Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon

Download Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0195103483
Total Pages : 286 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (951 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon by : Kirin Narayan

Download or read book Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon written by Kirin Narayan and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1997 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oral tales establish relationships between storytellers and their listeners. Yet most printed collections of folktales contain only stories, stripped of the human contexts in which they are told. If storytellers are mentioned at all, they are rarely consulted about what meanings they see in their tales. In this innovative book, Indian-American anthropologist Kirin Narayan reproduces twenty-one folktales narrated in a mountain dialect by a middle-aged Indian village woman, Urmila Devi Sood, or "Urmilaji." The tales are set within the larger story of Kirin Narayan's research in the Himalayan foothill region of Kangra, and of her growing friendship with Urmilaji Sood. In turn, Urmilaji Sood supplements her tales with interpretations of the wisdom that she discerns in their plots. At a moment when the mass-media is flooding through rural India, Urmilaji Sood asserts the value of her tales which have been told and retold across generations. As she says, "Television can't teach you these things." These tales serve as both moral instruction and as beguiling entertainment. The first set of tales, focussing on women's domestic rituals, lays out guidelines for female devotion and virtue. Here are tales of a pious washerwoman who brings the dead to life, a female weevil observing fasts for a better rebirth, a barren woman who adopts a frog and lights ritual oil lamps, and a queen who remains with her husband through twelve arduous years of affliction. The women performing these rituals and listening to the accompanying stories are thought to bring good fortune to their marriages, and long life to their relatives. The second set of tales, associated with passing the time around the fire through long winter nights, are magical adventure tales. Urmilaji Sood tells of a matchmaker who marries a princess off to a lion, God splitting a boy claimed by two families into two selves, a prince's journey to the land of the demons, and a girl transformed into a bird by her stepmother. In an increasingly interconnected world, anthropologists' authority to depict and theorize about distant people's lives is under fire. Kirin Narayan seeks solutions to this crisis in anthropology by locating the exchange of knowledge in a respectful, affectionate collaboration. Through the medium of oral narratives, Urmilaji Sood describes her own life and lives around her, and through the medium of ethnography Kirin Narayan shows how broader conclusions emerge from specific, spirited interactions. Set evocatively amid the changing seasons in a Himalayan foothill village, this pathbreaking book draws a moving portrait of an accomplished woman storyteller. Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon offers a window into the joys and sorrows of women's changing lives in rural India, and reveals the significance of oral storytelling in nurturing human ties.

Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon

Download Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0195103491
Total Pages : 286 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (951 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon by : Kirin Narayan

Download or read book Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon written by Kirin Narayan and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1997 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oral tales establish relationships between storytellers and their listeners. Yet most printed collections of folktales contain only stories, stripped of the human contexts in which they are told. If storytellers are mentioned at all, they are rarely consulted about what meanings they see in their tales. In this innovative book, Indian-American anthropologist Kirin Narayan reproduces twenty-one folktales narrated in a mountain dialect by a middle-aged Indian village woman, Urmila Devi Sood, or "Urmilaji." The tales are set within the larger story of Kirin Narayan's research in the Himalayan foothill region of Kangra, and of her growing friendship with Urmilaji Sood. In turn, Urmilaji Sood supplements her tales with interpretations of the wisdom that she discerns in their plots. At a moment when the mass-media is flooding through rural India, Urmilaji Sood asserts the value of her tales which have been told and retold across generations. As she says, "Television can't teach you these things." These tales serve as both moral instruction and as beguiling entertainment. The first set of tales, focussing on women's domestic rituals, lays out guidelines for female devotion and virtue. Here are tales of a pious washerwoman who brings the dead to life, a female weevil observing fasts for a better rebirth, a barren woman who adopts a frog and lights ritual oil lamps, and a queen who remains with her husband through twelve arduous years of affliction. The women performing these rituals and listening to the accompanying stories are thought to bring good fortune to their marriages, and long life to their relatives. The second set of tales, associated with passing the time around the fire through long winter nights, are magical adventure tales. Urmilaji Sood tells of a matchmaker who marries a princess off to a lion, God splitting a boy claimed by two families into two selves, a prince's journey to the land of the demons, and a girl transformed into a bird by her stepmother. In an increasingly interconnected world, anthropologists' authority to depict and theorize about distant people's lives is under fire. Kirin Narayan seeks solutions to this crisis in anthropology by locating the exchange of knowledge in a respectful, affectionate collaboration. Through the medium of oral narratives, Urmilaji Sood describes her own life and lives around her, and through the medium of ethnography Kirin Narayan shows how broader conclusions emerge from specific, spirited interactions. Set evocatively amid the changing seasons in a Himalayan foothill village, this pathbreaking book draws a moving portrait of an accomplished woman storyteller. Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon offers a window into the joys and sorrows of women's changing lives in rural India, and reveals the significance of oral storytelling in nurturing human ties.

