Divine Sounds from the Heart—Singing Unfettered in their Own Voices

Divine Sounds from the Heart—Singing Unfettered in their Own Voices
Author :
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages : 265
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781443825252
ISBN-13 : 1443825255
Rating : 4/5 (52 Downloads)

Synopsis Divine Sounds from the Heart—Singing Unfettered in their Own Voices by : Rekha Pande

Recent years have seen a sea change in the way history is written and also in the way our conceptions of the past are being rewritten. In traditional historiography, women’s articulation is often marginalized and dominated by male voices. Through centuries of patriarchal control, women negotiated many layers and levels of existence working out different forms of resistance which have often gone unnoticed. Bhakti was one such medium. Religion provided the space in the medieval period and women saints embraced bhakti to define their own truths in voices that question society, family and relationships. For all these women bhaktas, the rejection of the male power that they were tied to in subordinate relationship became the terrain for struggle, self assertion and alternative seeking. Most of these women lived during the period from 12th to 17th Century. While the dominant mode of worship in bhakti was prostration to a deity like a feudal lord, the women bhaktas’ idea of God as a lover, a husband and a friend came as a breath of fresh air. The individual outpourings and the voices of these women, who had the courage to sing unfettered in their own voices, refused to melt in the din of the feudal scene which was largely patriarchal. This book will be useful to scholars interested in Feminist History, Comparative Religion and Asian Studies. The sensitive and rigorous research will be of great help to young scholars interested in embarking on a journey to discover religious history, especially with regards to women’s history in the South Asian context.

Gender In 21st Century: Multidisciplinary Reflections On Struggles And Progress

Gender In 21st Century: Multidisciplinary Reflections On Struggles And Progress
Author :
Publisher : OrangeBooks Publication
Total Pages : 114
Release :
ISBN-10 :
ISBN-13 :
Rating : 4/5 ( Downloads)

Synopsis Gender In 21st Century: Multidisciplinary Reflections On Struggles And Progress by : Dhanya Mohanan

Women, queer and trans-spectrum throughout the world are still economically, politically and socially marginalized. This books seeks to understand gender in the 21st century. It explains in depth the background of gender according to different traditional perspective roles, challenges faced by gender and an understanding of Gender in the current generation of 21st Century. This book makes essential reading for all those interested in the intersections of class, education, social work in the 21st century. Students and researchers of sociology, women studies and education will find this book invaluable.

A Storm of Songs

A Storm of Songs
Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Total Pages : 457
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780674425286
ISBN-13 : 0674425286
Rating : 4/5 (86 Downloads)

Synopsis A Storm of Songs by : John Stratton Hawley

India celebrates itself as a nation of unity in diversity, but where does that sense of unity come from? One important source is a widely-accepted narrative called the “bhakti movement.” Bhakti is the religion of the heart, of song, of common participation, of inner peace, of anguished protest. The idea known as the bhakti movement asserts that between 600 and 1600 CE, poet-saints sang bhakti from India’s southernmost tip to its northern Himalayan heights, laying the religious bedrock upon which the modern state of India would be built. Challenging this canonical narrative, John Stratton Hawley clarifies the historical and political contingencies that gave birth to the concept of the bhakti movement. Starting with the Mughals and their Kachvaha allies, North Indian groups looked to the Hindu South as a resource that would give religious and linguistic depth to their own collective history. Only in the early twentieth century did the idea of a bhakti “movement” crystallize—in the intellectual circle surrounding Rabindranath Tagore in Bengal. Interactions between Hindus and Muslims, between the sexes, between proud regional cultures, and between upper castes and Dalits are crucially embedded in the narrative, making it a powerful political resource. A Storm of Songs ponders the destiny of the idea of the bhakti movement in a globalizing India. If bhakti is the beating heart of India, this is the story of how it was implanted there—and whether it can survive.

The Intersubjective Turn

The Intersubjective Turn
Author :
Publisher : SUNY Press
Total Pages : 302
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781438467672
ISBN-13 : 1438467672
Rating : 4/5 (72 Downloads)

Synopsis The Intersubjective Turn by : Olen Gunnlaugson

Examines key theoretical aspects of the emerging field of second-person contemplative education. A first of its kind, this book maps out current academic approaches in higher education to second-person contemplative education, which addresses contemplative experience from an intersubjective perspective. Until recently, contemplative studies has emphasized a predominantly first-person standpoint, but the expansion and embrace of second-person methods provides a distinctive learning context in which collective wisdom and shared learning can begin to emerge from dialogue among students and groups in the classroom. The contributors to this volume, leading researchers and practitioners from a variety of institutions and departments, examine the theoretical and philosophical foundations of second-person contemplative approaches to instruction, pedagogy, and curricula across various scholarly disciplines.

