Orient Blackswan

Imprint	Orient BlackSwan
Year of Publishing	2014
Number of pages	308
ISBN	9788125055822
Format	Hardback
Language	English
Dimensions	140 x 216 mm
Series	New Perspectives in South Asian History

Imprint

Orient BlackSwan

Year of Publishing

2014

Number of pages

308

ISBN

9788125055822

Format

Hardback

Language

English

Dimensions

140 x 216 mm

Series

New Perspectives in South Asian History

the Book
the Author(s)
Table of Contents

While investigating the cultural, social and political dynamics in Maharashtra, Rethinking Western India looks into the relations and processes that make up what are usually thought to be regional problems.
The essays show how the regional must be understood in contexts that supersede the region and geographical determinism.
The opening essays not only contextualise Maharashtrian texts as coherent wholes, but also the meanings contained within these texts, thereby addressing “the semantics of the social”.
A focus on “the mechanics of the social”—the interface of actions that articulate societal relationships at different levels, and of different characters—is attempted by the next set of essays.
The concluding essays emphasise how local dynamics are as much a part of forces ostensibly “beyond Maharashtra”, as they are products of dynamics within Maharashtra. There is, therefore, a deep analysis of the social and cultural referents upon which collective identities are built.

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Dušan Deák is Docent of Oriental Languages and Literatures, Department of Comparative Religion, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovak Republic.

Daniel Jasper is Associate Professor of Sociology, Moravian College, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA.

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Introduction: The Semantics and Mechanics of Region—Maharashtra and its Contexts
Dušan Deák and Daniel Jasper

ONE The Semantics of the Social: The Worlds of Texts and Meanings

1. The World of Two Dhangar Ovis
Anne Feldhaus

2. Bidar in the Marathi World: Saints, Kings and Powers across the Centuries
Dušan Deák

3. A Socio-Textual Ecology of the ?gvedadasagrantha
Cezary Galewicz

4. Gender and the Freedom Struggle in Maharashtra: Contextualising Prema Kantak’s Novel Agniyaan (1942)
Meera Kosambi

TWO The Mechanics of the Social: Agents and Agencies across the Spaces and Places

5. “Bhagwangadavarun Mala Mumbai Disate Aahe”: How Caste Survives amidst Democratic Politics
Rajeshwari Deshpande

6. Of Relics and Living Traditions: Creating Heritage in Maharashtra
Daniel Jasper

7. A City of Yesterday in the World of Tomorrow: Urban Solapur and Declining Industry—Its Impact on Women
Piyul Mukherjee and Rajneesh Krishna

8. The Changing Environment of Political Protest: Construction and Contestation of Political Space in Mumbai
Aruna Pendse

9. Trade Network in Indapur Pargana under the Marathas
Michihiro Ogawa

10. The Kolis of Mumbai: The Vanishing People
Jayant Bhalchandra Bapat

THREE Beyond Maharashtra: Locating and Rewriting the Pasts

11. Ambiguity in University Autonomy: The University of Bombay in its City in the Late Nineteenth Century
Jim Masselos
12. ??? ??? ??? ???? (“Mal Khara Tol Poora”): Aspiration and Reality in the Monetary Environments of Eighteenth-Century Maharashtra
Shailendra Bhandare

13. Politics of Maharashtra and Its Environments
Suhas Palshikar

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Rethinking Western India

The Changing Contexts of Culture, Society and Religion

Dušan Deák and Daniel Jasper (Ed.s)

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