Download or read book Encountering Kali written by Rachel Fell McDermott and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publishe. This book was released on 2005 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Encountering Kali explores one of the most ramarkable divinities the world has seen. The Hindu goddess Kali is simultaneously understood as a blood thirsty warrior a deity of ritual possession a tantric sexual partner and an all loving compassionate mothe. Popular and scholarly interest in her has been on the rise in the west in recent years. Responding to this phenomenon McDermott and Kripal`s volume focuses on the complexities involved in interpreting Kali in both her indigenous south Asian settings and her more recent Western incarnation. Through the shifting lenses of scriptural history temple architecture political reflection and the goddess`s recent guises on the Internet the contributors pose questions that illuminate our understanding of Kali while addressing the problems and promises inherent in every act of cross cultural interpretation.
Download or read book Thaipusam in Malaysia written by Carl Vadivella Belle and published by Flipside Digital Content Company Inc.. This book was released on 2018-02-14 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the festival of Thaipusam in terms of its own inner dynamics - the traditions and belief structures which ensure the festival's continuing relevance to Malaysian Hindus. It argues that Thaipusam reflects a growing sense of Hindu identity in Malaysia and an as yet inchoate unity. It contends that while the kavadi ritual provides profound meaning at the individual and group level, Thaipusam furnishes a public arena for and gives expression to a powerful Hindu resurgence, largely, though not exclusively, fuelled by Dravidian assertiveness. In situating the festival within the context of a Malaysia dominated by Malay and Islamic power brokers, a society in which both the Indian community and Hinduism are relegated to the margins, the book explores the festival of Thaipusam as a vehicle for mobilization of religious symbols and values which not only simultaneously articulate ethnicity and thus resist the forces which threaten cultural and religious integrity, but which also ultimately signal wider allegiances to the broader politico-cultural world of an imagined, immeasurably rich, and enduring Indo-Hindu civilization.
Download or read book The Psychoanalytic Study of Society V 18 written by L. Bryce Boyer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-12-07 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Opening with a critical appreciation of Alan Dundes (M. Carroll) and Dundes's own cross-cultural study of the cockfight, Volume 18 includes chapters on psychoanalysis and Hindu sexual fantasies (W. Doniger); the modern folk tale "The Boyfriend's Death" (M. Carroll); a gruesome Eskimo bedtime story (R. Boyer); the homosexual implications of Argentinean soccer (M. Suarez-Orozco); and the symbolism of a Malaysian religious festival (E. Fuller).
Download or read book Murugan s Lance written by Marie Elizabeth Collins and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 766 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Pierced by Murugan s Lance written by Elizabeth Fuller Collins and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An analysis of the Thaipusam festival of the Hindu Tamils of Malaysia and the vows they make to the god Murugan. It explores the meaning of vow fulfilment as reflected in social, economic and political divisions in the Tamil community, and the practice of ritual as a form of symbolic action.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Nonsuicidal Self Injury written by Elizabeth Lloyd-Richardson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-05-06 with total page 1297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Nonsuicidal Self-Injury is a compendium of up-to-date research and knowledge of topics germane to the field of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI). Edited by renowned scholars Elizabeth E. Lloyd-Richardson, Imke Baetens, and Janis L. Whitlock, the handbook brings together cutting-edge research from a group of internationally distinguished scholars. It covers a wide array of topics including epidemiology, function, neurophysiological processes, lived experience, and intervention and prevention approaches. This comprehensive text will serve as a go-to guide for scholars, clinicians, and anyone with interest in understanding, treating, and preventing self-injury.
Download or read book Stories from the Stacks written by National Library Board and published by Marshall Cavendish International Asia Pte Ltd. This book was released on 2020-12-15 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Rare Materials Collection at the National Library, Singapore, contains more than 11,000 items and spans six centuries of history. The collection comprises books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, correspondence, and more, which together provide us with valuable insights into Singapore’s history. This book presents a diverse selection of almost 50 of the rarest and most priceless items in the collection, including the Mao Kun Map, a recently-acquired Munshi Abdullah edition of the Sejarah Melayu, 19th century lithographs, Japanese reconnaissance maps, correspondence from Raffles, and even a football rule book in Jawi. Each item is described and analysed with an insightful essay and richly complemented with illustrations, helping to bring these stories from the stacks to life and lead us down new avenues of historical understanding.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Hinduism written by Denise Cush and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-08-21 with total page 1129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering all aspects of Hinduism, this encyclopedia includes more ethnographic and contemporary material in contrast to the exclusively textual and historical approach of earlier works.
Download or read book Sacred Structures written by Krishna G. Rampal and published by Bluetoffee. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sacred Structures is a fascinating guide to the world of Hindu Temples in Malaysia and Singapore, presented through the unique artistic vision of some of it's leading artists. In four sections beautifully illustrated with original paintings by ten leading artists, the book takes the reader through the various phases of Hindu Temple building from the 5-6th Century to modern times.
