive fieldwork, she begins with Indian understandings of the agency of ornaments that have the desired effects of protecting women and making them more auspicious. Subsequent chapters bring in examples of materiality that are agentive beyond human intentions, from a south Indian goddess tradition where female guising transforms the aggressive masculinity of men who wear saris, braids, and breasts to the presence of cement images of Ravana in Chhattisgarh, which perform alternative theologies and ideologies to those of dominant textual traditions of the Ramayana epic. Deeply ethnographic and accessibly written, Material Acts in Everyday Hindu Worlds expands our understanding of material agency as well as the parameters of religion more broadly. This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships Open Book Program—a limited competition designed to make outstanding humanities books available to a wide audience. Learn more at the Fellowships Open Book Program at https://www.neh.gov/grants/odh/FOBP, and access the book online at the SUNY Open Access Repository at https://soar.suny.edu/handle/20.500.12648/8716.

Everyday Hinduism

Author : Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1405160217
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (51 download)

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Book Synopsis Everyday Hinduism by : Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger

Download or read book Everyday Hinduism written by Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-05-06 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This innovative introductory textbook explores the central practices and beliefs of Hinduism through contemporary, everyday practice. Introduces and contextualizes the rituals, festivals and everyday lived experiences of Hinduism in text and images Includes data from the author’s own extensive ethnographic fieldwork in central India (Chhattisgarh), the Deccan Plateau (Hyderabad), and South India (Tirupati) Features coverage of Hindu diasporas, including a study of the Hindu community in Atlanta, Georgia Each chapter includes case study examples of specific topics related to the practice of Hinduism framed by introductory and contextual material

New Materialism and Theology

Author : Sam Mickey
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004520309
Total Pages : 88 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (45 download)

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Book Synopsis New Materialism and Theology by : Sam Mickey

Download or read book New Materialism and Theology written by Sam Mickey and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-05-16 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Juxtaposing theological inquiry with the philosophical movement of new materialism, Sam Mickey reflects on questions of human embodiment, nonhuman agency, technological innovation, and possible futures for humankind. New Materialism and Theology opens several pathways for thinking about what really matters.

Studies in Religion and the Everyday

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198902794
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (989 download)

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Book Synopsis Studies in Religion and the Everyday by :

Download or read book Studies in Religion and the Everyday written by and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-03-28 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Studies in Religion and the Everyday is a collection of essays addressing the contours of religious beliefs and practices in the context of everyday life in India. Events and processes in contemporary India—especially post the 1990s—have contributed to distinct modes of articulating religious practices. This volume is an attempt to historicize—and problematize—the categorization of religion as a universally held and analytically distinct feature of human life and seeks to understand the conditions—historical, political, discursive—and processes of authorization under which a particular set of practices, values, and dispositions constitutes the 'religious' at a specific point in time. By bringing together studies that draw from diverse methodological and epistemological approaches, the book will serve as a useful introduction to religion in India for the general reader and as an indispensable resource for students and researchers. The volume presents fresh perspectives on existing fields of study such as the city, capital, minorities, secularization, and the state—no longer seen as distinct from religion but actively co-produced with religion in the context of the theoretical rubric of the everyday—thereby marking a departure from approaching the question of religion solely through the lens of identity and conflict.

Devotional Visualities

Author : Karen Pechilis
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350214205
Total Pages : 242 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis Devotional Visualities by : Karen Pechilis

Download or read book Devotional Visualities written by Karen Pechilis and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-09-21 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first to focus on material visualities of bhakti imagery that inspire, shape, convey, and expand both the visual practices of devotional communities, as well as possibilities for extending the reach of devotion in society in new and often unexpected ways. Communities of interpreters of bhakti images discussed in this book include not only a number of distinctive Hindu bhakti groups, but also artisans, diaspora women, South Asian Sufis, businessmen, dancers, and filmmakers. This book's identification of devotional practices of looking, such as materializing memory, mirroring and immaterializing portraits, and shaping the return look, connect material and visual cultures as well as illustrate modes of established and experimental image usage. Bhakti is one of the most-studied aspects of Indic devotionalism on account of its expression through emotive poetry, song, and vivid hagiographies of saints. The diverse devotional visualities analyzed in this book meaningfully circulate bhakti images in past and present, generating their renewed relationship to contemporary concerns.

