Download or read book The Making of Goddess Durga in Bengal Art Heritage and the Public written by Samir Kumar Das and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-05-21 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the making of the Goddess Durga both as an art and as part of the intangible heritage of Bengal. As the ‘original site of production’ of unbaked clay idols of the Hindu Goddess Durga and other Gods and Goddesses, Kumartuli remains at the centre of such art and heritage. The art and heritage of Kumartuli have been facing challenges in a rapidly globalizing world that demands constant redefinition of ‘art’ with the invasion of market forces and migration of idol makers. As such, the book includes chapters on the evolution of idols, iconographic transformations, popular culture and how the public is constituted by the production and consumption of the works of art and heritage and finally the continuous shaping and reshaping of urban imaginaries and contestations over public space. It also investigates the caste group of Kumbhakars (Kumars or the idol makers), reflecting on the complex relation between inherited skill and artistry. Further, it explores how the social construction of art as ‘art’ introduces a tangled web of power asymmetries between ‘art’ and ‘craft’, between an ‘artist’ and an ‘artisan’, and between ‘appreciation’ and ‘consumption’, along with their implications for the articulation of market in particular and social relations in general. Since little has been written on this heritage hub beyond popular pamphlets, documents on town planning and travelogues, the book, written by authors from various fields, opens up cross-disciplinary conversations, situating itself at the interface between art history, sociology of aesthetics, politics and government, social history, cultural studies, social anthropology and archaeology. The book is aimed at a wide readership, including students, scholars, town planners, heritage preservationists, lawmakers and readers interested in heritage in general and Kumartuli in particular.

Download or read book The Making of Goddess Durga in Bengal Art Heritage and the Public written by Samir Kumar Das and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the making of the Goddess Durga both as an art and as part of the intangible heritage of Bengal. As the 'original site of production' of unbaked clay idols of the Hindu Goddess Durga and other Gods and Goddesses, Kumartuli remains at the centre of such art and heritage. The art and heritage of Kumartuli have been facing challenges in a rapidly globalizing world that demands constant redefinition of 'art' with the invasion of market forces and migration of idol makers. As such, the book includes chapters on the evolution of idols, iconographic transformations, popular culture and how the public is constituted by the production and consumption of the works of art and heritage and finally the continuous shaping and reshaping of urban imaginaries and contestations over public space. It also investigates the caste group of Kumbhakars (Kumars or the idol makers), reflecting on the complex relation between inherited skill and artistry. Further, it explores how the social construction of art as 'art' introduces a tangled web of power asymmetries between 'art' and 'craft', between an 'artist' and an 'artisan', and between 'appreciation' and 'consumption', along with their implications for the articulation of market in particular and social relations in general. Since little has been written on this heritage hub beyond popular pamphlets, documents on town planning and travelogues, the book, written by authors from various fields, opens up cross-disciplinary conversations, situating itself at the interface between art history, sociology of aesthetics, politics and government, social history, cultural studies, social anthropology and archaeology. The book is aimed at a wide readership, including students, scholars, town planners, heritage preservationists, lawmakers and readers interested in heritage in general and Kumartuli in particular.

Download or read book Breaking Images written by Gianluca Miniaci and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2023-02-16 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Archaeological remains are ‘fragmented by definition’: apart from exceptional cases, the study of the human past takes into account mainly traces, ruins, discards, and debris of past civilizations. It is rare that things have been preserved as they were originally made and conceived in the past. However, not all the ancient fragmentary objects were the ‘leftovers’ from the past. A noticeable portion of them was part and parcel of the ancient materiality already in the form of a fragment or damaged item. In 2000, John Chapman, with his volume Fragmentation in Archaeology, attracted the attention of scholars on the need to reconsider broken artifacts as the result of the deliberate anthropic process of physical fragmentation. The phenomenon of fragmentation can be thus explored with more outcomes for a category of objects that played an important role inside the society: the figurines. Due to their portability and size, figurines are particularly entangled and engaged in social, spatial, temporal, and material relations, and – more than other artifacts – can easily accommodate acts of embodiment and dismemberment. The act of creation symmetrically also involves the act of destruction, which in turn is another act of creation, since from the fragmentation comes a new entity with a different ontology. Breaking contains the paradigms of life: creation and reparation, destruction and regeneration. The scope of this volume is to search for traces of any voluntary and intentional fragmentation of ancient artifacts, creating, improving, and sharpening the methods and principles for a scientific investigation that goes beyond single author impression or sensitivity. The comparative lens adopted in this volume can allow the reader to explore different fields taken from ancient societies of how we can address, assess, detect, and even discuss the action of breaking and mutilation of ancient figurines.