A Journey into Women's Studies

A Journey into Women's Studies
Author :
Publisher : Springer
Total Pages : 509
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781137395740
ISBN-13 : 1137395745
Rating : 4/5 (40 Downloads)

Synopsis A Journey into Women's Studies by : R. Pande

The present book is a journey of many women across the world who have struggled to give women's studies visibility. Drawing upon the contributors' diverse experiences and concerns, it explores the metamorphosis of women's studies from the early days to date.

Śiva's Saints

Śiva's Saints
Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Total Pages : 297
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780190878849
ISBN-13 : 0190878843
Rating : 4/5 (49 Downloads)

Synopsis Śiva's Saints by : Gil Ben-Herut

In Siva's Saints, Gil Ben-Herut challenges common notions about the Virasaiva tradition in its nascent phases. By closely reading the saints' stories in this text, Siva's Saints takes a more nuanced historical view than commonly-held notions about the egalitarian and iconoclastic nature of the early tradition, arguing instead that early bhakti (devotionalism) in the Kannada-speaking region was less-radical and more accommodating toward traditional religious, social, and political institutions than thought of today.

Casteless India

Casteless India
Author :
Publisher : Notion Press
Total Pages : 216
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781639047383
ISBN-13 : 1639047387
Rating : 4/5 (83 Downloads)

Synopsis Casteless India by : Wazir Singh Poonia

Casteless India is an idea dreamt by the framers of our constitution. As far-fetched a dream, it may seem, the necessity of making caste an irrelevant denominator in the social, economic and political life of India cannot be overstated. Despite a number of reforms initiated by successive governments nationally and across states, the overall efforts seem half-hearted, rudderless and often working at cross-purposes with one another. This book is an effort to find the basis of the caste system, tracing it from its origin and dissecting its various facets so as to chart out a practical approach to uproot this social vice from our society. The objective of the book is to give a feasible solution, understanding the ground realities of the issue, based on a broad consensus that may be favourably acceptable to all sections of the society in order to build a truly egalitarian society.

Literary and Cultural Readings of Goddess Spirituality

Literary and Cultural Readings of Goddess Spirituality
Author :
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages : 195
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781443855532
ISBN-13 : 1443855537
Rating : 4/5 (32 Downloads)

Synopsis Literary and Cultural Readings of Goddess Spirituality by : Anway Mukhopadhyay

This volume explores the potentials of Goddess spirituality in the field of cultural critique, and strings together innovative readings of already existing literary texts and cultural phenomena from the critical perspective of Goddess spirituality. The chapters explore a colourful array of texts and authors, and focus on issues as diverse as the persistence of the figure of the Magna Mater in the life, writing and thought of Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo, the inability of Advaita Vedanta to come out of the shadow of the Great Mother, the possibility of pluralizing the Eurocentric notion of the Muse by invoking the figure of Goddess Sarasvati in the field of English Studies, and a reappraisal of Kipling’s Kim from the perspective of the philosophical and spiritual discourses of Prajnaparamita, the Buddhist Goddess of Perfect Wisdom. The book also offers a comparative study of Minoan Goddess Spirituality and tantric philosophy with reference to Aphrodite, Diotima and the Indian Mother Goddesses, the possibility of simultaneously tantricizing notions of modernity and modernizing tantra itself with reference to the works of Lata Mani and William Schindler, and an investigation of the Mother-centric spiritual sensibilities in various religious discourses and devotional literatures, among other discussions. In short, this book investigates the possibilities of inserting the figure of the Great Mother into the critical domain of cultural pluralism, thereby celebrating a multiculturalism that is not based on violence and conflict (antagonism) but grounded in harmony. The Mother is seen by the discourse articulated here mainly as a middle ground between flesh and spirit, knowledge and passion, justice and compassion – and, in the red shadow of the Mother, social epistemologies and academic discourses are radically renegotiated.

Challenges of Understanding History

Challenges of Understanding History
Author :
Publisher : Prabhat Prakashan
Total Pages : 113
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9789395386395
ISBN-13 : 9395386398
Rating : 4/5 (95 Downloads)

Synopsis Challenges of Understanding History by : Prof. Umesh Ashok Kadam

The history of India, so far, has not focused on a civilizational Bharatiya perspective, emphasizing a geo-political history based on the Nation-state paradigm, rather than a geo-cultural practice based on India’s civilizational antiquity. Until recently, history had been viewed from various ideological lenses- Colonial, Nationalist, Marxist, Subaltern, soon and so forth. These schools have been immensely successful not only in tapping the immense range of sources and exploring the various regions and sub-regions across the subcontinent, but have also contributed towards bringing to light important perspectives concerning the political, economic, social and cultural developments in the history of India from the 8th to the 14th centuries. While tapping into these schools has its obvious advantages, in that they have focused on partial aspects of the grand march of the civilization’s history, a lot still needs to be done.