Research Catalog

Title

When the world becomes female : guises of a South Indian goddess / Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger.

Author

Flueckiger, Joyce Burkhalter.

Publication

Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 2013.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xvi, 314 pages : illustrations; 23 cm

Summary

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 o.

Uniform Title

Project Muse UPCC books

Subject

• Gangamma (Hindu deity) > Cult > India > Tirupati
• Worship (Hinduism)
• Tirupati (India) > Religion

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

An aesthetics of excess -- Guising, transformation, recognition, and possibility -- Narratives of excess and access -- Female-narrated possibilities of relationship -- Gangamma as Ganga river goddess -- Wandering goddess, village daughter : Avilala Reddys -- Temple and vesham mirasi : the Kaikalas of Tirupati -- The goddess served and lost : Tatayyagunta Mudaliars -- Exchanging talis with the goddess : protection and freedom to move -- "Crazy for the goddess" : a consuming relationship -- Possibilities of a world become female.

ISBN

• 9780253009524 (cloth : alk. paper)
• 0253009529 (cloth : alk. paper)
• 9780253009562 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• 0253009561 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• 9780253009609 (e-book) (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

^^2012051547

OCLC

• 811006515
• SCSB-12914264

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library