Download or read book China in India s Neighbourhood written by Anita Sengupta and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-04-30 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the scope and extent of the growing Chinese influence in India’s neighbourhood and its impact on India as well as on Asian power politics. Through theoretical narratives and detailed case studies, it examines Chinese bilateral relationships in the Indian neighbourhood and looks at the extent and significance of Chinese influence through the lens of strategic, economic and infrastructural arrangements and Chinese interventions in South, Southeast, and Central Asia. The book takes into account regional voices and domestic political compulsions in understanding what they make of the Chinese narrative and examines how and whether the narrative has changed in recent years through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as an instrument of Chinese public diplomacy. The volume also discusses how domestic narratives and compulsions in the Indian neighbourhood remain significant and how these, in turn, would impact the trajectory of Chinese public diplomacy. Intertwined through all these themes is a focus on the extent to which these could become potential flashpoints for India. This book will be a useful resource for academics and researchers working on Asian geopolitics and geo-economics, Chinese foreign policy, Chinese politics, international relations of Asia, Asian dynamics and Asian studies.

Download or read book Religious Entanglements Between Germans and Indians 1800 1945 written by Isabella Schwaderer and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2024-02-09 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion as a form of cultural expression constitutes a critical element in the relationship between Germany and India. The discovery of Indian traditions in Germany and re-interpretations of those traditions in India fueled not only new theological and philosophical explorations, but also extensive innovations in the fields of music, dance, bodily experience, and political intervention. Seeking to uncover the enfolding of colonial thought structures through presentations of the Self, while placing them in the context of global colonial value chains that connected the peripheries with the centre, this interdisciplinary volume addresses India through the lens of an entangled relationship. Adopting the position that the acceleration of communication, technical development, and colonisation locally triggered re-interpretations of the religious sphere, This volume takes a look at the period from 1800 to the end of National Socialism, tracing the strands of an Indo-Germanic religion in the making as it goes along. A special emphasis is placed on the artistic expressions of religious experience including re-enactments of musical compositions and dance configurations, which were created to embody India in Germany. This is an open access book.

Download or read book Routledge Readings on Colonial to Contemporary Northeastern India written by Sumi Krishna and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-06-16 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Routledge Readings on Northeastern India: Colonial Encounters, Customary Practices, Gender, Livelihoods presents some of the finest essays on a region that stretches across the Northeastern Himalaya, eight Indian States and many tribal and non-tribal peoples. With a lucid new Introduction, it covers a vast range of issues and offers a compelling guide to understanding the northeastern India, from colonial and missionary encounter to contemporary security and developmental issues in South Asia. The book covers several critical themes and unravels the complexities fraught by the unique biogeography and socio-political history of the region. The fifteen chapters in the volume, divided into three sections, examine gender, community: customary law and practices, land, agriculture, livelihoods, work, health, and education. This multi-disciplinary volume interweaves geography and history, culture and politics; the contested construction of identities, communities and nationalities; the political interplay of ethnicities and resource appropriation in a modernizing, globalizing economy; conflicts and violence in highly-militarized spaces. It includes engaged and insightful perspectives from major authors who have contributed to the academic and/or policy discourse of the subject. Routledge Readings on Northeastern India brings together a cluster of key readings to capture important research directions, policy suggestions, current trends, and aspects of history and future trajectories in the humanities and social sciences. It will serve as essential reading for students, scholars, policymakers, practitioners and the general reader interested in a nuanced understanding of India’s northeastern region, and especially those in South Asian studies, Northeast India studies, area studies, history, politics and international relations, labour studies, conflict and peace studies, gender studies, sociology and social anthropology. It will also appeal to those interested in public administration, development studies, environmental studies, law and human rights, regional literature, cultural studies, population studies, geography, and economics.

Download or read book Routledge Companion to Creativity and the Built Environment written by Julie T. Miao and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-03-29 with total page 611 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book crtitically examines the reciprocal relationship between creativity and the built environment and features leading voices from across the world in a debate on originating, learning, modifying, and plagiarizing creativities within the built environment. The Companion includes contributions from architecture, design, planning, construction, real estate, economics, urban studies, geography, sociology, and public policies. Contributors review the current field and proposes new conceptual frameworks, research methodologies, and directions for research, policy, and practice. Chapters are organised into five sections, each drawing on cross-disciplinary insights and debates: Section I connects creativity, productivity, and economic growth and examines how our built environment stimulates or intimidates human imaginations. Section II addresses how hard environments are fabricated with social, cultural, and institutional meanings, and how these evolve in different times and settings. Section III discusses activities that directly and indirectly shape the material development of a built environment, its environmental sustainability, space utility, and place identity. Section IV illustrates how technologies and innovations are used in building and strengthening an intelligent, real-time, responsive urban agenda. Section V examines governance opportunities and challenges at the interface between creativity and built environment. An important resource for scholars and students in the fields of urban planning and development, urban studies, environmental sustainability, human geography, sociology, and public policy.

