Thai Literary Traditions

Thai Literary Traditions PDF Author: Manat Chitakasem
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Folk literature, Thai
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Fourteen papers on Thai literature presented at Fifth International Conference on Thai Studies held at School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, July 1993.

Thai Literary Traditions

Thai Literary Traditions PDF Author: Manat Chitakasem
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Folk literature, Thai
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Fourteen papers on Thai literature presented at Fifth International Conference on Thai Studies held at School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, July 1993.

Isan Writers, Thai Literature

Isan Writers, Thai Literature PDF Author: Martin B. Platt
Publisher: NUS Press
ISBN: 9971696975
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Regional characteristics and regional language feature prominently in discussions of Thai identity, but there is little mention of regional literatures. In northeastern Thailand's Isan region, authors write primarily in Thai, but it is possible nonetheless to identify an Isan literature, which played a significant and at times pivotal role in the development of Thai literature in the second half of the twentieth century, as authors grappled with how their origins and experiences related to the Thai centre. Martin Platt's account of Isan literature is an important first step toward a broader study of regional literatures in Thailand, and shapes a model that has relevance for examining literary works in other Asian countries.

Bangkok Wakes to Rain

Bangkok Wakes to Rain PDF Author: Pitchaya Sudbanthad
Publisher:
ISBN: 0525534768
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
"A house in the center of Bangkok becomes the point of confluence where lives are shaped by upheaval, memory, and the lure of home. Witness to two centuries' flux in one of the world's most restless cities, a house plays host to longings and losses past, present, and future. A nineteenth-century missionary doctor pines for the comforts of New England even as he finds the vibrant foreign chaos of Siam increasingly difficult to resist. A post-war society woman marries, mothers, and holds court, little suspecting the course of her future. A jazz pianist is summoned in the 1970s to conjure music that will pacify resident spirits, even as he's haunted by ghosts of his former life. Not long after, a young woman gives swimming lessons in the luxury condos that have eclipsed the old house, trying to outpace the long shadow of her political past. And in the post-submergence Bangkok of the future, a band of savvy teenagers guides tourists and former residents past waterlogged, ruined landmarks, selling them tissues to wipe their tears for places they themselves do not remember. Time collapses as these stories collide and converge, linked by blood, memory, yearning, chance, and the forces voraciously making and remaking the amphibian, ever-morphing city itself"--Provided by publisher.

Teardrops of Time

Teardrops of Time PDF Author: Arnika Fuhrmann
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 143848075X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Focusing on one of the most significant poets of the twentieth century, Angkarn Kallayanapong (1926–2012), this book makes a unique contribution to understandings of non-Western literary modernity. Arnika Fuhrmann investigates how the Thai poet adapts Buddhist understandings of time to create a modern Asian aesthetic imaginary. While Angkarn's poetry conjures the image of an early modern Thai cosmopolitanism, it also pioneers a poetics reflective of present-day globalization. The result is an experiment in Buddhist cosmopolitan aesthetic modernity. Teardrops of Time contextualizes the poet's work in the literary history and cultural politics of his time, tracing the transformation of a modern Thai cultural and political imaginary through the political history of the country's authoritarian governance since the late 1950s and the exigencies of an increasingly globalized economy since the 1980s. As Angkarn's work aligns itself with contemporaneous global trends in poetry, the book reads it alongside the work of Paul Celan and Allen Ginsberg.

Text to Tradition

Text to Tradition PDF Author: Deven M. Patel
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023116680X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Written in the twelfth century, the Naisadhiyacarita (The Adventures of Nala, King of Nisadha) is a seminal Sanskrit poem beloved by South Asian literary communities for nearly a millennium. This volume introduces readers to the poem’s author, his reading communities, the modes through which the poem has been read and used, the contexts through which it became canonical, its literary offspring, and the emotional power it still holds for the culture that values it. The study privileges the intellectual, affective, and social forms of cultural practice informing a region’s people and institutions. It treats literary texts as traditions in their own right and draws attention to the critical genres and actors involved in their reception.

A History of Manners and Civility in Thailand

A History of Manners and Civility in Thailand PDF Author: Patrick Jory
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108491243
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
An innovative new social history of Thailand told through the lens of changing ideals of manners, civility and behaviour.

