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Stressing the variations in meaning of modernity and tradition, this work shows how in India traditional structures and norms have been adapted or transformed to serve the needs of a modernizing society. The persistence of traditional features within modernity, it suggests, answers a need of the human condition. Three areas of Indian life are analyzed: social stratification, charismatic leadership, and law. The authors question whether objective historical conditions, such as advanced industrialization, urbanization, or literacy, are requisites for political modernization.
Indian writers of English such as G. V. Desani, Salman Rushdie, Amit Chaudhuri, Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Seth, Allan Sealy, Shashi Tharoor, Arundhati Roy, Vikram Chandra and Jhumpa Lahiri have taken the potentialities of the novel form to new heights. Against the background of the genre’s macro-history, this study attempts to explain the stunning vitality, colourful diversity, and the outstanding but sometimes controversial success of postcolonial Indian novels in the light of ongoing debates in postcolonial studies. It analyses the warp and woof of the novelistic text through a cross-sectional scrutiny of the issues of democracy, the poetics of space, the times of empire, nation and globaliza...
This monograph presents a specific experience of modernity within the context of Indian dance by looking at the transcultural journey of Indian dancer / choreographer Uday Shankar (1900b – 1977d). His popularity in Europe and America as an Oriental male dancer in the first half of the 20th century, and his worldwide recognition as the Ambassador of Indian culture, are brought into a historiographical perspective within the cultural and social reforms of early twentieth century India. By exploring his artistic journey beyond India in the period between the two world wars, and his experience of dance making, presentational technique and representation of India through various phases of his life, a path is forged to understanding the emergence of modernity in Indian dance.
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The rulers of the Mughal Empire of India, who reigned from 1526 to 1858, spared no expense as patrons of the arts, particularly painting and music. They left as their legacy an extraordinarily rich body of commissioned artistic projects including illustrated manuscripts and miniature paintings that represent musical instruments, portraits of musicians, and the compositions of ensembles. These images form the basis of Bonnie C. Wade's study of how musicians of Hindustan encountered and Indianized music from the Persian cultural sphere. Imaging Sound is a contribution to many fields in its unique combination of sources and methods: it is the study of musical change; of image-making in the past and the methodological use of images as "texts" in the present; of the role of patronage in the Mughal Empire; and of the development of South Asian culture.
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