Download or read book Hindu Ritual at the Margins written by Linda Penkower and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2014-10-09 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hindu Ritual at the Margins explores Hindu forms of ritual activity in a variety of "marginal" contexts. The contributors collectively examine ritual practices in diaspora; across gender, ethnic, social, and political groups; in film, text, and art; in settings where ritual itself or direct discussion of ritual is absent; in contexts that create new opportunities for traditionally marginalized participants or challenge the received tradition; and via theoretical perspectives that have been undervalued in the academy. In the first of three sections, contributors explore the ways in which Hindu ritual performed in Indian contexts intersects with historical, contextual, and social change. They examine the changing significance and understanding of particular deities, the identity and agency of ritual actors, and the instrumentality of ritual in new media. Essays in the second section examine ritual practices outside of India, focusing on evolving ritual claims to authority in mixed cultures (such as Malaysia), the reshaping of gender dynamics of ritual at an American temple, and the democratic reshaping of ritual forms in Canadian Hindu communities. The final section considers the implications for ritual studies of the efficacy of bodily acts divorced from intention, contemporary spiritual practice as opposed to religious-bound ritual, and the notion of dharma. Based on a conference on Hindu ritual held in 2006 at the University of Pittsburgh, Hindu Ritual at the Margins seeks to elucidate the ways ritual actors come to shape ritual practices or conceptions pertaining to ritual and how studying ritual in marginal contexts—at points of dynamic tension—requires scholars to reshape their understanding of ritual activity.
Download or read book Religion Devotion and Medicine in North India written by Fabrizio M. Ferrari and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-11-20 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines notions of health and illness in North Indian devotional culture, with particular attention paid to the worship of the goddess Sitala, the Cold Lady. Consistently portrayed in colonial and postcolonial literature as the ambiguous 'smallpox goddess', Sitala is here discussed as a protector of children and women, a portrayal that emerges from textual sources as well as material culture. The eradication of smallpox did not pose a threat to Sitala and her worship. She continues to be an extremely popular goddess. Religion, Devotion and Medicine in North India critically examines the rise and affirmation of the 'smallpox myth' in India and beyond, and explains how Indian narratives, ritual texts and devotional songs have celebrated Sitala as a loving mother who protects her children from the effects, and the fear, of poxes, fevers and infantile disorders but also all sorts of new threats (such as global pandemics, addictions and environmental catastrophes). The book explores a wide range of ritual and devotional practices, including scheduled festivals, songs, vows, pageants, austerities, possession, animal sacrifices and various forms of offering. Built on extensive fieldwork and a close textual analysis of sources in Sanskrit and vernacular languages (Hindi, Bhojpuri and Bengali) as well as on a rich bibliography on the struggle against smallpox in colonial and post-colonial India, the book reflects on the ambiguous nature of Sitala as a phenomenon largely dependent on the enduring fascination with the exotic, and the horrific, that has pervaded public renditions of Indian culture in indigenous fiction, colonial reports, medical literature and now global culture. To aid study, the volume includes images, web links, appendixes and a filmography.
Download or read book Mapping the Sacred written by Jamie S. Scott and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 2001 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interweaving the interpretative methods of religious studies, literary criticism and cultural geography, the essays in this volume focus on issues associated with the representation of place and space in the writing and reading of the postcolonial. The collection charts the ways in which contemporary writers extend and deepen our awareness of the ambiguities of economic, social and political relations implicated in "sacred space" - the sense of spiritual significance associated with those concrete locations in which adherents of different religious traditions, past and present, maintain a ritual sense of the sanctity of life and its cycles. Part I, "Land, Religion and Literature after Britain," explores how postcolonial writers dramatize the contested processes of colonization, resistance and decolonization by which lands and landscapes may be viewed as now sacred, now desacralized, now resacralized. Part II, "Sacred Landscapes and Postcoloniality across International Literatures," draws upon postcolonial theory to inquire into how contemporary fiction, drama and poetry represent themes of divine dispensation, dispossession and reclamation in regions as diverse as Haiti, Israel, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Arctic, and the North American frontier. A critical "Afterword" considers the implications of such multi-disciplinary approaches to postcolonial literatures for present and future research in the field. Writers discussed in the essays include Russell Banks; James K. Baxter; Ursula Bethell; Erna Brodber; Marcus Clarke; Allen Curnow; Edwidge Danticat; Mak Dizdar; Sara Jeannette Duncan; Zee Edgell; "Grey Owl"; Haruki Murakami; Seamus Heaney; Peter Høeg; Hugh Hood; Janette Turner Hospital; James Houston; Dany Laferrière; B. Kojo Laing; Lee Kok Liang; K.S. Maniam; Mudrooroo; R.K. Narayan; Ngugi wa Thiong'o; Ben Okri; Chava Pinchas-Cohen; Mary Prince; Nancy Prince; Nayantara Sahgal; Ken Saro-Wiwa; Ibrahim Tahir; Amos Tutuola; W.D. Valgardson; Derek Walcott; and Rudy Wiebe. Maps accompany almost every essay.
