Description

Book Synopsis
Analyzes the debate on sati, or widow burning, in colonial India. This book argues that the women who were burned were marginal to the debate and that the controversy was over definitions of Hindu tradition, the place of ritual in religious worship, the civilizing missions of colonialism and evangelism, and the proper role of the colonial state.

Table of Contents
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
1 Equivocations in the Name of Tradition: The Official Debate on Widow Burning
2 Abstract Disquisitions: Bhadralok and the Normative Violence of Sati
3 Missionaries and Subalterns: Belaboring Tradition in the Marketplace
4 Traveling Texts: The Consolidation of Missionary Discourse on India
5 The Female Subject, the Colonial Gaze: Eyewitness Accounts of Sati
AFTERWORD
NOTES
GLOSSARY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

Contentious Traditions

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    A Paperback / softback by Lata Mani

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      Publisher: University of California Press
      Publication Date: 30/12/1998
      ISBN13: 9780520214071, 978-0520214071
      ISBN10: 0520214072
      Also in:
      Social and cultural anthropology Worship, rites, ceremonies and rituals

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      Analyzes the debate on sati, or widow burning, in colonial India. This book argues that the women who were burned were marginal to the debate and that the controversy was over definitions of Hindu tradition, the place of ritual in religious worship, the civilizing missions of colonialism and evangelism, and the proper role of the colonial state.

      Table of Contents
      LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
      PREFACE
      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
      INTRODUCTION
      1 Equivocations in the Name of Tradition: The Official Debate on Widow Burning
      2 Abstract Disquisitions: Bhadralok and the Normative Violence of Sati
      3 Missionaries and Subalterns: Belaboring Tradition in the Marketplace
      4 Traveling Texts: The Consolidation of Missionary Discourse on India
      5 The Female Subject, the Colonial Gaze: Eyewitness Accounts of Sati
      AFTERWORD
      NOTES
      GLOSSARY
      BIBLIOGRAPHY
      INDEX

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