Tamil geographies : cultural constructions of space and place in South India / edited by Martha Ann Selby, Indira Viswanathan Peterson.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Selby, Martha Ann.

Peterson, Indira Viswanathan, 1950-

Series:

SUNY series in Hindu studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Tamil (Indic people).

Tamil literature.

Criticism and interpretation.

Social ecology.

Tamil Nadu (India)--Civilization.

Tamil Nadu (India).

Social ecology--India--Tamil Nadu.

Tamil literature--Criticism and interpretation.

India--Tamil Nadu.

Physical Description:

x, 326 pages : illustrations, map ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, [2008]

Summary:

This interdisciplinary work explores how people in the Tamil region of India think about space and land, and how this, in turn, influences the creation of the social and aesthetic world they live in. Contributors focus on the notion of geography in its strictest sense, on verbal descriptions of land and space and how these descriptions build and inform diverse social and aesthetic realities. The essays examine "texts" drawn from a range of time periods and a variety of sources in Tamil culture, including imaginative literature, historical events and narratives, religious rituals, and daily life in contemporary Tamil Nadu. The book clearly demonstrates the ways in which early Tamil aesthetic and linguistic paradigms have survived to the present as living, vital expressions through which contemporary boundaries and social identities are shaped and constructed.

Contents:

Dialogues of space, desire, and gender in Tamil caṅkam poetry / Martha Ann Selby

Four spatial realms in Tirukkōvaiyār / Norman J. Cutler

The drama of the Kur̲avañci fortune-teller : land, landscape, and social relations in an eighteenth-century Tamil genre / Indira Viswanathan Peterson

Ruling in the gaze of God : thoughts on Kanchipuram's maṇḍala / D. Dennis Hudson

Cosmos, realm, and property in early medieval South India / Daud Ali

Sanctum and gopuram at Madurai : aesthetics of akam and pur̲am in Tamil temple architecture / Samuel K. Parker

From wasteland to bus stand : the relocation of demons in Tamilnadu / Isabelle Clark-Decès

Waiting for Veḷḷāḷakaṇṭan̲ : narrative, movement, and making place in a Tamil village / Diane P. Mines

Permeable homes : domestic service, household space, and the vulnerability of class boundaries in urban South India / Sara Dickey

Gender plays : socio-spatial paradigms on the Tamil popular stage / Susan Seizer.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780791472453

0791472450

OCLC:

85898956