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Materiality

Author : Vasudha Narayanan
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1118660080
Total Pages : 717 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (186 download)

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Book Synopsis The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Materiality by : Vasudha Narayanan

Download or read book The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Materiality written by Vasudha Narayanan and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-04-27 with total page 717 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Materiality provides a thoughtfully organized, inclusive, and vibrant project of the multiple ways in which religion and materiality intersect. The contributions explore the way that religion is shaped by, and has shaped, the material world, embedding beliefs, doctrines, and texts into social and cultural contexts of production, circulation, and consumption. The Companion not only contains scholarly essays but has an accompanying website to demonstrate the work of performers, architects, and expressive artists, ranging from musicians and dancers to religious practitioners. These examples offer specific illustrations of the interplay of religion and materiality in everyday life. The project is organized from a comparative perspective, highlighting examples and case studies from traditions originating in both East and West. To summarize, the volume: Brings together the leading figures, theories and ideas in the field in a systematic and comprehensive way Offers an interdisciplinary approach drawing together religious studies, anthropology, archaeology, history, sociology, geography, the cognitive sciences, ecology, and media studies Takes a comparative perspective, covering all the major faith traditions

Islam through Objects

Author : Anna Bigelow
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350132837
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (51 download)

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Book Synopsis Islam through Objects by : Anna Bigelow

Download or read book Islam through Objects written by Anna Bigelow and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-06-03 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Islam through Objects represents the state of the field of Islamic material cultural studies. With contributions from scholars of religion, anthropologists, art historians, folklorists, historians, and other disciplines, Anna Bigelow brings together a wide range of perspectives on Islamic materiality to debunk myths of Islamic aversion to material aspects of religion. Each chapter focuses on a single object in daily use by Muslims-prayer beads, coins, amulets, a cistern well, clothing, jewellery, bodily and domestic adornments-to consider both generic and particular aspects of the object in question. These narratives will engage the reader by describing and analyzing each object in terms of its provenance, materials, uses, and history, as well as the broader history, variety and uses of the object in Islamic history and cultures. Temporal, regional, and sectarian variations in the styles, uses, and theological perspectives are also considered. Framed by an introduction that assesses the various approaches to Islamic material culture in recent scholarship, Islam through Objects provides a template for the study of religion and material culture, which engages current theory, subtle and nuanced narratives, and the creative and imaginal capacities of Muslims through history.

The Thing about Religion

Author : David Morgan
Publisher : UNC Press Books
ISBN 13 : 1469662841
Total Pages : 265 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (696 download)

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Book Synopsis The Thing about Religion by : David Morgan

Download or read book The Thing about Religion written by David Morgan and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2021-03-19 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Common views of religion typically focus on the beliefs and meanings derived from revealed scriptures, ideas, and doctrines. David Morgan has led the way in radically broadening that framework to encompass the understanding that religions are fundamentally embodied, material forms of practice. This concise primer shows readers how to study what has come to be termed material religion—the ways religious meaning is enacted in the material world. Material religion includes the things people wear, eat, sing, touch, look at, create, and avoid. It also encompasses the places where religion and the social realities of everyday life, including gender, class, and race, intersect in physical ways. This interdisciplinary approach brings religious studies into conversation with art history, anthropology, and other fields. In the book, Morgan lays out a range of theories, terms, and concepts and shows how they work together to center materiality in the study of religion. Integrating carefully curated visual evidence, Morgan then applies these ideas and methods to case studies across a variety of religious traditions, modeling step-by-step analysis and emphasizing the importance of historical context. The Thing about Religion will be an essential tool for experts and students alike. Two free, downloadable course syllabi created by the author are available online.