The Book of Night with Moon

Download The Book of Night with Moon PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Aspect
ISBN 13 : 0759521697
Total Pages : 530 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (595 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Book of Night with Moon by : Diane Duane

Download or read book The Book of Night with Moon written by Diane Duane and published by Aspect. This book was released on 2001-02-01 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rhiow seems a perfectly ordinary New York City cat. Or so her humans think--but she is much more than she appears. With her partners Saash and Urruah, she collaborates with human wizards, protecting the earth from dark forces and helping to maintain the network of magical gateways between different realities.

New Approaches to Teaching Folk and Fairy Tales

Download New Approaches to Teaching Folk and Fairy Tales PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University Press of Colorado
ISBN 13 : 1607324814
Total Pages : 265 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (73 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis New Approaches to Teaching Folk and Fairy Tales by : Christa Jones

Download or read book New Approaches to Teaching Folk and Fairy Tales written by Christa Jones and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2016-08-07 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New Approaches to Teaching Folk and Fairy Tales provides invaluable hands-on materials and pedagogical tools from an international group of scholars who share their experiences in teaching folk- and fairy-tale texts and films in a wide range of academic settings. This interdisciplinary collection introduces scholarly perspectives on how to teach fairy tales in a variety of courses and academic disciplines, including anthropology, creative writing, children’s literature, cultural studies, queer studies, film studies, linguistics, second language acquisition, translation studies, and women and gender studies, and points the way to other intermedial and intertextual approaches. Challenging the fairy-tale canon as represented by the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, Hans Christian Andersen, and Walt Disney, contributors reveal an astonishingly diverse fairy-tale landscape. The book offers instructors a plethora of fresh ideas, teaching materials, and outside-the-box teaching strategies for classroom use as well as new and adaptable pedagogical models that invite students to engage with class materials in intellectually stimulating ways. A cutting-edge volume that acknowledges the continued interest in university courses on fairy tales, New Approaches to Teaching Folk and Fairy Tales enables instructors to introduce their students to a new, critical understanding of the fairy tale as well as to a host of new tales, traditions, and adaptations in a range of media. Contributors: Anne E. Duggan, Cyrille François, Lisa Gabbert, Pauline Greenhill, Donald Haase, Christa C. Jones, Christine A. Jones, Jeana Jorgensen, Armando Maggi, Doris McGonagill, Jennifer Orme, Christina Phillips Mattson, Claudia Schwabe, Anissa Talahite-Moodley, Maria Tatar, Francisco Vaz da Silva, Juliette Wood

Dark Moon

Download Dark Moon PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 9780312532642
Total Pages : 356 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (326 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Dark Moon by : Lori Handeland

Download or read book Dark Moon written by Lori Handeland and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-09-28 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes an excerpt from Marked by the moon.

The Night and Its Moon

Download The Night and Its Moon PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN 13 : 1728270693
Total Pages : 441 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (282 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Night and Its Moon by : Piper CJ

Download or read book The Night and Its Moon written by Piper CJ and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2022-09-20 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An addictive fantasy romance from TikTok sensation Piper CJ, now newly revised and edited. Two orphans grow into powerful young women as they face countless threats to find their way back to each other. Farleigh is just an orphanage. At least, that's what the church would have the people believe, but beautiful orphans Nox and fae-touched Amaris know better. They are commodities for sale, available for purchase by the highest bidder. So when the madame of a notorious brothel in a far-off city offers a king's ransom to purchase Amaris, Nox ends up taking her place — while Amaris is drawn away to the mountains, home of mysterious assassins. Even as they take up new lives and identities, Nox and Amaris never forget one thing: they will stop at nothing to reunite. But the threat of war looms overhead, and the two are inevitably swept into a conflict between human and fae, magic and mundane. With strange new alliances, untested powers, and a bond that neither time nor distance could possibly break, the fate of the realms lies in the hands of two orphans — and the love they hold for each other.

