Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels

Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels PDF Author: Kirin Narayan
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812205839
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
Swamiji, a Hindu holy man, is the central character of Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels. He reclines in a deck chair in his modern apartment in western India, telling subtle and entertaining folk narratives to his assorted gatherings. Among the listeners is Kirin Narayan, who knew Swamiji when she was a child in India and who has returned from America as an anthropologist. In her book Narayan builds on Swamiji's tales and his audiences' interpretations to ask why religious teachings the world over are so often couched in stories. For centuries, religious teachers from many traditions have used stories to instruct their followers. When Swamiji tells a story, the local barber rocks in helpless laughter, and a sari-wearing French nurse looks on enrapt. Farmers make decisions based on the tales, and American psychotherapists take notes that link the storytelling to their own practices. Narayan herself is a key character in this ethnography. As both a local woman and a foreign academic, she is somewhere between participant and observer, reacting to the nuances of fieldwork with a sensitivity that only such a position can bring. Each story s reproduced in its evocative performance setting. Narayan supplements eight folk narratives with discussions of audience participation and response as well as relevant Hindu themes. All these stories focus on the complex figure of the Hindu ascetic and so sharpen our understanding of renunciation and gurus in South Asia. While Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels raises provocative theoretical issues, it is also a moving human document. Swamiji, with his droll characterizations, inventive mind, and generous spirit, is a memorable character. The book contributes to a growing interdisciplinary literature on narrative. It will be particularly valuable to students and scholars of anthropology, folklore, performance studies, religions, and South Asian studies.

Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels

Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels PDF Author: Kirin Narayan
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812205839
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 301

Get Book Here

Book Description
Swamiji, a Hindu holy man, is the central character of Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels. He reclines in a deck chair in his modern apartment in western India, telling subtle and entertaining folk narratives to his assorted gatherings. Among the listeners is Kirin Narayan, who knew Swamiji when she was a child in India and who has returned from America as an anthropologist. In her book Narayan builds on Swamiji's tales and his audiences' interpretations to ask why religious teachings the world over are so often couched in stories. For centuries, religious teachers from many traditions have used stories to instruct their followers. When Swamiji tells a story, the local barber rocks in helpless laughter, and a sari-wearing French nurse looks on enrapt. Farmers make decisions based on the tales, and American psychotherapists take notes that link the storytelling to their own practices. Narayan herself is a key character in this ethnography. As both a local woman and a foreign academic, she is somewhere between participant and observer, reacting to the nuances of fieldwork with a sensitivity that only such a position can bring. Each story s reproduced in its evocative performance setting. Narayan supplements eight folk narratives with discussions of audience participation and response as well as relevant Hindu themes. All these stories focus on the complex figure of the Hindu ascetic and so sharpen our understanding of renunciation and gurus in South Asia. While Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels raises provocative theoretical issues, it is also a moving human document. Swamiji, with his droll characterizations, inventive mind, and generous spirit, is a memorable character. The book contributes to a growing interdisciplinary literature on narrative. It will be particularly valuable to students and scholars of anthropology, folklore, performance studies, religions, and South Asian studies.

Saints, Scoundrels and Storytellers

Saints, Scoundrels and Storytellers PDF Author: Kirin Narayan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Folklore
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description


Saints vs. Scoundrels

Saints vs. Scoundrels PDF Author: Dr. Benjamin Wiker
Publisher: EWTN Publishing, Inc.
ISBN: 1682780287
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
In Saints vs. Scoundrels Dr. Benjamin Wiker invites you to interact not just with the ideas that have shaped history, but with the people who created and spread those ideas. In this collection of lively and imaginative conversations between the great truth-tellers and the great error-peddlers of history, you will come to appreciate the personalities behind the “Great Conversation” that has shaped western civilization. Jean-Jacques Rousseau vs. St. Augustine. Machiavelli vs. St. Francis. Ayn Rand vs. Flannery O’Connor. These people may have never met in real life, but the ideas they represent and the movements they started have interacted throughout history and shaped our present. And so how fascinating would it be if they had ever shared a living room? This is the question Dr. Wiker answers with deep research and dynamic storytelling. Enjoy this unique opportunity to join the conversation!

Good Guys and Bad Guys

Good Guys and Bad Guys PDF Author: Joseph Nocera
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9781591841623
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Award-winning business columnist Joe Nocera explores how good guys and bad guys are defined in business, and concludes that things are often not what they seem.

The Devilish Duke

The Devilish Duke PDF Author: Maddison Michaels
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
ISBN: 164063343X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
The notorious “Devil Duke” of Huntington needs a woman—and not just any woman. His fortune depends on him wooing one of the most eccentric bluestockings of the ton within the month, or else he can kiss his hard-earned wealth goodbye. Which is a challenge for any gentleman, let alone one who believes that love is a wasted emotion and marriage (at best) an inconvenience. So it’s hardly a surprise that Lady Sophie Wolcott seems unmoved by his charms and attention... Sophie’s beloved orphanage is in imminent danger, and she will do anything to save it. Even if it means marrying a ruthless rake who takes what he wants in business and in pleasure. But while the Devil Duke is everything Sophie’s always feared, she can’t quite resist just how much she yearns for the scoundrel’s very touch... But the duke has enemies. And as a malevolent shadow from the duke’s past emerges, Sophie’s life—and heart—may depend on the devil she knows. Each book in the Saints & Scoundrels series is STANDALONE: * The Devilish Duke * The Elusive Earl * The Sinful Scot

Guests at God's Wedding

Guests at God's Wedding PDF Author: Tracy Pintchman
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791465950
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
A fascinating look at women’s rituals honoring the god Krishna.