The Routledge Handbook of Religion and the Body

Author : Yudit Kornberg Greenberg
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000834662
Total Pages : 617 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (8 download)

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Book Synopsis The Routledge Handbook of Religion and the Body by : Yudit Kornberg Greenberg

Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Religion and the Body written by Yudit Kornberg Greenberg and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-02-01 with total page 617 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Handbook of Religion and the Body is the first comprehensive volume to feature multireligious cross-cultural perspectives on the body and embodiment. Featuring multidisciplinary approaches and methodologies from the humanities and the social sciences, it addresses the body and embodied religiosity in theological, ethical, and cultural contexts. Comprised of 30 chapters by a team of international contributors, the handbook is divided into four parts: Theology and Embodied Religiosity Gender, Sexuality, and Body Regulations Ritual and Performance Religion, Healing, and the Future of the Body Each part examines central issues, debates, and problems in relation to global belief systems, including embodiments of love, transfiguration, the secular body, disability, body language, maternal bodies, embodied emotions, celibacy, ecology and the body, reshaping the corporal body, initiation rites, physiology, Tantra, Reiki practice, religious experience, technological body modifications, and ethics and the body. Providing a breadth of rich and innovative research, it is a must-read for students and scholars in religious studies, theology, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, psychology, history, and cultural and gender studies. Chapter 7 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Middle-Class Dharma

Author : Jennifer D. Ortegren
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0197530796
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (975 download)

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Book Synopsis Middle-Class Dharma by : Jennifer D. Ortegren

Download or read book Middle-Class Dharma written by Jennifer D. Ortegren and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ""You have to come to my wedding," Kavita told me, turning to face me where I sat next to her on the couch. "You can come with the other people from the street. You will get everything you need for your *research* there." "I will come, I will come!" I replied enthusiastically. I had only met Kavita and her two younger sisters, Arthi and Deepti (see Figure 2.1), mere minutes before this invitation was extended. I had initially come to Pulan that day in October 2012 to meet another woman, Heena, whose family rents a room on the third story of Kavita's family's home. Heena and I had been sitting in the furniture refurbishing store she operates with her husband on the main street of Pulan when Deepti, Kavita's youngest sister, passed by. Heena introduced us and told me to go with Deepti to meet her family. When we reached the family's three-story house-the largest in the gali-Deepti led me past the empty rooms on the ground floor, which I would eventually begin renting, to the second-story living room. There, we found Kavita and Arthi organizing clothing and jewelry they had purchased earlier in the day for the upcoming wedding festivities. Kavita made room for me to sit next to her on the couch and began asking me about myself. I immediately warmed to her because of her open, friendly smile and sharp, staccato Hindi, which I delighted in being able to understand. I explained that I had come to India to study how women's lives are different in rural and urban areas, and Kavita assured me that she and her family could help. She noted that her parents had come to Udaipur from Ram Nagar, a large village thirty-five kilometers north of the city, and that the family would be returning for her and her older brother Krishna's weddings the following month. Their weddings would be held five days apart to help reduce the difficulties of family members traveling from outside Udaipur. Prompted by the description of my research, Kavita commented on differences that she recognized between the village and the city. The biggest difference, she suggested, was the experience of caste, namely that in the village, people from different jatis live separately, whereas in the city, people are "mixed." As I would come to learn when visiting Ram Nagar for various functions, there is a fair amount of caste and religious diversity in the village. Although spatial and ritual segregation was rather strictly maintained during religious observances, it is likely more flexible in everyday life. The segregation during ritual functions-the occasions for which Kavita also traveled to the village-likely informed her sense of a lack of "mixing" in the village as. The majority of residents in the area of Ram Nagar where the family maintains a home were also from the Mali (lit: gardener) jati, although Mali was not a majority jati in Pulan"--

The Social Life of Streets in India

Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9394701613
Total Pages : 439 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (947 download)

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Book Synopsis The Social Life of Streets in India by :