Read till it shatters

Read till it shatters PDF Author: Thak Chaloemtiarana
Publisher: ANU Press
ISBN: 1760462276
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This book introduces readers to modern Thai literature through the themes of modernity, nationalism, identity and gender. In the cultural, political and social transformations that occurred in Thailand during the first half of the twentieth century, Thai literature was one of the vehicles that moved the changes. Taking seriously ‘read till it shatters’, a Thai phrase that instructs readers to take apart the text, to break it down, to deconstruct it, Thak Chaloemtiarana challenges the Thai literary canon from the margins and suggests ways of expanding and enriching it. Thai literature is scarce in translation and requires the skills of a scholar fluent in Thai to comprehend it. Thak is a political scientist turned literary scholar who is bilingual in Thai and English and an avid reader of Thai fiction by authors up and down the social scale. Here he offers lively insights into his favourite literary genres with fresh readings of early Thai novels, Sino-Thai biographies and memoirs of the rich and famous. ‘Thak Chaloemtiarana is an inquisitive man. Late in his career he switched from politics to literature. In these chapters, he draws on a lifetime of reading about writers and writing in Thailand over the past century. He nods towards the usual big names—King Vajiravudh, Luang Wichit, Kulap Saipradit, Kukrit Pramoj—but spends more time on those found in the lesser visited stacks of the libraries, the secondhand bookstalls, and the shelf by the supermarket checkout. His themes are familiar—Thailand and the West, Thai nationalism, the Thai-Chinese, and women under patriarchy—but the angles of vision are original. With a cast ranging from motor-racing princes through sexy Egyptian mummies and a feminist serial murderer to starlets touting breast-enhancement techniques, this book educates, enlightens, and entertains.’

Fighting Words

Fighting Words PDF Author: Michael Edward Brown
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262523332
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 502

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Book Description
A study of the impact of language policies on ethnic relations in fifteen Asian and Pacific countries.

Thai Stories for Language Learners

Thai Stories for Language Learners PDF Author: Jintana Rattanakhemakorn
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN: 146292302X
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 197

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Book Description
The most enjoyable way to learn about an unfamiliar culture is through its stories--especially when they're told in two languages! Thai Stories for Language Learners introduces 28 entertaining Thai stories with bilingual Thai and English versions presented on facing pages. The stories are adapted from traditional folktales with roots in the Thai oral tradition, classic Thai literature, and Thai versions of the Indian Jataka Tales--which describe the past lives of the Buddha. The stories in this book include: "The Frightened Rabbit" is a well-known story about rabbit who hears a loud thundering sound and concludes it is a landslide, without investigating further. He runs about telling others of the landslide, thus causing unnecessary panic. "A Horse-faced Woman" is one of the most popular folktales in Thailand because the heroine's appearance and character differ vastly from other Thai heroines. Her equine appearance, unpopularity with fellow villagers, and passionate desires to marry the handsome Prince Pin Thong collide. "A Myth of Phra Ruang" is a classic tale popular among Thai people. It tells the story of a legendary hero--Phra Ruang--who frees the people of Lavo (Lopburi) from the ancient Khmer rulers. When the Khmer king tries to kill him, Phra Ruang escapes and is ordained as a monk. And many more! Alongside each story, readers will find: A list of key vocabulary in the Thai script, Romanized form, and the English meanings A set of questions and writing activities A Thai pronunciation guide Online audio recording in order to improve pronunciation and comprehension. This book will be of interest to learners who are beginning to read and write the Thai language and would like additional practice, as well as to general readers interested in learning about Thai culture.

The Ambiguous Allure of the West

The Ambiguous Allure of the West PDF Author: Rachel V. Harrison
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501719211
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
The Ambiguous Allure of the West examines the impact of Western imperialism on Thai cultural development from the 1850s to the present and highlights the value of postcolonial analysis for studying the ambiguities, inventions, and accommodations with the West that continue to enrich Thai culture. Since the mid-nineteenth century, Thais have adopted and adapted aspects of Western culture and practice in an ongoing relationship that may be characterized as semicolonial. As they have done so, the notions of what constitutes "Thainess" have been inflected by Western influence in complex and ambiguous ways, producing nuanced, hybridized Thai identities.The Ambiguous Allure of the West brings together Thai and Western scholars of history, anthropology, film, and literary and cultural studies to analyze how the protean Thai self has been shaped by the traces of the colonial Western Other. Thus, the book draws the study of Siam/Thailand into the critical field of postcolonial theory, expanding the potential of Thai Studies to contribute to wider debates in the region and in the disciplines of cultural studies and critical theory. The chapters in this book present the first sustained dialogue between Thai cultural studies and postcolonial analysis.By clarifying the distinctive position of semicolonial societies such as Thailand in the Western-dominated world order, this book bridges and integrates studies of former colonies with studies of the Asian societies that retained their political independence while being economically and culturally subordinated to Euro-American power.