Download or read book In the Name of the Goddess written by Tapati Guha-Thakurta and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each year, Kolkata's Durga Puja scales new heights as the most spectacular and extravagant event in the city's calendar. From the turn of the twenty-first century, the festival has taken on a particular artistic dispensation that is unique to the contemporary city, demanding a new order of attention and analysis. Based on field-research conducted between 2002 and 2012, this book unravels the anatomy of this newly-congured 'art' event, by tracking the new production processes, the mounting trends of publicity and sponsorship as well as the practices of mass spectatorship that make for the transformed visual culture of the festival. This new visual aesthetic, it is argued, has become the most important marker of the rapidly mutating identity of today's Durga Puja in Kolkata, bringing into the fray new categories of artists and designers, new genres of public art, and new spaces for art production and reception in the city. The book's central concern lies in conceptualizing a specically contemporary and artistic history of the urban festival. In keeping with its title, the book examines the diversity of images and practices - from the consumerist spectacle and the bonanza of awards to the efflorescence of public installations and art and craft productions - that unfurls in this season 'in the name of the goddess'. While proling the Durga Pujas as Kolkata's biggest public art event, the book also addresses the ambivalence of the designations of 'art' and 'artist' in this eld of production and viewership. One of the main aims of this study has been to lay open the claims of 'art' in this festival both as a set of insistent projections as well as a mesh of incomplete formations. The new artistic nomenclature of the festival, it is shown, is not easily secured and has to struggle to assert itself within the body of the religious event and the ephemeral mass spectacle.

Download or read book Religion and the City in India written by Supriya Chaudhuri and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-08-19 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers fresh theoretical, methodological and empirical analyses of the relation between religion and the city in the South Asian context. Uniting the historical with the contemporary by looking at the medieval and early modern links between religious faith and urban settlement, the book brings together a series of focused studies of the mixed and multiple practices and spatial negotiations of religion in the South Asian city. It looks at the various ways in which contemporary religious practice affects urban everyday life, commerce, craft, infrastructure, cultural forms, art, music and architecture. Chapters draw upon original empirical study and research to analyze the foundational, structural, material and cultural connections between religious practice and urban formations or flows. The book argues that Indian cities are not ‘postsecular’ in the sense that the term is currently used in the modern West, but that there has been, rather, a deep, even foundational link between religion and urbanism, producing different versions of urban modernity. Questions of caste, gender, community, intersectional entanglements, physical proximity, private or public ritual, processions and prayer, economic and political factors, material objects, and changes in the built environment, are all taken into consideration, and the book offers an interdisciplinary analysis of different historical periods, different cities, and different types of religious practice. Filling a gap in the literature by discussing a diversity of settings and faiths, the book will be of interest to scholars to South Asian history, sociology, literary analysis, urban studies and cultural studies.

Download or read book Image makers of Kumortuli and the Durga Puja Festival written by Krishna Dutta and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The potter community of Kolkata, the kumors as they are colloquially known, are more than what the name suggests they are artists. Tangible images of deities that form the crux of Hindu worship, find shape in the hands of these artisans, who, with sheer dedication to the craft, have kept the tradition alive for generations. It is a fascinating experience to observe how clay, straw, bamboo and other ingredients bit by bit transforms into tactile human forms which are then infused with divinity through different rituals. Durga Puja, on the other hand, is not only the major religious festival of Bengal but has also evolved into a cultural extravaganza. From the point of view of sheer vastness and magnitude of organizational mobilization, it is comparable only to the global impact of Christmas. Through vivid photographs and absorbing text, the book captures Kolkata's spirit of artistic creativity and spiritual ecstasy, embodied in these ephemeral constructs of clay, straw and bamboo. It also sensitively documents Bengal's unique and most enduring cultural heritage of image worship. Contents: Introduction; Kumortuli; The Kumors; The Process of Idol-making; Chalchitra, Sholapith and the Changes; The Origin and the History of Durga Puja in Kolkata; Durga Puja; The Pandals; Stories of Durga, Parvati and Uma; The Myth of the Churning of the Ocean Some Aspects of Hindu Worship; The British Museum Durga Puja.

Download or read book Mother Goddess Durga written by Pranab Bandyopadhyay and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the various forms of Durgā, Hindu deity.

Download or read book Durga Puja written by Sudeshna Banerjee and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book is an introduction to Durga Puja, the grandest festival ineastern India, a celebration that provides a glimpse into the richcultural heritage of Bengal. It is also a ready reckoner of all aspectsof the Puja-its mythical origins, its socio-cultural evolution, itseconomic ramifications and its elaborate rituals. Spiced up withanecdotes and trivia collected from journals and newspapers from the19th century to the present day, it is a compendiumof knowledge associated with the worship of theMother Goddess, one of the oldest surviving Hindutraditions.