Download or read book The Social Life of Streets in India written by and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-12-30 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Streets are places that stimulate activities, interactions, behaviours and, by extension, controls. Yet, within the built environment discourse, the street is first and foremost conceptualised as a mute backdrop to movement-vehicular or pedestrian. The Covid-19 pandemic brought renewed focus on the street as the space of networks, flows and mobilities as the 'lockdown' was the preferred mode of controlling the spread of the disease. The Social Life of Streets in India: Histories, Contestations and Subjectivities endeavours to understand the complexities of social dynamics of streets in relation to spatiality and materiality in the Indian milieu. It draws from a diverse body of scholarship and varied disciplinary leanings and engages with three broad strands: historical aspects of streets, the physicality of street as a built environment and social science discourse mediated through anthropology, urban geography, social theory and urban studies. Further the volume deliberates on questions such as: How do we look at streets and, in particular, how do we document and conceptualise streets in the Indian context that highlights the particularities of South Asian milieus? Is the street public? Is it merely a physical space? How does the street in its physicality and in its built form enter or respond to the metaphorical, the literary, the methodological and the social?

Bhakti Religion in North India

Author : David N. Lorenzen
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 143841126X
Total Pages : 350 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

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Book Synopsis Bhakti Religion in North India by : David N. Lorenzen

Download or read book Bhakti Religion in North India written by David N. Lorenzen and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1994-11-09 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In India, religion continues to be an absolutely vital source for social as well as personal identity. All manner of groups--political, occupational, and social--remain grounded in specific religious communities. This book analyzes the development of the modern Hindu and Sikh communities in North India starting from about the fifteenth century, when the dominant bhakti tradition of Hinduism became divided into two currents: the sagun and the nirgun. The sagun current, led mostly by Brahmins, has remained dominant in most of North India and has served as the ideological base of the development of modern Hindu nationalism. Several chapters explore the rise of this religious and political movement, paying particular attention to the role played by devotion to Ram. Alternative trends do exist in sagun tradition, however, and are represented here by chapters on the low-caste saint Chokhamel and the tantric sect founded by Kina Ram. The nirgun current, led mostly by persons of Ksand artisan castes, formed the base of both the Sikh community, founded by Guru Nanak, and of various non-Brahmin sectarian movements derived from such saints as Kabir, Raidas, Dadu, and Shiv Dayal Singh. Two chapters discuss the formation of a distinctive Sikh theology and a Sikh community identity separate from that of the Hindus. Other chapters discuss the validity of the sagun-nirgun distinction within Hindu tradition and the interplay of social and religious ideas in nirgun hagiographic texts and in sectarian movements such as the Adi Dharma Mission and the Radhasoami Satsang.

When the World Becomes Female

Author : Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 025300960X
Total Pages : 335 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (53 download)

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Book Synopsis When the World Becomes Female by : Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger

Download or read book When the World Becomes Female written by Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-23 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A carefully crafted ethnography on the South Indian festival of the village goddess Gangamma in the pilgrimage town of Tirupati” (Choice). During the goddess Gangamma’s festival in the town of Tirupati, lower-caste men take guises of the goddess, and the streets are filled with men wearing saris, braids, and female jewelry. By contrast, women participate by intensifying the rituals they perform for Gangamma throughout the year, such as cooking and offering food. Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger argues that within the festival ultimate reality is imagined as female and women identify with the goddess, whose power they share. Vivid accounts by male and female participants offer new insights into Gangamma’s traditions and the nature of Hindu village goddesses. “Flueckiger’s rich and colorful descriptions of the stories, festivals, and worshipers connected with the goddess Gangamma evoke a world that previously had been accessible to very few living outside southern India. This work makes available to readers a close-up view of an extremely fascinating aspect of living Hinduism.” —David L. Haberman, Indiana University “Carefully crafted. . . . Through these rituals, stories and lives, the author reveals new ways of comprehending gender both at the cosmological and human level.” —Ann Grodzins Gold, Syracuse University

Wonder in South Asia

Author : Tulasi Srinivas
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438495293
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

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Book Synopsis Wonder in South Asia by : Tulasi Srinivas

