Folklore Studies in India: Critical Regional Responses is an interesting compilation of twenty-eight critical articles on the beginning of folklore studies in the different parts of India. In the absence of a book that could map the history of Indian folklore studies single-handedly, this book can be deemed as the first-of-its-kind to feature the historical development of folklore studies in the different states of India. This book succinctly introduces the readers to the folk culture, folk arts, and folk genres of a particular region and to the different aspects of folkloristic researches carried out in that region.

List of members.

Can a subject be sovereign in a hegemony? Can creativity be reined in by forces of empire? Studying closely the oral narrations and writings of four Indian authors in colonial India, The Audacious Raconteur argues that even the most hegemonic circumstances cannot suppress "audacious raconteurs": skilled storytellers who fashion narrative spaces that allow themselves to remain sovereign and beyond subjugation. By drawing attention to the vigorous orality, maverick use of photography, literary ventriloquism, and bilingualism in the narratives of these raconteurs, Leela Prasad shows how the ideological bulwark of colonialism—formed by concepts of colonial modernity, history, science, and native knowledge—is dismantled. Audacious raconteurs wrest back meanings of religion, culture, and history that are closer to their lived understandings. The figure of the audacious raconteur does not only hover in an archive but suffuses everyday life. Underlying these ideas, Prasad's personal interactions with the narrators' descendants give weight to her innovative argument that the audacious raconteur is a necessary ethical and artistic figure in human experience. Thanks to generous funding from Duke University, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.

Fantasy Fictions from the Bengal Renaissance presents two masterpieces of Bengali literature by Rabindranath Tagore’s nephews, Abanindranath Tagore and Gaganendranath Tagore. The Make-Believe Prince is the delightful story of a king, his two wives, a trickster monkey, a witch, and a helper from another world who is not a ‘fairy godmother’. Abanindranath deploys traditional children’s rhymes and paints exquisite word-pictures in his original rendering of a tale which has its roots in Bengali folktale materials in various genres. Toddy-Cat the Bold sees a group of brave comrades seek help from a young boy to rescue the son of their leader from the Two-Faced Rakshasa of the forest. Here, a more numinous supernatural helper appears. Inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, it presents a comic, exciting, and mysterious journey quite unlike Carroll’s, with many traditional local touches and an unexpected ending.

With 600 signed, alphabetically organized articles covering the entirety of folklore in South Asia, this new resource includes countries and regions, ethnic groups, religious concepts and practices, artistic genres, holidays and traditions, and many other concepts. A preface introduces the material, while a comprehensive index, cross-references, and black and white illustrations round out the work. The focus on south Asia includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, with short survey articles on Tibet, Bhutan, Sikkim, and various diaspora communities. This unique reference will be invaluable for collections serving students, scholars, and the general public.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1890 Edition.

Lexicon of Tamil Literature is a reference-dictionary of Tamil literature of South India from its early beginnings more than 2000 years ago until the present time (ca. 1980). It includes in the order of Roman alphabet names and short biographies of authors, lists of their works, anonymous literary works and most important matters of Tamil prosody, rhetoric and poetics. Whenever available, bibliographic data are given with individual entries in selection. Brief contents and evaluative statements are given with literary works of greater importance, whether ancient or modern. An introduction is included. The work is the first of its kind in a non-Indian language. It is an indispensable source of data and work of reference for Tamil literature in particular, and for the totality of Indic literatures in general.