In the Time of Trees and Sorrows

Download In the Time of Trees and Sorrows PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780822328209
Total Pages : 436 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (282 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis In the Time of Trees and Sorrows by : Ann Grodzins Gold

Download or read book In the Time of Trees and Sorrows written by Ann Grodzins Gold and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collaborative ethnography that collects ordinary persons' recollections of everyday life, politics, and the environment in Rajasthan from when the state was a kingdom and since independence.

The Bedtrick

Download The Bedtrick PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226156443
Total Pages : 631 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (261 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Bedtrick by : Wendy Doniger

Download or read book The Bedtrick written by Wendy Doniger and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2022-08-22 with total page 631 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Somehow I woke up one day and found myself in bed with a stranger." Meant literally or figuratively, this statement describes one of the best-known plots in world mythology and popular storytelling. In a tour that runs from Shakespeare to Hollywood and from Abraham Lincoln to Casanova, the erudite and irrepressible Wendy Doniger shows us the variety, danger, and allure of the "bedtrick," or what it means to wake up with a stranger. The Bedtrick brings together hundreds of stories from all over the world, from the earliest recorded Hindu and Hebrew texts to the latest item in the Weekly World News, to show the hilariously convoluted sexual scrapes that people manage to get themselves into and out of. Here you will find wives who accidentally commit adultery with their own husbands. You will read Lincoln's truly terrible poem about a bedtrick. You will learn that in Hong Kong the film The Crying Game was retitled Oh No! My Girlfriend Has a Penis. And that President Clinton was not the first man to be identified by an idiosyncratic organ. At the bottom of these wonderful stories, ancient myths, and historical anecdotes lie the dynamics of sex and gender, power and identity. Why can't people tell the difference in the dark? Can love always tell the difference between one lover and another? And what kind of truth does sex tell? Funny, sexy, and engaging, The Bedtrick is a masterful work of energetic storytelling and dazzling scholarship. Give it to your spouse and your lover.

A Companion to Folklore

Download A Companion to Folklore PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1118863143
Total Pages : 690 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (188 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis A Companion to Folklore by : Regina F. Bendix

Download or read book A Companion to Folklore written by Regina F. Bendix and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-08-25 with total page 690 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Companion to Folklore presents an original and comprehensive collection of essays from international experts in the field of folklore studies. Unprecedented in depth and scope, this state-of-the-art collection uniquely displays the vitality of folklore research across the globe. An unprecedented collection of original, state of the art essays on folklore authored by international experts Examines the practices and theoretical approaches developed to understand the phenomena of folklore Considers folklore in the context of multi-disciplinary topics that include poetics, performance, religious practice, myth, ritual and symbol, oral textuality, history, law, politics and power as well as the social base of folklore Selected by Choice as a 2013 Outstanding Academic Title

Fabulous Females and Peerless Pirs

Download Fabulous Females and Peerless Pirs PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780198037019
Total Pages : 286 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (37 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Fabulous Females and Peerless Pirs by :

