The Cow in the Elevator
An Anthropology of Wonder
Price: 950.00 INR
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ISBN:
9780199487790
Publication date:
10/10/2018
Paperback
292 pages
Price: 950.00 INR
We sell our titles through other companies
Disclaimer :You will be redirected to a third party website.The sole responsibility of supplies, condition of the product, availability of stock, date of delivery, mode of payment will be as promised by the said third party only. Prices and specifications may vary from the OUP India site.
ISBN:
9780199487790
Publication date:
10/10/2018
Paperback
292 pages
Tulasi Srinivas
In The Cow in the Elevator Tulasi Srinivas explores a wonderful world where deities jump fences and priests ride in helicopters to present a joyful, imaginative, yet critical reading of modern religious life. Drawing on nearly two decades of fieldwork with priests, residents, and devotees, and her own experience of living in the high-tech city of Bangalore, Srinivas finds moments where ritual enmeshes with global modernity to create wonder—a feeling of amazement at being overcome by the unexpected and sublime.
Rights: SOUTH ASIA RIGHTS (RESTRICTED)
Tulasi Srinivas
Description
In The Cow in the Elevator Tulasi Srinivas explores a wonderful world where deities jump fences and priests ride in helicopters to present a joyful, imaginative, yet critical reading of modern religious life. Drawing on nearly two decades of fieldwork with priests, residents, and devotees, and her own experience of living in the high-tech city of Bangalore, Srinivas finds moments where ritual enmeshes with global modernity to create wonder—a feeling of amazement at being overcome by the unexpected and sublime. Offering a nuanced account of how the ruptures of modernity can be made normal, enrapturing, and even comical in a city swept up in globalization’s tumult, Srinivas brings the visceral richness of wonder—apparent in creative ritual in and around Hindu temples—into the anthropological gaze. Broaching provocative philosophical themes like desire, complicity, loss, time, money, technology, and the imagination, Srinivas pursues an interrogation of wonder and the adventure of writing true to its experience. The Cow in the Elevator rethinks the study of ritual while reshaping our appreciation of wonder’s transformative potential for scholarship and for life.
Tulasi Srinivas
Table of contents
A Note on Translation ·
Acknowledgments·
O Wonderful! ·
Introduction. WONDER, CREATIVITY, AND ETHICAL LIFE IN BANGALORE ·
Cranes in the Sky ·
Wondering about Wonder
Modern Fractures ·
Of Bangalore’s Boomtown Bourgeoisie ·
My Guides into Wonder
Going Forward ·
One. ADVENTURES IN MODERN DWELLING ·
The Cow in the Elevator ·
Grounded Wonder
And Ungrounded Wonder
Back to Earth
Memorialized Cartography ·
“Dead-Endu” Ganesha ·
Earthen Prayers and Black Money ·
Moving Marble ·
Building Wonder
Interlude.
Into the abyss ·
Two. PASSIONATE JOURNEYS: FROM AESTHETICS TO ETHICS ·
The Wandering Gods ·
Waiting ·
Moral Mobility ·
Gliding Swans and Bucking Horses ·
The Pain of Cleaving ·
And the Angry God ·
Full Tension! ·
Adjustments and . . . ·
Ethical Wonders
Interlude.
Up in the skyye ·
Three. IN GOD WE TRUST: ECONOMIES OF WONDER
AND PHILOSOPHIES OF DEBT ·
A Treasure Trove ·
Twinkling “Excess” ·
The Golden Calf ·
A Promise of Plenitude ·
“Mintingu” and “Minchingu” ·
Being Poor ·
“Cashacarda?” Philosophies of Debt ·
Soiled Money and the Makings of Distrust ·
The Limits of Wonder
Four. TECHNOLOGIES OF WONDER
Animatronic Devi ·
Deus Ex Machina ·
The New in Bangalore ·
The Mythical Garuda-Helicopter
Envisioning the Sublime ·
Drums of Contention ·
Capturing Divine Biometrics ·
Archiving the Divine ·
Technologies of Capture ·
FaceTiming God ·
Wonder of Wonders
Five. TIMELESS IMPERATIVES,
OBSOLESCENCE, AND SALVAGE ·
“Times have Changed” ·
The Untimeliness of Modernity ·
Avvelle and Ritu ·
Slipping Away ·
When Wonder Fails ·
Time Lords ·
Dripping Time ·
The Urgency of the Now ·
The Future, the Past, and the Immortal Present
Conclusion. A PLACE FOR RADICAL HOPE ·
Radical Hope ·
Thresholds of Possibility ·
Toward an Anthropology of Wonder ·
Afterword:
The Tenacity of Hope ·
Notes ·
References ·
Index ·
Tulasi Srinivas
Features
- Critical reading of modern religious life
- Offers a nuanced account of how the ruptures of modernity can be made normal, enrapturing, and even comical in global urban spaces
- Brings the visceral richness of wonder into the anthropological gaze
Tulasi Srinivas
Review
‘This path-breaking book is about the politics of wonder in the ritual life of a Hindu neighbourhood in a major Indian city. The book itself is a wondrously written treatment of the saturation of neoliberal lives by a radical cosmology of performance, affect, and technicity through which ritual life transfigures the pains and puzzles of modernity. It should be read by all students of ritual, affect, and emergent practices of globalization.’
