The Practice of Oral Literary Criticism: Women's Songs in Kangra, India

As early as 1966, Alan Dundes argued for the need to consider "oral literary criticism," the meanings attributed to folklore texts by the people who use them. This essay evaluates Dundes's original formulation in light of subsequent scholarly contributions, applying these to research on women's songs in Kangra, North India. I argue that honoring people's own interpretations of their folklore carries important implications for the practice of researching, writing about, and formulating folklore theory

The ascetic practice of eating sweets: transcribing oral narrative

Swamiji, the Hindu holy man whose storytelling was central to my dissertation and first book, sometimes spoke about the concept of tapasya— determinedly focused austerities. Tapasya implies great self-restraint, physical endurance, dedication and concentration; it is often undertaken with a goal in mind. Tapasya generates tapas, heat, transforming a practitioner and granting power. Hindu mythology and folklore are filled with examples of people— particularly religious ascetics, but others too—whose rigorous tapasya caught the attention of Gods and Goddesses who then granted boons. Western representations of Hindu holy people particularly fixated on the spectacular aspects of tapasya, producing a great abundance of imagery of Hindu ascetics with long matted locks in odd positions—standing on one leg, raising an arm in the air, sitting close to fires, lying on beds of nails, and so on (Narayan 1993). But also regular people might undertake forms of tapasya for short times to attain particular worldly goals like jobs or children or the well-being of families: for example, by fasting, doing recitations, sleeping on the ground, and being celibate (cf. Pearson 1996). (First paragraph of text

The social life of transcriptions : Interactions around women's songs in Kangra

Moving oral traditions into the domain of the printed word involves a first step of transcription.1 Anyone who has transcribed recordings from fieldwork will recollect the grinding effort demanded by this task. One listens again and again: striving to catch the meaning and tone of words as they gallop past, struggling to coax a herd of words into orderly lines, straining to remain attentive to other sounds--comments, interjections, interruptions, parallel performances--that are simultaneously shaping a text.Issue title: Transmissions and Transitions in Indian Oral Traditions

Transmissions and trasitions in Indian oral traditions : An introduction

To assemble a group is to invite conversation. The essays that come together in this special issue of Oral Tradition all arrive bearing insights cultivated through extended engagements with very different settings. Settling into this shared space, the essays speak resonantly to each other. They cluster around shared themes, circulate in paired dialogues, and also stand back to offer the others distinctive perspectives.Issue title: Transmissions and Transitions in Indian Oral Traditions

Singing from separation : women's voices in and about Kangra folksongs

In Kangra, a favorite song genre among older women singers is pakha..u, which describes the travails of married life. The separation of husband and wife is a recurrent theme in these songs. In this paper I focus on representations of absent husbands, complementing the texts of songs with commentaries from singers in whose memories the songs lodge. Methodologically, I wish to demonstrate the importance of thinking about oral traditions in terms of both text and commentary. Theoretically, I argue that the ethnographic generalizations that emerge from equating texts with collective points of view can be refined through attention to performers. Thus, male absence in Kangra songs is not just an ethnographic fact, but also a multivocal symbol on which women strategically draw in order to comment on a range of emotions and situations in their lives.Issue title; "South Asian Oral Traditions.

Banana Republics and V. I. Degrees: Rethinking Indian Folklore in a Postcolonial World

In the history of scholarship on folklore in India, little attention has been directed towards the relationship between folklore and social change. This paper reviews British-based folklore studies in India, identifying a paradigm of self-contained peasant authenticity that viewed references to changing social realities as adulterations that must be edited out. It then contrasts such suppressions of change with the conscious revamping of folklore materials to disseminate nationalist, Marxist, feminist, and development ideologies. Next, it turns to contemporary examples of creative change in folklore, with a focus on urban joke cycles that are largely ignored by folklorists. Finally, it ends with suggestions for theoretical reorientations breaking down the rigid distinction between "us" as metropolitan analysts, and "them" as the folk enmeshed in tradition

Priceless Enthusiasm: The Pursuit of Shauq in South Asia

The concept of shauq or shauk connotes a passionate interest, galvanising individuals across South Asia to devote time, energy and resources beyond their expected social roles and towards particular chosen activities. This essay explores explications of shauq encountered in the course of field research on men’s pigeon flying in Pakistan and village women’s singing in India, situating insights from the field amid available scholarly literature on shauq. Shauq can make fieldwork the arena for a spirited transmission of knowledge. We explore how people express the well-being emerging from shauq, the sociality of shared interest, and why shauq can be dangerous.Endeavour Award, Department of Education and Training, Australia [PGPhD_DCD_3932_2014]

"Mother-weights" and lost fathers: parents in South Asian American literature

That parent-child relationships should play a significant role within South Asian American literature is perhaps no surprise, since this is crucial material for any writer. But the particular forms they so often take – a dysfunctional mother-daughter dynamic, leading to the search for maternal surrogates; and the figure of the prematurely deceased father – are more perplexing. Why do families adhere to these patterns in so many South Asian American texts and what does that tell us about this œuvre? More precisely, why are mothers subjected to a harsher critique than fathers and what purpose does this critique serve? How might we interpret the trope of the untimely paternal death? In this article I will seek to answer these questions – arguably key to an understanding of this growing body of writing – by considering works produced between the 1990s and the early twenty-first century by a range of South Asian American writers

Introduction

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/67161/2/10.1177_0308275X9301300401.pd