Download or read book Fabulous Females and Peerless Pirs written by and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The mythic figure Satya Pir has a wide following among Hindus and Muslims alike in the Bangla-speaking regions of South Asia. Believed to be an avatara of krsna, or a Sufi saint, or somehow both, he is worshiped for his ability to bring wealth and comfort to a family. At the heart of this worship is the simple proposition that human dignity and morality are dependent upon a proper livelihood-without wealth, people cannot be expected to live moral lives. Men have a special responsibility to create that stability, but sometimes fail miserably, making ill-advised decisions that compromise the women who are dependent upon them. At these threatening junctures, women must take matters into their own hands, and they call on Satya Pir to help them right the wrongs done by their husbands or fathers. In this book, Tony K. Stewart presents lively translations of eight closely related 18th- and 19th-century Bengali folk tales centered on Satya Pir and the people he helps. To extricate her husband and other family members from these predicaments, one heroine dresses in drag, dons armor to fight cutthroats, slays a raging rhino and hacks off its horn, and takes the prize of the king's daughter, to the consternation of all. In another tale, one woman's husband is magically transformed into a ram and kept by a witch as breeding stock, and another's is transformed into a popinjay parrot, the better to elude her jealous father, intent on protecting his good daughter's virtue. In each case the men are rescued and restored to normal by resourceful women. While the worship of Satya Pir is the ostensible motivation for the tales, they are really demonstrations of the Pir's miraculous powers, which authenticate him as a legitimate object of worship. The tales are also wickedly funny, parodying Brahmins and yogis and kings and sepoys. These surprising and entertaining stories fly in the face of conventional wisdom about the separation of Muslims and Hindus. Moreover, the stories happily stand alone, speaking with an easily recognized if not universal voice of exasperation and amazement at what life throws at us.

Storytelling in Bali

Download Storytelling in Bali PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004328629
Total Pages : 548 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (43 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Storytelling in Bali by : H. Geertz

Download or read book Storytelling in Bali written by H. Geertz and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Storytelling in Bali, Hildred Geertz makes a case for the importance of the role of informal storytelling as an engine of social change in Bali in the 1930s. This is a study of more than 200 texts dictated by the painters of the village of Batuan in 1936 to the anthropologist Gregory Bateson. It is completed by three years field work in Batuan in the 1980s. The tales reveal a set of strong ambivalences about the magical powers of kings, priests and sorcerers, and about social strains within villages and families. These narratives were related in the daily settings of home and coffee shop and also in the spectacular dance-dramas of the time.

Dark Nights of the Soul

Download Dark Nights of the Soul PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 9781592401338
Total Pages : 356 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (13 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Dark Nights of the Soul by : Thomas Moore

Download or read book Dark Nights of the Soul written by Thomas Moore and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2005-06-16 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every human life is made up of the light and the dark, the happy and the sad, the vital and the deadening. How you think about this rhythm of moods makes all the difference. Our lives are filled with emotional tunnels: the loss of a loved one or end of a relationship, aging and illness, career disappointments or just an ongoing sense of dissatisfaction with life. Society tends to view these “dark nights” in clinical terms as obstacles to be overcome as quickly as possible. But Moore shows how honoring these periods of fragility as periods of incubation and positive opportunities to delve the soul’s deepest needs can provide healing and a new understanding of life’s meaning. Dark Nights of the Soul presents these metaphoric dark nights not as the enemy, but as times of transition, occasions to restore yourself, and transforming rites of passage, revealing an uplifting and inspiring new outlook on such topics as: • The healing power of melancholy • The sexual dark night and the mysteries of matrimony • Finding solace during illness and in aging • Anxiety, anger, and temporary Insanities • Linking creativity, spirituality, and emotional struggles • Finding meaning and beauty in the darkness

Shiptown

Download Shiptown PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 13 : 0812294122
Total Pages : 347 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (122 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Shiptown by : Ann Grodzins Gold