—ARJUN APPADURAI, author of Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger
‘Brilliant and erudite, The Cow in the Elevator emerges from Tulasi Srinivas’s long-term commitment to making sense of religious life in urbanizing, high-tech India. With ethnographic verve and a keen ear for diverse voices, Srinivas tells lively stories of the Hindu priests and devotees who improvise on existing ritual forms in contemporary Bangalore. Theorizing the human need for wonder and exploring how ritual may generate wonder in changing circumstances, The Cow in the Elevator is a wondrous book.’
—KIRIN NARAYAN, author of Everyday Creativity:Singing Goddesses in the Himalayan Foothills
Description
In The Cow in the Elevator Tulasi Srinivas explores a wonderful world where deities jump fences and priests ride in helicopters to present a joyful, imaginative, yet critical reading of modern religious life. Drawing on nearly two decades of fieldwork with priests, residents, and devotees, and her own experience of living in the high-tech city of Bangalore, Srinivas finds moments where ritual enmeshes with global modernity to create wonder—a feeling of amazement at being overcome by the unexpected and sublime. Offering a nuanced account of how the ruptures of modernity can be made normal, enrapturing, and even comical in a city swept up in globalization’s tumult, Srinivas brings the visceral richness of wonder—apparent in creative ritual in and around Hindu temples—into the anthropological gaze. Broaching provocative philosophical themes like desire, complicity, loss, time, money, technology, and the imagination, Srinivas pursues an interrogation of wonder and the adventure of writing true to its experience. The Cow in the Elevator rethinks the study of ritual while reshaping our appreciation of wonder’s transformative potential for scholarship and for life.
Read MoreReviews
‘This path-breaking book is about the politics of wonder in the ritual life of a Hindu neighbourhood in a major Indian city. The book itself is a wondrously written treatment of the saturation of neoliberal lives by a radical cosmology of performance, affect, and technicity through which ritual life transfigures the pains and puzzles of modernity. It should be read by all students of ritual, affect, and emergent practices of globalization.’
—ARJUN APPADURAI, author of Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger
‘Brilliant and erudite, The Cow in the Elevator emerges from Tulasi Srinivas’s long-term commitment to making sense of religious life in urbanizing, high-tech India. With ethnographic verve and a keen ear for diverse voices, Srinivas tells lively stories of the Hindu priests and devotees who improvise on existing ritual forms in contemporary Bangalore. Theorizing the human need for wonder and exploring how ritual may generate wonder in changing circumstances, The Cow in the Elevator is a wondrous book.’
—KIRIN NARAYAN, author of Everyday Creativity:Singing Goddesses in the Himalayan Foothills
Table of contents
A Note on Translation ·
Acknowledgments·
O Wonderful! ·
Introduction. WONDER, CREATIVITY, AND ETHICAL LIFE IN BANGALORE ·
Cranes in the Sky ·
Wondering about Wonder
Modern Fractures ·
Of Bangalore’s Boomtown Bourgeoisie ·
My Guides into Wonder
Going Forward ·
One. ADVENTURES IN MODERN DWELLING ·
The Cow in the Elevator ·
Grounded Wonder
And Ungrounded Wonder
Back to Earth
Memorialized Cartography ·
“Dead-Endu” Ganesha ·
Earthen Prayers and Black Money ·
Moving Marble ·
Building Wonder
Interlude.
Into the abyss ·
Two. PASSIONATE JOURNEYS: FROM AESTHETICS TO ETHICS ·
The Wandering Gods ·
Waiting ·
Moral Mobility ·
Gliding Swans and Bucking Horses ·
The Pain of Cleaving ·
And the Angry God ·
Full Tension! ·
Adjustments and . . . ·
Ethical Wonders
Interlude.
Up in the skyye ·
Three. IN GOD WE TRUST: ECONOMIES OF WONDER
AND PHILOSOPHIES OF DEBT ·
A Treasure Trove ·
Twinkling “Excess” ·
The Golden Calf ·
A Promise of Plenitude ·
“Mintingu” and “Minchingu” ·
Being Poor ·
“Cashacarda?” Philosophies of Debt ·
Soiled Money and the Makings of Distrust ·
The Limits of Wonder
Four. TECHNOLOGIES OF WONDER
Animatronic Devi ·
Deus Ex Machina ·
The New in Bangalore ·
The Mythical Garuda-Helicopter
Envisioning the Sublime ·
Drums of Contention ·
Capturing Divine Biometrics ·
Archiving the Divine ·
Technologies of Capture ·
FaceTiming God ·
Wonder of Wonders
Five. TIMELESS IMPERATIVES,
OBSOLESCENCE, AND SALVAGE ·
“Times have Changed” ·
The Untimeliness of Modernity ·
Avvelle and Ritu ·
Slipping Away ·
When Wonder Fails ·
Time Lords ·
Dripping Time ·
The Urgency of the Now ·
The Future, the Past, and the Immortal Present
Conclusion. A PLACE FOR RADICAL HOPE ·
Radical Hope ·
Thresholds of Possibility ·
Toward an Anthropology of Wonder ·
Afterword:
The Tenacity of Hope ·
Notes ·
References ·
Index ·
