FACULTY
NEWS
Gudrun
Buhnemann continued her research on the iconography of Tantric
deities in the Kathmandu Valley in the summer 2004. She surveyed
stone sculptures of Tantric deities in the sunken stepped fountains
in Patan and Bhaktapur and studied manuscripts and artists' sketchbooks
of Tantric deities in the National Archives, Kathmandu. She also
taught a new course on the gods and goddesses of South Asia (cross-listed
with Religious Studies and listed for credit with the Global Cultures
Program) in the Spring Semester 2004.
Prof.
Don Davis is editing a collection of articles by Ludo Rocher
of the University of Pennsylvania on Dharmasastra and Hindu Law.
A critical assessment of Prof. Rocher's many contributions to
this important field will accompany the collection. Rocher's work
appears in myriad smaller journals and festschrifts, making quick
access and review of his work difficult. Therefore, the collection
is intended to make Rocher's ideas, arguments, and technical studies
available in a single source. The collection will be published
in the Sources of Indian Law Series by Motilal Banarsidass.
Aparna
Dharwadker Her essay "Diaspora and the Theatre of the
Nation" (published in Theatre Research International, Cambridge
University Press, October 2003), was nominated for the 2004 Scholarly
Essay Prize of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education.
Her book, Theatre's Uncommon Country: Drama, Theory, and Urban
Performance in Post-Independence India, will be co-published
by the University of Iowa Press and Oxford University Press in
October 2005.
Joe
Elder played a major role in the production of a 70-minute
documentary, Banaras Muharram and the Coals of Karbala,
that was released in October at The Center for South Asia's Annual
Conference on South Asia. Shot in Varanasi in 2003 by Marc Katz
and Staffan Winbergh, the film shows Shia and Sunni commemorating
the death of Muhammad's grandson, Husayn, at Karbala (in contemporary
Iraq), and pledging that, "Never again shall we raise our
hands against our brethren." Hindus join Muslims in the commemorations.
Joe is now writing the Film Guide to accompany Banaras Muharram.
The film is available in DVD format through the Center for South
Asia. He is now working on a documentary film shot in Allahabad
by Sudheer Gupta during the last Kumbhamela. Joe is also helping
Maureen Patterson put the finishing touches on her book "A
History of the American Institute of Indian Studies, 1961-1997."
J.
Mark Kenoyer continues to be involved in the Harappa
Archaeological Research Project in Pakistan and the analysis
of materials excavated in previous seasons. The research work
at the site of Harappa has been carried out under the direction
of Richard H. Meadow (Harvard University) and J. Mark Kenoyer
(University of Wisconsin- Madison). Although full-scale excavations
have not been conducted for the past four years, research is continuing
at the site. Kenoyer was at Harappa during the 2003-2004 winter
break to collect data and conduct laboratory research along with
graduate students Randall Law and Katie Lindstrom. Pakistani team
members including Nadeem Ghouri, Tahzeem-ul Hasan, and Ghulam
Hussain continue to be involved in drafting artifacts, data collection,
and computer data base management. Here in the U.S., the final
preparation of field notes and excavation drawings is going on
both at Madison, under the direction of Kenoyer, and at Harvard
under the direction of Meadow.
During the past year, Kenoyer
and several graduate students, Greg Jamison, Tim Roberts, Alison
Carter, and Katie Lindstrom and undergraduate students Zach Stencil
and Jonathan Platt have been involved in preparing the final inked
drawings for future publications, scanning of images for computer
archiving, and some data analysis. He has been working with graduate
student Mary Davis on Harappan lithic samples, and with Dave Allin
on the analysis of microfraction craft debitage to determine the
intensity of craft working in specific areas of the site.
Over 150 articles and edited volumes
on the recent research at Harappa have been published by various
team members and final reports on the Harappa cemetery excavations
and excavations in other areas of the site are being prepared
for publication.
| Kirin
Narayan writes “After some years of trying to figure
out the form for a book on Kangra women’s oral traditions,
I followed the advice of V. Narayana Rao, “just start
with the poems that you most like!” This advice sent
me looking afresh through my collection of hundreds of Kangra
song texts to outline chapters around spirited songs that
retell and recast Hindu mythological episodes from women’s
points of view. So, for example, songs tell of the alarm of
Gorja (Parvati) and her girlfriends when Shiva arrived for
the wedding smeared with ash, with a snake wrapped around
him, or how the two pregnant sisters, Yashoda and Devaki,
concocted a plan to swap their babies, one of whom ended up
being Krishna. |
Kirin Narayan conferring with her collaborator Urmila Devi
Sood
|
Interspersing these lively songs
with commentaries and life stories of singers, I will explore
the shifting horizons around folk religious traditions in contemporary
India. Also, I will examine how women’s perceptions of the
imaginative, transformative spaces made through poetry echoes
the creative process of transmuting field experience into an ethnographic
text. Support from the University of Wisconsin Graduate School
and a Feminist Scholar’s Fellowship from the Women’s
Studies Research Center will enable me to start writing this long-incubated
book and also to assemble an accompanying CD.”