Download or read book Shiptown written by Ann Grodzins Gold and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2017-04-27 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jahazpur is a small market town or qasba with a diverse population of more than 20,000 people located in Bhilwara District in the North Indian state of Rajasthan. With roots deep in history and legend, Shiptown (a literal translation of landlocked Jahazpur's name) today is a subdistrict headquarters and thus a regional hub for government services unavailable in villages. Rural and town lives have long intersected in Shiptown's market streets, which are crammed with shopping opportunities, many designed to allure village customers. Temples, mosques, and shrines attract Hindus and Muslims from nearby areas. In the town's densely settled center—still partially walled, with arched gateways intact—many neighborhoods remain segregated by hereditary birth group. By contrast, in some newer, more spacious residential areas outside the walls, persons of distinct communities and religions live as neighbors. Throughout Jahazpur municipality a peaceful pluralism normally prevails. Ann Grodzins Gold lived in Santosh Nagar, the oldest of Shiptown's new settlements, for ten months, recording interviews and participating in festival, ritual, and social events—public and private, religious and secular. While engaged with contemporary scholarship, Shiptown is moored in the everyday lives of the town's residents, and each chapter has at its center a specific node of Jahazpur experience. Gold seeks to portray how neighborly relations are forged and endure across lines of difference; how ancient hierarchical social structures shift in major ways while never exactly disappearing; how in spite of pervasive conservative family values, gender roles are transforming rapidly and radically; how environmental deterioration affects not only public health but individual hearts, inspiring activism; and how commerce and morality keep uneasy company. She sustains a conviction that, even in the globalized present, local experiences are significant, and that anthropology—that most intimate and poetic of the social sciences—continues to foster productive conversations among human beings.

The Anthropology of Empathy

Download The Anthropology of Empathy PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 0857451030
Total Pages : 245 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (574 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Anthropology of Empathy by : Douglas W. Hollan

Download or read book The Anthropology of Empathy written by Douglas W. Hollan and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2011-08-01 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the role of empathy in a variety of Pacific societies, this book is at the forefront of the latest anthropological research on empathy. It presents distinct articulations of many assumptions of contemporary philosophical, neurobiological, and social scientific treatments of the topic. The variations described in this book do not necessarily preclude the possibility of shared existential, biological, and social influences that give empathy a distinctly human cast, but they do provide an important ethnographic lens through which to examine the possibilities and limits of empathy in any given community of practice.

Poetics of Conduct

Download Poetics of Conduct PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231139217
Total Pages : 310 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (311 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Poetics of Conduct by : Leela Prasad

Download or read book Poetics of Conduct written by Leela Prasad and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leela Prasad's riveting book presents everyday stories on subjects such as deities, ascetics, cats, and cooking along with stylized, publicly delivered ethical discourse, and shows that the study of oral narrative and performance is essential to ethical inquiry. Prasad builds on more than a decade of her ethnographic research in the famous Hindu pilgrimage town of Sringeri, Karnataka, in southwestern India, where for centuries a vibrant local culture has flourished alongside a tradition of monastic authority. Oral narratives and the seeing-and-doing orientations that are part of everyday life compel the question: How do individuals imagine the normative, and negotiate and express it, when normative sources are many and diverging? Moral persuasiveness, Prasad suggests, is intimately tied to the aesthetics of narration, and imagination plays a vital role in shaping how people create, refute, or relate to "text," "moral authority," and "community." Lived understandings of ethics keep notions of text and practice in flux and raise questions about the constitution of "theory" itself. Prasad's innovative use of ethnography, poetics, philosophy of language, and narrative and performance studies demonstrates how the moral self, with a capacity for artistic expression, is dynamic and gendered, with a historical presence and a political agency.

Everyday Hinduism

Download Everyday Hinduism PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 140516011X
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (51 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


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 256 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

Everyday Creativity

Download Everyday Creativity PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022640756X
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (264 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Everyday Creativity by : Kirin Narayan

Download or read book Everyday Creativity written by Kirin Narayan and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-11-22 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book by anthropologist Kirin Narayana thoughtful exploration of Kangra women s singing over the past thirty yearsis part ethnography, part travelogue, part musical discovery, part poetry and poetry translation, and three parts memoir. Like the intricate geometries of mandalu patterns drawn in the courtyard outside a home or clothes meticulously stitched, well-crafted songs identify a woman as smart, adept, and skilledand so are a source of status. Kangra singers speak of singing as enriching their lives; the well-being generated by shared songs brings feelings of accomplishment, companionship, happiness, solace, peacefulness, even good health and recovery from illness. The concept Narayan keeps finding herself returning to, however, is creativitythe everyday creativity that brings well-being. In this book, the second in our new Big Issues in Music series, Narayan beautifully draws out the particulars of everyday creativity in women s singing in Kangra, as well as giving readers the more general gift of a new way of thinking of creativityin music and the arts, in crafts, and in everyday life."