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When the World Becomes Female
Guises of a South Indian Goddess
by Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger
Published by: Indiana University Press
336 Pages, 20 b&w illus.
- eBook
- 9780253009609
- Published: July 2013
$9.99
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During the goddess Gangamma's festival in the town of Tirupati, lower-caste men take guises of the goddess, and the streets are filled with men wearing saris, braids, and female jewelry. By contrast, women participate by intensifying the rituals they perform for Gangamma throughout the year, such as cooking and offering food. Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger argues that within the festival ultimate reality is imagined as female and women identify with the goddess, whose power they share. Vivid accounts by male and female participants offer new insights into Gangamma's traditions and the nature of Hindu village goddesses.
Preface and Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration
Introduction
Part 1. Imaginative Worlds of Gangamma
1. An Aesthetics of Excess
2. Guising, Transformation, Recognition, and Possibility
3. Narratives of Excess and Access
4. Female-Narrated Possibilities of Relationship
5. Gangamma as Ganga River Goddess
Part 2. Those Who Bear the Goddess
6. Wandering Goddess, Village Daughter: Avilala Reddys
7. Temple and Vesham Mirasi: The Kaikalas of Tirupati
8. The Goddess Served and Lost: Tattayagunta Mudaliars
9. Exchanging Talis with the Goddess: Protection and Freedom to Move
10. "Crazy for the Goddess": A Consuming Relationship
Conclusion: Possibilities of a World Become Female
Glossary
Notes
References
Index
Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger is Professor of Religion at Emory University. She is author of In Amma's Healing Room: Gender and Vernacular Islam in South India (IUP, 2009) and Gender and Genre in the Folklore of Middle India.
"When the World Becomes Female is a great addition to the academic literature on South Asian religious, ritual, devotional, and goddess traditions. It is accessible enough for use in undergraduate courses on the same or as an example of ethnographic methodology. It is always in-depth enough for graduate courses and as a resource for scholars' and universities' libraries."
~newbooks.asia
"Joyce B. Flueckiger's new book When the World Becomes Female . . . is a rich and colorful analysis of the goddess Gangamma's festival and her devotees.7/3/15"
~New Books in South Asian Studies
"[Joyce Flueckiger addresses] directly questions of the relationships between a goddess and her devotees, and the ways that those devotees play with gender.April 2015"
~H-Asia
"This is a carefully crafted ethnography on the South Indian festival of the village goddess Gangamma in the pilgrimage town of Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh. . . . Recommended."
~Choice
"Carefully crafted . . . . Through these rituals, stories and lives, the author reveals new ways of comprehending gender both at the cosmological and human level."
~Ann Grodzins Gold, Syracuse University
"Flueckiger's rich and colorful descriptions of the stories, festivals, and worshipers connected with the goddess Gangamma evoke a world that previously had been accessible to very few living outside southern India. This work makes available to readers a close-up view of an extremely fascinating aspect of living Hinduism."
~David L. Haberman, Indiana University, author of Journey through the Twelve Forests: An Encounter with Krishna
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