In 2004 she taught Indian Folklore
and in conjunction with the Center’s lecture series, students
were able to enjoy the presentations of three guest lecturers:
Isabelle Clark-Deces, Ann Grodzins Gold, and Philip Lutgendorf.
All three came to her class in the afternoon following their Center
presentations, generating much enthusiasm among students.
V.
Narayana Rao is currently working on a collaborative project
with David Shulman on the cultural biography of Srinatha, a 15th
century Telugu poet. He was invited to spend a week as a visiting
scholar at the Department of History, University of California
at Los Angeles in March, and will be participating in a workshop
on Regional Sanskrit traditions at the Institute for Advanced
Study in Jerusalem from July 1 - 31, 2005.
Narendra K. Sinha
Born on August 2, 1932, the author Narendra K. Sinha is currently
an Honorary Fellow at the Center of South Asia, University of
Wisconsin, Madison, an affiliation he took up after retiring from
the position of Director of Rehabilitation Services. He has, primarily,
been a South Asianist. He started his career as a lecturer in
Hindi at Gaya College, Gaya. He has M.A. degrees in Hindi, Pali,
and Sanskrit, and a Ph.D. in Linguistics. His academic affiliations
had been with Magadha University, Gaya, India; All India Institute
of Medical Sciences, New Delhi; Delhi University, Delhi; Central
Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore; Vishwabharati, Shantiniketan;
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; and University of Wisconsin,
Madison. He has to his credit several books and papers in the
areas of language, literature, and linguistics. He has taken to
creative writing after his retirement. He has published a collection
of Hindi short stories entitled “Adhure Sapne” from
Delhi. He has one collection of short stories in English entitled
“Walls All Around” ready for publication. The
Story of Rama, A Mythological Novel, is his first novel.
About the book:
In this book, the story of Rama has been told explicably and vividly
in fictional style. It is a mythological novel and written in
autobiographical mode. The primary source of inspiration has been
the Ramayana of Valmiki composed in Sanskrit in the 5th Century
B.C., which runs into twenty-four thousand couplets in the present
form. Having been transformed from epic poetry into fictional
prose, the novel, written in a simple lucid style provides an
exhaustive account of the great epic character in his own words.
Rama is unquestionably one of the tallest figures in Indian history
and culture, while Sita represents the best of Indian womanhood.
Both of them are, traditionally, treated as incarnations. And
yet, the whole story has been presented systematically from characterization
to accounts of events with a human perspective that can be of
interest to a modern reader anywhere.
The very purpose of writing the book has been to make the Ramayana
available to the common reader and disseminate its message globally.
Several scholars have translated the epic into English in both
original and abridged forms. Others have also presented one or
the other aspect of it in modernized versions; but the present
autobiographical version reveals the character of Rama much more
intimately, rationally, and realistically through all the episodes
of the Ramayana.
How to Order:
The book can be ordered from the printer Xlibris Corporation,
Philadelphia (Phone # 800-795-4274) or directly from the author
at 12 Falmouth Court, Madison WI-53719.; Phone # 608-271-7025;
and e-mail nksinha02@hotmail.com
Aseema
Sinha is a Woodrow Wilson Fellow in Washington D.C. for 2004-2005.
Her book, titled The Regional Roots of Developmental Politics
in India: A Leviathan Divided (Indiana University Press 2005)
won the Joseph W. Elder Prize in the Indian Social Sciences, American
Institute of Indian Studies in 2002. It argues against conventional
nation-centric assessments of India's developmental trajectory
by showing that the Indian state is a divided leviathan; its developmental
failure is the combined product of central-local interactions
and political choices by regional elites. She is now completing
a book manuscript tentatively titled, "The WTO and India:
Private Interests, Public Purpose, and Global Linkages."
Her current research projects include an analysis of India's global
engagement with WTO, business-state relationship in post-reform
India, and a comparison of India and China. Her research has been
funded by the American Institute of Indian Studies and the Institute
for the Study of World Politics.
Andre
Wink will be at the Hebrew University in
Tel Aviv supported by the G. L. Mosse exchange program during
the academic year 2005-06. He is currently working on volume four
of his series on the history of South Asia - Al Hind IV.
