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The Clash of Chronologies: Ancient India in the Modern World
Thomas R. Trautmann |
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 The
Clash of Chronologies shows the crucial value of the ancient
period of Indian history for understanding India's deep
history, through studies of theories of time and history,
patterns of kinship and marriage, relations of languages and
nations, legacies of Orientalists and Orientalism.
Thomas R. Trautmann is Professor of History and
Anthropology at the University of Michigan, USA.
Extent: c.400pp.
Price: c. Rs 850
Binding: Hardback
Size: Demy Octavo
ISBN: 978-81-906186-5-6
Forthcoming in 2009
Series: New Perspectives on Indian Pasts
Rights: Available |
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Gay Writers in Search of the Divine
Hinduism And Homosexuality In The
Lives And Writings Of Edward Carpenter, E M Forster And
Christopher Isherwood
Antony Copley |
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 This
unusual yet engrossing volume is an exploration of how three
English writers - Edward Carpenter, E. M. Forster and
Christopher Isherwood - who shared a similar sexuality,
sought in Hindu spirituality one way of achieving personal
autonomy and fulfillment. Tackling the themes of the
guru-disciple relationship, their quarrel with Christianity,
relationships with their mothers and the problematic
feminine, the tensions between sexuality and the attraction
of Hindu mysticism, this fascinating work follows the three
writers on their intriguing personal quest.
ISBN: 978-81-906668-2-4
Extent: c.336pp.
Price: c.Rs350
Binding: Paperback
Size: Royal
For sale only in South Asia |
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Wish You Were Here : Memories of a Gay Life
Sunil Gupta |
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 Sunil
Gupta stands at the forefront of that creative ‘migrant’
generation which first exploded on the visual art scene in
the 1980s. Pictures from Here and There is a memoir
in photos by this important photographer of Indian origin
for whom home is where he finds himself at a given moment.
In this thought-provoking work, the personal becomes
political without guile or inhibition as the photographer
explores contentious terrain such as sexuality, gender and
racism. His courageous engagement with the issues which have
shaped his experience and practice has given decisive shape
to the contemporary debate about difference.
Extent: 120pp.; all four colour
Size: 8.75”x 6.75”
Binding: Hardback
Price: c. Rs 995
ISBN 978-81-90666-0-0 |
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Muslim Portraits Everyday Lives in India
Mukulika Banerjee (ed.) |
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These
vivid and compelling portraits reveal the lives of eleven
ordinary Indians utterly different in class, occupation,
language, and regional identity yet sharing the same hopes,
fears, and life-challenges common to us all. The volume
challenges the crude, monolithic stereotypes of Islam so
often heard today. It is a timely and much-needed
contribution.
Richard M. Eaton, Professor of History at University of
Arizona, Tucsona.
In this captivating new volume, 13 anthropologists present a
set of vivid portraits of Muslims in India today. Each of
the contributors has had a long-term research interest in
Muslim societies in India, but in these essays they profile
one single individual whom they have met in the course of
their research and whose story they found compelling. The
subjects of this volume live in different parts of India,
like Bhuj, the mountains of Kashmir, Hyderabad, Androth
Island, and Lucknow, they speak different languages, eat
different foods, are engaged in various kinds of work, but
are all Muslim. Zooming in on individuals who have normally
stood cheek-by-jowl with hundreds of others in a large
canvas, these portraits focus attention on them in a
separate frame, revealing their stories, predicaments, and
realities, the aspirations they nurture and the impediments
they overcome to attempt to achieve these. In doing so, they
highlight the sheer diversity which lies hidden under the
seemingly homogeneous category of the Indian Muslim, and
shatter stereotypes. Intimately told and stripped of jargon,
yet nuanced and incisive, this is a valuable addition to the
corpus of books on the Muslim community in contemporary
India.
Mukulika Banerjee is Reader in Social Anthropology,
University College London. She is the author of The Pathan
Unarmed (2000) and The Sari (2003; co-authored with Daniel
Miller).
Extent: 164pp.