Download or read book Ritual Worship of the Great Goddess written by Hillary Rodrigues and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During a nine-day period every autumn, Hindus in India and throughout the world worship the Great Goddess, Durgā--the formidable deity who is loved like a mother. One of the most dramatic and popular of these celebrations is the Durgā Pūjā, a rite noted for its visual pageantry, ritual complexity, and communal participation. In this book, Hillary Peter Rodrigues describes the Bengali style of Durgā Pūjā practiced in the sacred city of Banaras from beginning to end. A romanization of the Sanskrit litany is included along with an English translation. In addition to the liturgical description, Rodrigues provides information on the rite's component elements and mythic aspects. There are interpretive sections on puja, the Great Goddess, women's roles in the ritual, and the socio-cultural functions of the ritual. Rodrigues maintains that the Durgā Pūjā is a rite of cosmic rejuvenation, of empowerment at both the personal and social levels, and a rite that orchestrates manifestations of the feminine, both Divine and human.

Download or read book New Age Purohit Darpan Kali Puja written by Kanai Mukherjee and published by Association of Grandparents of Indian Immigrants. This book was released on with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is compiled with the goal of explaining the hidden history, significance, and meaning of the mantras used in common Hindu puja rituals performed by the Bengalis to the Bengali immigrants.

Download or read book Urban Infrastructuring written by Deljana Iossifova and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-04-18 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about urban infrastructuring as the processes linking infrastructural configurations and their components with other social, ecological, political, or otherwise defined systems as part of urbanisation and globalisation in the Global South. It suggests that infrastructuring is essential to urbanisation and that it is entangled with socio-spatio-ecological transformations that often have negative outcomes over time. Furthermore, it argues that infrastructuring requires an ethical positioning in research and practice in order to enhance infrastructural sustainability in the face of intersecting environmental, social and economic crises. “Urban Infrastructuring” is developed in three parts. First, it identifies infrastructural entanglements across various urban and urbanising settings in the Global South. Second, it highlights some of the damaging processes and outcomes of urban infrastructuring and argues that the absence, presence and transformation of infrastructure in the Global South (re-)produces socioecological injustice in the short- and long term. Third, the book argues for a shift of infrastructuring agendas towards more just and sustainable interventions. It suggests that an ethico-politics of care should be embedded in systems approaches to infrastructuring in both research and practice. The edited volume contains contributions from authors with backgrounds in a variety of academic disciplines from the natural and social sciences, engineering and the humanities. It provides valuable insights for anyone concerned with the study, design, planning, implementation and maintenance of urban infrastructures to enhance human well-being and sustainability. It will be of interest to researchers and urban decision-makers alike.

Download or read book Witnesses to History written by Lyndel V. Prott and published by UNESCO. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Compendium gives an outline of the historical, philosophical and ethical aspects of the return of cultural objects (e.g. cultural objects displaced during war or in colonial contexts), cites past and present cases (Maya Temple Facade, Nigerian Bronzes, United States of America v. Schultz, Parthenon Marbles and many more) and analyses legal issues (bona fide, relevant UNESCO and UNIDROIT Conventions, Supreme Court Decisions, procedure for requests etc.). It is a landmark publication that bears testament to the ways in which peoples have lost their entire cultural heritage and analyses the issue of its return and restitution by providing a wide range of perspectives on this subject. Essential reading for students, specialists, scholars and decision-makers as well as those interested in these topics.

Download or read book Place Event Marketing in the Asia Pacific Region written by Waldemar Cudny and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-08-19 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the fascinating phenomenon of place event marketing in the Asia Pacific region. It examines procedures in the promotion and branding of places that use events to shape their identities. It considers how events are used in forming a branded image of a place and disseminate information about it. This innovative book offers theoretical insights of the opportunities and challenges related to place event marketing. With contributions from leading thinkers in the field, chapters also draw on empirical examples to showcase a variety of events across the Asia Pacific, such as MICE, sporting events, festivals, and religious and cultural celebrations. The book explores the importance of such events for the socio-economic development of urban regions. Today, the Asia Pacific is one of the world's fastest developing regions and its rising economic power is accompanied by the growing importance of the tourism and event sector. The book is a unique study relating to a very exceptional region of the world. The role of events in tourism development and the rise of the region’s soft power is presented through carefully selected examples of cities from different countries. The book concludes with commentary on the future directions for research in this area. Written in an accessible style, this book will be of great interest to students, scholars, and practitioners working in events studies, urban studies, tourism, place branding and promotion, business and management studies, geography, sociology, and sport and leisure studies.