Alive in the Writing

Alive in the Writing PDF Author: Kirin Narayan
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226568180
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
Anton Chekhov is revered as a boldly innovative playwright and short story writer - but he wrote more than just plays and stories. In this book, the author introduces readers to some other sides of Chekhov.

The Elusive Earl

The Elusive Earl PDF Author: Maddison Michaels
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
ISBN: 164063620X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 470

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Book Description
Brianna Penderley has a knack for getting into precarious situations, especially when it comes to her love for archaeology. In the heart of Naples, her terrible Italian has her accidentally becoming engaged to two men at the same time. Of course, Daniel Wolcott—the Earl of Thornton and the only man ever able to vex her—shows up to rescue her. Daniel has spent the majority of his life exercising rigid control over his emotions, determined never to become the rake his father was. But when he goes to aid his mentor’s danger-prone niece once again, he finds himself struggling to control his attraction to a woman who is his complete opposite. When their situation goes from bad to worse, Daniel and Brianna find themselves swept up into a perilous adventure, and they must work together to set things right. Now, if they can just avoid killing each other in the process. Each book in the Saints & Scoundrels series is STANDALONE: * The Devilish Duke * The Elusive Earl * The Sinful Scot

Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon

Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon PDF Author: Kirin Narayan
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195103491
Category : Folklore
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Oral tales establish relationships between storytellers and their listeners. Yet most printed collections of folktales contain only stories, stripped of the human contexts in which they are told. If storytellers are mentioned at all, they are rarely consulted about what meanings they see in their tales. In this innovative book, Indian-American anthropologist Kirin Narayan reproduces twenty-one folktales narrated in a mountain dialect by a middle-aged Indian village woman, Urmila Devi Sood, or "Urmilaji." The tales are set within the larger story of Kirin Narayan's research in the Himalayan foothill region of Kangra, and of her growing friendship with Urmilaji Sood. In turn, Urmilaji Sood supplements her tales with interpretations of the wisdom that she discerns in their plots. At a moment when the mass-media is flooding through rural India, Urmilaji Sood asserts the value of her tales which have been told and retold across generations. As she says, "Television can't teach you these things." These tales serve as both moral instruction and as beguiling entertainment. The first set of tales, focussing on women's domestic rituals, lays out guidelines for female devotion and virtue. Here are tales of a pious washerwoman who brings the dead to life, a female weevil observing fasts for a better rebirth, a barren woman who adopts a frog and lights ritual oil lamps, and a queen who remains with her husband through twelve arduous years of affliction. The women performing these rituals and listening to the accompanying stories are thought to bring good fortune to their marriages, and long life to their relatives. The second set of tales, associated with passing the time around the fire through long winter nights, are magical adventure tales. Urmilaji Sood tells of a matchmaker who marries a princess off to a lion, God splitting a boy claimed by two families into two selves, a prince's journey to the land of the demons, and a girl transformed into a bird by her stepmother. In an increasingly interconnected world, anthropologists' authority to depict and theorize about distant people's lives is under fire. Kirin Narayan seeks solutions to this crisis in anthropology by locating the exchange of knowledge in a respectful, affectionate collaboration. Through the medium of oral narratives, Urmilaji Sood describes her own life and lives around her, and through the medium of ethnography Kirin Narayan shows how broader conclusions emerge from specific, spirited interactions. Set evocatively amid the changing seasons in a Himalayan foothill village, this pathbreaking book draws a moving portrait of an accomplished woman storyteller. Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon offers a window into the joys and sorrows of women's changing lives in rural India, and reveals the significance of oral storytelling in nurturing human ties.

Hindu Christian Faqir

Hindu Christian Faqir PDF Author: Timothy S. Dobe
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190463570
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
In the mid-nineteenth century, the American missionary James Butler predicted that Christian conversion and British law together would eradicate Indian ascetics. His disgust for Hindu holy men (sadhus), whom he called "saints," "yogis," and "filthy fakirs," was largely shared by orientalist scholars and British officials, who likewise imagined these religious elites to be a leading symptom of India's degeneration. Yet within some thirty years of Butler's writing, modern Indian ascetics such as the neo-Vedantin Hindu Swami Rama Tirtha (1873-1906) and, paradoxically, the Protestant Christian convert Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1929) achieved international fame as embodiments of the spiritual superiority of the East over the West. Timothy S. Dobe's fine-grained account of the lives of Sundar Singh and Rama Tirtha offers a window on the surprising reversals and potentials of Indian ascetic "sainthood" in the colonial contact zone. His study develops a new model of Indian holy men that is historicized, religiously pluralistic, and located within the tensions and intersections of ascetic practice and modernity. The first in-depth account of two internationally-recognized modern holy men in the colonially-crucial region of Punjab, Hindu Christian Faqir offers new examples and contexts for thinking through these wider issues. Drawing on unexplored Urdu writings by and about both figures, Dobe argues not only that Hinduism and Protestant Christianity are here intimately linked, but that these links are forged from the stuff of regional Islamic traditions of Sufi holy men (faqir). He also re-conceives Indian sainthood through an in-depth examination of ascetic practice as embodied religion, public performance, and relationship, rather than as a theological, otherworldly, and isolated ideal.