The unraveling heart: women's oral poetics and literary vernacularization in Marathi
"The grind mill, a rotating stone mill pulled by hand, has been a feature of everyday life in South Asia for over two millennia, the seat of both compulsory gendered labor and a copious and influential song tradition generated by women. Until the introduction of the electric mill in the latter...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Print Book |
| Language: | English |
| Subito Delivery Service: | Order now. |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
New York
Columbia University Press
[2026]
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| In: | Year: 2026 |
| Further subjects: | B
Devotional poetry, Marathi
History and criticism
B Marathi poetry Women authors History and criticism B Oral Tradition (India) History B Literary Criticism B Oral tradition in literature |
| Parallel Edition: | Erscheint auch als: 9780231561976 |
| Summary: | "The grind mill, a rotating stone mill pulled by hand, has been a feature of everyday life in South Asia for over two millennia, the seat of both compulsory gendered labor and a copious and influential song tradition generated by women. Until the introduction of the electric mill in the latter twentieth century, women-across households, castes, languages, and religious communities-woke up at the crack of dawn to grind, and as they labored, they crafted an astonishing oral poetic tradition that has perdured into current times. Even today there are women who know and can sing these songs. Too often, however, this song tradition has been dismissed by scholars as a repetitive fundament of "everyday life," the very opposite of all things "religious" or "literary," and thus it has been studied mostly for sociological insight into women's everyday lives. This book calls for a long overdue aesthetic and religious reevaluation, in particular the vast archive of bhakti devotional songs that has been collected in Marathi, the language spoken in the central western state of Maharashtra. Drawing on African American scholarship on the spirituality and aesthetics of vernacular orality, The Unraveling Heart argues that the women's songs are artfully crafted oral devotional poems that reach beyond the burdens of labor and compositional context to speak to a larger public audience"-- Provided by publisher |
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| Physical Description: | xv, 339 Seiten, Illustrationen |
| ISBN: | 0231217927 9780231217927 0231217935 |