Download or read book New Pathways in Pilgrimage Studies written by Dionigi Albera and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-11-18 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although there has been a massive increase in the volume of pilgrimage research and publications, traditional Anglophone scholarship has been dominated by research in Western Europe and North America. In their previous edited volume, International Perspectives on Pilgrimage Studies (Routledge, 2015), Albera and Eade sought to expand the theoretical, disciplinary and geographical perspectives of Anglophone pilgrimage studies. This new collection of essays builds on this earlier work by moving away from Eurasia and focusing on areas of the world where non-Christian pilgrimages abound. Individual chapters examine the practice of ziyarat in the Maghreb and South Asia, Hindu pilgrimage in India and different pilgrimage traditions across Malaysia and China before turning towards the Pacific islands, Australia, South Africa and Latin America, where Christian pilgrimages co-exist and sometimes interweave with indigenous traditions. This book also demonstrates the impact of political and economic processes on religious pilgrimages and discusses the important development of secular pilgrimage and tourism where relevant. Highly interdisciplinary, international, and innovative in its approach, New Pathways in Pilgrimage Studies: Global Perspectives will be of interest to those working in religious studies, pilgrimage studies, anthropology, cultural geography and folklore studies.
Download or read book Ritual written by Dimitris Xygalatas and published by Little, Brown Spark. This book was released on 2022-09-13 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A pioneering anthropologist takes readers on a 'fascinating, well-researched' (Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE) journey through the rich tapestry of human ritual—showing how and why our most irrational behaviors are a key driver of our success." Ritual is one of the oldest, and certainly most enigmatic, threads in the history of human culture. It presents a profound paradox: people ascribe the utmost importance to their rituals, but few can explain why they are so important. Apparently pointless ceremonies pervade every documented society, from handshakes to hexes, hazings to parades. Before we ever learned to farm, we were gathering in giant stone temples to perform elaborate rites and ceremonies. And yet, though rituals exist in every culture and can persist nearly unchanged for centuries, their logic has remained a mystery—until now. In Ritual, pathfinding scientist Dimitris Xygalatas leads us on an enlightening tour through this shadowy realm of human behavior. Armed with cutting-edge technology and drawing on discoveries from a wide range of disciplines, he presents a powerful new perspective on our place in the world. In birthday parties and coronations, in silent prayer, in fire-walks and terrifying rites of passage, in all the bewildering variety of human life, Ritual reveals the deep and subtle mechanisms that bind us together.
Download or read book Temple Tracks written by Vineeta Sinha and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2023-08-11 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The notions of labour, mobility and piety have a complex and intertwined relationship. Using ethnographic methods and a historical perspective, Temple Tracks critically outlines the interlink of railway construction in colonial and post-colonial Asia, as well as the anthropology of infrastructure and transnational mobilities with religion. In Malaysia and Singapore, evidence of religion-making and railway-building from a colonial past is visible in multiple modes and media as memories, recollections and ‘traces’.
Download or read book Sociology and Social Anthropology in India written by Atal, Yogesh (ed) and published by Pearson Education India. This book was released on 2000 with total page 618 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sociology and Social Anthropology in India represents the fourth round of surveys by the Indian Council of Social Science Research since 1988. It analyses the intellectual history of sociology and social anthropology in India and studies the role of caste and caste organizations in local and national politics, organizational structure of industries, journey of women's studies, demographic trends in India since 1971, Indian diaspora, analysis of criminological and development studies, and relevant aspects of the emergent legal culture in India.
Download or read book Ritual and Recovery in Post Conflict Sri Lanka written by Jane Derges and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-20 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following over twenty years of war, Sri Lanka’s longest cease-fire (2002-2006) provided a final opportunity for an inclusive peace settlement between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). However, hostilities resumed with ever increasing desperation and ferocity on both sides, until the LTTE were overcome and largely eradicated in 2009. This book provides a contextualised analysis of the effects of war on a small Tamil community living in northern Sri Lanka during the cease-fire period. It examines how the society changed and adapted in order to accommodate the upheaval and destruction of war, and its inevitable resumption. In particular, it focuses on the nature of suffering through an exploration of a well-known ritual: Thuukkukkaavadi that transformed the experience of pain and suffering and contributed to a process whereby many village communities could come together in a demonstration of strength and resilience. It contributes to studies on violence, reparation processes of so-called ‘post-conflict’ societies and the medical anthropology of healing. It questions assumptions concerning the nature of suffering and critiques the application of western categories in settings like northern Sri Lanka, where entire communities have been silenced by political violence. The book therefore presents a claim for more culturally specific understandings of what constitutes suffering and is of interest to students and scholars of South Asian Studies, Conflict Resolution, and Social and Cultural Anthropology.