Size: Demy Octavo
Binding: Paperback
Price: Rs 250
ISBN 978-81-906186-2-5
World Rights (except South Asia) sold |
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Ecriture Indienne D’Expression
Francaise
Vijaya Rao |
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 This
anthology of Indian Writing in French, brings together texts
from Pondicherry, Karaikal and Mahe, the erstwhile French
territories in India. It also includes writings from Goa, a
former Portuguese colony, where French was widely used in
literary circles. Some of the writers whose texts appear in
the anthology are Toru Dutt, Sri Aurobindo, M. Mukundan,
Paulino Dias, Léon Saint Jean and so on.
Vijaya Rao is Associate Professor at the Centre for
French & Francophone Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University,
New Delhi, where she teaches French and Francophone
literature.
Extent: c.200pp.
Price: c.Rs225
Binding: Paperback
Size: Demy Octavo
For sale only in South Asia
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'The Classic Popular: Amar Chitra Katha,
1967-2007
Nandini Chandra |
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 For
all those who grew up in seventies and eighties middle-class
India, Amar Chitra Katha, or ACK as it was popularly
referred to among friends, was an important influence if not
an iconic cultural artefact. Published at a time when ACK
appears to be on the verge of a second lease of life, this
compelling new book draws our attention to the stimulating
and troubling potentials of Amar Chitra Katha as a force in
modern Indian history. Based on a reading of visual
practices and the complicated art history informing the
comics, the book delves into core issues of communalism,
history writing and the ways in which middle-class India
negotiates the consumption of products of popular culture to
suit its ideological moorings.
During her research the author found that the creators of
ACK amalgamated both local art traditions as well as a
realist aesthetic borrowed from the calendar art-derivative
style of Ravi Varma to produce an evocative yet sober style,
appropriate for a largely middle-class, child audience. This
was supposedly distant from the “vulgar” Hindi film posters,
yet in practice it was completely immersed in the techniques
of larger-than-life hyper-representation characteristic of
the commercial Hindi film aesthetic. This technique
succeeded in furnishing the reader with a visual imaginary
of a mythological Hindu past that could at once blend into a
real historical continuum, stretching from the ancient past
to modern India, rendering myth historical and history
mythological.
A provocative and cleverly argued monograph, this book is a
must-read not only for scholars and students of modern
Indian history, contemporary culture and politics, but also
for everyone who grew up with, loved or hated Amar Chitra
Katha.
Nandini Chandra teaches English at Hansraj College,
New Delhi.
ISBN: 81-903634-3-3
Extent: 260pp. + 8pp. colour section
Size: Demy Octavo
Binding: Paperback
Price: Rs 395 |
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Swept off the Map: Surviving Eviction and
Resettlement in Delhi
Kalyani Menon Sen and Gautam Bhan |
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 In
January 2004, the Tourism Ministry of the Government of
India announced its plan of developing a 100-acre strip of
land on the banks of the river Yamuna into a riverside
promenade with parks and fountains which would be marketed
as major tourist attractions. At the time this plan was
unveiled, the riverbank and bed along this stretch was
occupied by the Yamuna Pushta ‘jhuggi-jhonpdi’ colony, a
string of settlements home to around 35,000 working class
families - more than 150,000 people – some of whom had lived
here for over three decades. In February and April 2004,
homes and community buildings along the banks of the Yamuna
were razed to the ground in several 24-hour long operations.
Having followed the events leading up to the so-called
‘voluntary’ demolitions which exploded into intense protests
and forceful and violent suppression by the authorities, the
authors of this present volume decided to expand the scope
of their research and undertake a comprehensive household
survey to map the situation on the ground in one of the
relocation sites, Bawana, with respect to the commitments
made in key policy documents. In carrying out the household
survey, they chose women as their primary interlocutors
since they are ideally situated to unravel and expose the
interconnections and synergy between patriarchy and other
systems of domination and inequality.
A critical exposé of a travesty in the name of urban
development, Swept off the Map raises uncomfortable
questions about the collective responsibility of authorities
and all citizens in ensuring that uprooted communities such
as the one from Pushta live with dignity in the face of the
repeated assaults on their identities, homes, rights and
lives.
ISBN: 978-81-906186-1-8
Extent: c. 200pp.
Size: Demy Octavo
Binding: Paperback
Price: c. Rs 250 |
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