Aryan Books

WRITING IDENTITIES: Folklore and Performative Arts of Purulia, Bengal

By :- Roma Chatterji

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Pages: xxiv+128

Format: HB

ISBN-13: 978-81-7305-378-8

Place: New Delhi

Edition: 1st

Publisher: ARYAN BOOKS INTERNATIONAL

Size: 15cm x 22cm

Product Year: 2009

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This work attempts a historiographic exploration of Bengali folkloristics through some of the performative traditions of Purulia. Positioned outside the mainstream of Bengal?s culture and society, Purulia has traditionally been characterised as her ?primitive? alter. Folklorists have played no small part in reinforcing this image by selecting precisely those genres for analysis that best conform to this image. An unintended consequence of such selective representation is that the forms come to mirror scholarly descriptions about them over time. Thus the chh? dance, described as a ?tribal war dance? by Ashutosh Bhattacharya, the doyen of Bengali folkloristics, has come to acquire this image losing some of its subtlety and local nuance in the process. But as a ?tribal dance? it has also acquired greater visibility than some of the other dance forms in this region. Folklorists are sensitive to the changes that the introduction of new media bring to traditional forms of performance. However, they are less conscious about the changes wrought by their own writings. By describing the different representations of community and society in the writings on folk culture and in tracking some of the trajectories of their circulation in the public sphere the author shows how Purulia is re-constituted as a folkloric region.

Foreword Preface Acknowledgements Note on Transliteration 1. The Chh? Dance and the Public Sphere 2. Between Myth and History : The Making of a Goddess Tradition 3. Jhumur and the Aesthetics of Folk Poetry 4. Feminine Figures in Narrative Forms 5. Conclusion : Folklore and Border Crossings Appendices Appendix One Appendix Two Bibliography Index Author Index Subject Index

Roma Chatterji teaches at the Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University. Apart from an abiding interest in folk culture she has also worked on medical anthropology and collective violence. Her current research is on ?Folk Art in Bengal and Madhya Pradesh?. She is the author, together with Deepak Mehta of, Living with Violence: An Anthropology of Events and Everyday Life.

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