Download or read book Wonder in South Asia written by Tulasi Srinivas and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2023-11-01 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The experience of wonder—encompassing awe, bewilderment, curiosity, excitement, fear, dread, mystery, perplexity, reverence, surprise, and supplication—and the ineffable quality of that which is wondrous have been entwined in religion and human experience. Yet strangely, wonder in non-western societies, including South Asia, has rarely been acknowledged or understood. This groundbreaking volume brings together historians and ethnographers of South Asia, including leading and emerging scholars, to consider the place and meaning of wonder in such varied joyful, tense, and creative sites and moments as Sufi music performances in Gujarat, Tamil graveyard processions, trans women's charitable practices, Kipling's Orientalist tales, village Kuchipudi dance performances, and Rajasthani healing shrines. Offering a synthetic and scholarly reading of wonder that speaks to the political, aesthetic, and ethical worlds of South Asia, these essays redefine the nature and meaning of wonder and its worlds. Taken together, they provide an invaluable research tool for those in the fields of Asian religion, religion in context, and South Asian religions in particular.

Sacred Matters

Author : Tracy Pintchman
Publisher : SUNY Press
ISBN 13 : 1438459432
Total Pages : 246 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

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Book Synopsis Sacred Matters by : Tracy Pintchman

Download or read book Sacred Matters written by Tracy Pintchman and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2015-11-16 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores how objects shape the worlds of religious participants across a range of South Asian traditions. Sacred Matters explores the lives of material objects in South Asian religions. Spanning a range of traditions including Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Buddhism, and Christianity, the book demonstrates how sacred items influence and enliven the worlds of religious participants across South Asia and into the diaspora. Contributors examine a variety of objects to describe the ways sacred materials derive and confer meaning and efficacy, emerging from and giving shape to religious and nonreligious realms alike. Material forms of deity and divine power are considered along with commonplace ritual items, including images, clay pots, and camphor. The work also attends to materialitys complex role within the materially suspicious contexts of Islam, Theravada Buddhism, and Roman Catholicism. This engaging collection presents new frameworks for contemplating the ways in which historical, social, and sacred processes intertwine and collectively shape human and divine activity.

Journey Among Dervishes Between Past and Present

Author : AA: VV:
Publisher : Mimesis
ISBN 13 : 8869774716
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (697 download)

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Book Synopsis Journey Among Dervishes Between Past and Present by : AA: VV:

Download or read book Journey Among Dervishes Between Past and Present written by AA: VV: and published by Mimesis. This book was released on 2024-03-08T00:00:00+01:00 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present book intends to invite readers on a multi-dimensional and multifaceted journey meeting dervishes in different places and environments of the Muslim world; its peculiarity is to bring together a classical orientalist approach, based on texts and written documents, with the approach typical of Anthropology, Ethnography and Ethnomusicology, based on research in the field and oral sources: the ethnographic study of the present sheds new light on practices, methods and theories exposed in treatises of the Past while, at the same time, practices of the present may be clarified and illuminated by the study of ancient Sufi texts and authors. These different approaches want to draw attention to the multiple dimensions embraced by “tasawwuf” (Sufism) both in its historical and social context and in its nontemporal aspect, concerning spirituality and the ways the latter is conveyed and transmitted, both in the past and present.

The Ethnography of Tantra

Author : Carola E. Lorea
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438494858
Total Pages : 460 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

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Book Synopsis The Ethnography of Tantra by : Carola E. Lorea

Download or read book The Ethnography of Tantra written by Carola E. Lorea and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2023-11-01 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first collection of essays to approach the topic of Tantric Studies from the vantage point of ethnography and lived religion, moving beyond the centrality of written texts and giving voice to the everyday life and livelihoods of a multitude of Tantric actors. Bringing together a team of international scholars whose contributions range across diverse communities and traditions in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Himalayan region, the book connects distant shores of Tantric scholarship and lived Tantric practices. The contributors unpack Tantra’s relationship to the body, ritual performance, sexuality, secrecy, power hierarchies, death, magic, and healing, while doing so with vigilant sensitivity to decolonization and the ethics of fieldwork. Through diverse ethnographies of Tantra and attention to lived experiences and life stories, the book challenges normative definitions of Tantra and maps the variety of Tantric traditions, providing comparative perspectives on Tantric societies across regions and religious backgrounds. The accessible tone of the ethnographic case studies makes this an ideal book for undergraduate or graduate audiences working on the topic of Tantra.