Vernacular Catholicism, vernacular saints : Selva J. Raj on "Being Catholic the Tamil way" / edited by Reid B. Locklin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Raj, Selva J., author.

Contributor:

Locklin, Reid B., editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Catholic Church.

Raj, Selva J.

Catholics--India--Tamil Nadu.

Catholics.

Catholics--India, South.

Christianity and culture.

Tamil Nadu (India)--Religious life and customs.

Tamil Nadu (India).

India, South--Religious life and customs.

India, South.

Christianity and culture--India--Tamil Nadu.

Christianity and culture--India, South.

South India.

Christianity and other religions--Hinduism.

Christianity and other religions.

Hinduism.

India--Tamil Nadu.

Physical Description:

xxvii, 290 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, [2017]

Summary:

T the turn of the twenty-first century, Selva J. Raj (1952-2008) was one of the most important scholars of popular Indian Christianity and South Asian religion in North America. Vernacular Catholicism, Vernacular Saints gathers together, for the first time in a single volume, a series of his groundbreaking studies on the distinctively "vernacular" Catholic traditions of Tamil Nadu in southeast India. This collection, which focuses on four rural shrines, highlights ritual variety and ritual transgression in Tamil Catholic practice and offers clues to the ritual exchange, religious hybridity, and dialogue occurring at the grassroots level between Tamil Catholics and their Hindu and Muslim neighbors. Raj also advances a new and alternative paradigm for interreligious dialogue that radically differs from models advocated by theologians, clergy, and other religious elite. In addition, essays by other leading scholars of Indian Christianity and South Asian religions - Michael Amaladoss, Purushottama Bilimoria, Corinne G. Dempsey, Eliza F. Kent, and Vasudha Narayanan - are included that amplify and creatively extend Raj?s work.

Contents:

Hiding behind the lens : fieldwork and friendship with Selva J. Raj / by Amanda Randhawa

Being Catholic the Tamil way / by Selva J. Raj

Vernacular Catholicism in context

The story of Christianity in Tamil Nadu / by Michael Amaladoss, S.J

Two models of indigenization in South Asian Catholicism : a critique / by Selva J. Raj

The Ganges, the Jordan, and the mountain : the three strands of Santal popular Catholicism / by Selva J. Raj

Health, healing, and fertility

Shared vows, shared space, and shared deities : vow rituals among Tamil Catholics in South India / by Selva J. Raj

Transgressing boundaries, transcending turner : the pilgrimage tradition at the Shrine of St. John de Britto / by Selva J. Raj

An ethnographic encounter with the wondrous in a South Indian Catholic shrine by / Selva J. Raj

Status and humor, competition, and communion

Public display, communal devotion : procession at a South Indian Catholic festival / by Selva J. Raj

Serious levity at the Shrine of St. Anne in South India / by Selva J. Raj

Dialogue "on the ground" : the complicated identities and the complex negotiations of Catholics and Hindus in South India / by Selva J. Raj

"Being Catholic the Tamil way" : responses and reflections

Comparative transgressions : vernacular Catholicisms in Tamil Nadu and Kerala / by Corinne G. Dempsey

Vernacular Christianities : Tamil Catholics and Tamil Protestants / by Eliza F. Kent

Extending Selva J. Raj's scholarship to Hindu American temples : accommodation, assimilation, and a dialogue of action / by Vasudha Narayanan

Re-inventing classical Indian dance with or without indigenous spirituality in three contemporary secular continents / by Purushottama Bilimoria

Afterword / by Wendy Doniger

Postscript: the tie that binds / by Selva J. Raj.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 269-280) and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Vernacular Catholicism, vernacular saints.

ISBN:

9781438465050

143846505X

OCLC:

956984843

Publisher Number:

99972580351