The first major exploration of the mural tradition in early modern South India An astonishing variety of murals greet visitors to the temples and palaces of southern India. Beautiful in execution and extensive in scope, murals painted on walls and ceilings adorn the most important spaces of early modern religious and political performance. Scene by scene, histories of holy sites, portraits that incorporate historical figures into mythic landscapes, and Tamil and Telugu inscriptions that evoke the imagined topographies of devotional poetry unfold before the mobile spectator. Body, History, Myth reconceives the relationship between art and devotion in South India by describing how the extraordinary sensory experience of a viewing body in motion unfurls a sacred narrative exquisitely designed to teach, impress, and inspire. Anna Lise Seastrand offers new insights into the arts of early modern southern India, bringing to life one of the most culturally vibrant yet least understood periods in Indian art. She shows how temple visitors become active participants in the paintings through their somatic engagement with visual stories and devotional landscapes. Seastrand highlights the significance of textuality in early modern South Asia by examining the status of professional scribes and the prominence given to authorship of religious literature and art. Her insights are presented alongside new translations of the texts that accompany mural paintings. Featuring a wealth of stunning images published here for the first time, Body, History, Myth provides a multidimensional reading of temple art that fundamentally reframes the artistic, intellectual, religious, and political histories of early modern India.

"A young teacher living in a fictional Indian city becomes romantically involved with a sick woman and her husband"--

Have you ever had an ache or pain, and wished your body could talk to you and tell you what was wrong? You're not alone! Master storyteller Nancy Mellon, author of Body Eloquence, has guided scores of people through the process of giving their bodies a voice. Drawing from mythology, medicine, biology and energetic healing, she finds the essential stories that characterize each organ of the human body, and trains us how to use these resources to identify the messages that our organs are communicating to us. The heart, for instance, is not just a durable pump, sending oxygenated blood to every cell. It's also a representation of goodwill; a heart-to-heart connection, or an open-hearted friend, are universal stories we can all identify. But a hard-hearted person is one we all avoid. These archetypes are found in mythologies from Native American traditions to Scandinavian tribes to Greek history, and are woven together in a fascinating matrix in Body Eloquence, showing how our organs are part of our psyche, our history, and our collective mythology.

The body in dreams, myths, legends, and anecdotes of the fantastic as expressions of human corporeality. In The Body Fantastic, Frank Gonzalez-Crussi looks at the human body through the lens of dreams, myths, legends, and anecdotes of the bizarre, exploring the close connection of the fictitious and the fabulous to our conception of the body. He chronicles, among other curious cases, the man who ate everything (including boiled hedgehogs and mice on toast), the therapeutic powers of saliva, hair that burst into flames, and an "amphibian man" who lived under water. Drawing on clinical records, popular lore, and art, history, and literature, Gonzalez-Crussi considers the body in both real and imaginary dimensions. Myths and stories, Gonzalez-Crussi reminds us, are the symbolic expression of our aspirations and emotions. These fantastic tales of bodies come from the deepest regions of the human psyche. Ancient Greeks, for example, believed that the uterus wandered around inside a woman's body--an "animal within an animal." If a woman sniffed an unpleasant odor, the uterus would retreat. Organized "digestive excess" began with the eating and drinking contests of antiquity and continue through the hot-dog eating competitions of today. And the "libido-podalic association," connecting male sexuality and the foot, insinuated itself into mainstream medicine in the sixteenth century; meanwhile, the feet of women in some cultures were scrupulously kept from view. Gonzalez-Crussi shows that the many imaginary representations of the body are very much a part of our corporeality.

World myth deciphered and organized into a coherent story of our past. It is almost impossible to read world mythology without noticing common threads and patterns that seem to paint a bigger picture. A story told by our ancient ancestors for future generations to remember and learn. What if the eyewitnesses to past events were taken seriously? What if we listen to their stories with unbiased ears, free of assumptions? What if their stories were backed up by scientific discoveries? What if the myths can explain the mysteries?

The religion of the Goddess is emerging from the shadows of the past. This work explores the ancient world of the matriarchy and the re-emergence of Goddess worship in modern women's lives. Drawing on the works of many scholars, scientists and artists, it brings together history, archaeology, mythology and the author's own experiences, and relates how the Goddess was overwhelmed by the patriarchy of Christianity.

The bestselling classic that redefined our view of the relationship between beauty and female identity. In today's world, women have more power, legal recognition, and professional success than ever before. Alongside the evident progress of the women's movement, however, writer and journalist Naomi Wolf is troubled by a different kind of social control, which, she argues, may prove just as restrictive as the traditional image of homemaker and wife. It's the beauty myth, an obsession with physical perfection that traps the modern woman in an endless spiral of hope, self-consciousness, and self-hatred as she tries to fulfill society's impossible definition of "the flawless beauty."

A trailblazing, conversation-starting history of women’s health—from the earliest medical ideas about women’s illnesses to hormones and autoimmune diseases—brought together in a fascinating sweeping narrative. Elinor Cleghorn became an unwell woman ten years ago. She was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease after a long period of being told her symptoms were anything from psychosomatic to a possible pregnancy. As Elinor learned to live with her unpredictable disease she turned to history for answers, and found an enraging legacy of suffering, mystification, and misdiagnosis. In Unwell Women, Elinor Cleghorn traces the almost unbelievable history of how medicine has failed women by treating their bodies as alien and other, often to perilous effect. The result is an authoritative and groundbreaking exploration of the relationship between women and medical practice, from the "wandering womb" of Ancient Greece to the rise of witch trials across Europe, and from the dawn of hysteria as a catchall for difficult-to-diagnose disorders to the first forays into autoimmunity and the shifting understanding of hormones, menstruation, menopause, and conditions like endometriosis. Packed with character studies and case histories of women who have suffered, challenged, and rewritten medical orthodoxy—and the men who controlled their fate—this is a revolutionary examination of the relationship between women, illness, and medicine. With these case histories, Elinor pays homage to the women who suffered so strides could be made, and shows how being unwell has become normalized in society and culture, where women have long been distrusted as reliable narrators of their own bodies and pain. But the time for real change is long overdue: answers reside in the body, in the testimonies of unwell women—and their lives depend on medicine learning to listen.

Clinical psychologist Margo Maine has been successfully helping adult women overcome eating disorders and body image problems for over twenty years. In The Body Myth, she explains the toll these problems can take on women’s lives and provides healing insights and proven techniques for reclaiming readers’ lives from the debilitating belief that a woman’s self-worth and her worth to others are derived from how she looks, how much she weighs, and what she eats–the Body Myth. Using poignant real-life stories, Dr. Maine explores the complex emotional, social, and cultural forces that perpetuate the Body Myth. A unique and invaluable source of information and inspiration, this breakthrough guide equips readers with the knowledge and tools to escape the clutches of the Body Myth and live a more balanced, fulfilling life.