K Narayan
Biographic Data
| ID | 14712 |
|---|---|
| NAME | K Narayan |
| GIVEN NAMES | K |
| FAMILY NAME | Narayan |
| SIGNATURE | NARAYAN K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Wisconsin–Madison |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1237-3149 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 44 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 649 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 43 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1986 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Cult, cosmos, and craft at a Thai art academy
‘Cult, cosmos, and craft at a Thai art academy’ is part of a collective experiment in digital composition published within this double special issue of TAJA. Our aim has been to ignite and enable novel forms of social analysis. We invited contributors to creatively rethink the form of the academic article with us and built a custom-designed website to host the results. All original research contributions in this collection are made up of two part…
Feminist Cyberlaw
This vibrant and visionary reimagining of the field of cyberlaw through a feminist lens brings together emerging and established scholars and practitioners to explore how gender, race, sexuality, disability, class, and the intersections of these identities affect cyberspace and the laws that govern it. It promises to build a movement of scholars whose work charts a near future where cyberlaw is informed by feminism
Meretas Dilema, Ikhtiar Menemukan Cara
Readers of the 'Lost' Purana
The Hindu texts known as caste puranas (jāti purāṇas) provide the mythopolitical foundation for many of India’s castes. These puranas may be said to ‘gather’ a community audience, and such castes themselves may be thought of as object-oriented gatherings whose affective, ideological, and custodial attachments to their respective jati puranas also include the deification of these texts as revered objects. A caste does more than interpret such a pu…
Technophany and Its Publics
The worship of Vishwakarma, a god long associated with India's hereditary artisans and their tools, has achieved new relevance with the rise of industrial capitalism in South Asia. No longer moored solely to artisanal caste interests, worship of the god heralds a range of publics in whichtechnē(crafting, fabricating, or making) is an exalted activity and public concern. Using "technophany" as a conceptual framework, we argue that deifications of …
How a Girl Became a Sacred Plant
Priceless Enthusiasm
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 …
Introduction
This volume on creativity is dedicated to the memory of Victor Turner, an extraordinary ethnographer whose life and work exempli fied the creative processes he wrote about with passion and insight. He seriously reformulated earlier theories about the human signifi cance of play and ritual, and he pioneered in developing the concepts of communitas and liminality. Turner sought out social situations that enhanced full human encounters and understan…
Creativity/Anthropology
Creativity and play erupt in the most solemn of everyday worlds as individuals reshape traditional forms in the light of changing historical circumstances. In this lively volume, fourteen distinguished anthropologists explore the life of creativity in social life across the globe and within the study of ethnography itself. Contributors include Barbara A. Babcock, Edward M. Bruner, James W. Fernandez, Don Handelman, Smadar Lavie, José E. Limon, Ba…
Culture
Tools and world-making in the worship of Vishwakarma
Across India, and much of the rest of South and Southeast Asia as well, \ntools, machines, and other instruments are periodically set down or \nstilled to become the focus of worship. This worship is associated often \n– though not always – with the Hindu deity Vishwakarma, or ‘Maker of \nthe Universe.’ Our essay, based on preliminary ethnographic and archival \nresearch in India, gathers together myths about tools as well as anthropological \nac…
Portrait
Aftermath and amnesia in Gujarat, India (Hurst, 2013)
Collaborative ethnography and a grandfather's stories
Narrating Creative Process
How might stories about making things shed light on cultural theorizations of the creative process work? This essay draws on oral narratives about Vishwakarma the Universe Maker and the ancestral deity of Hindu artisans along with his sons, daughters, and legendary human descendants. In a range of localities, languages, and dialects across India, written and oral myths and legends affirm hereditary artisan castes connections to the divine craftsm…
Alive in the Writing
Or in Other Words”
Revisiting C. Wright Mills' portrayal of grand theory in The Sociological Imagination , I extend his insights to reflect on theory more generally. Mills' critique of Talcott Parsons engages both the conceptual substance and rhetorical style of grand theory. I build on Mills to argue for the value of flexibly moving between (1) levels of generality and (2) registers of language, when using theory. Folklorists acquire theory from interactions in fi…
Moving Stories
Brown eyes fizzing with mischief, a giant smile creasing her angular face, Vidhya twisted from side to side. She mimed Charity’s search for the crow, scanning the courtyard; the whitewashed stand for the sacred basil plant, the plastic chair and the low orange rim of marigold bushes. Then she laughed, throwing out a palm towards me. I touched her palm, sharing in the joke. This was 1994, and I had been visiting the Himalayan foothill region of Ka…
Tools to Shape Texts
Drawing on the storytelling techniques of fiction to write about real events, creative nonfiction is a flourishing literary movement. This article examines how attention to the craft of creative nonfiction is potentially useful to ethnography. I present a few practical tools that may help ethnographers seeking to shape the materials of fieldwork: story, situation, persona, character, scene, and summary. I also ponder how to include background mat…
The Ethnographic I
The Ethnographic I:. Methodological Novel about Autoethnography. Carolyn Ellis. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2004. 448 pp
Eight Words for the Study of Expressive Culture
Personal and Folk Narrative as Cultural Representation
Ethnography and Fiction
This article seeks to identify writing practices that indicate the presence of a border between ethnography and fiction. I trace a short history of anthropologists writing fiction and draw on a short extract from a novel I am writing that was inspired byfieldwork. Writing ethnographic texts and writing fiction, I argue, involves different perspectives on (1) the disclosure of process, (2) generalization, (3) representations of subjectivity, and (…
Love, Stars and All That
Love, Stars and All That. By K i r i n Narayan. New York: Pocket Books, 1994. 311 pages. $20.00 paper. Love, Stars and All That. Kirin Narayan. New York: Pocket Books,, 1994.311 pages. $20.00 paper. John Muthyala John Muthyala Loyola University, Chicago Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar MELUS, Volume 23, Issue 2, June 1998, Pages 205–206, https://doi.org/10.2307/468021 Published: 01 June 1998
La actividad de la OPS en el campo de las enfermedades no transmisibles
Mindful of the increasing predominance of noncommunicable diseases in Latin America and the Caribbean, PAHO's activities in this area are geared toward strengthening the ability of the Organization to support prevention and control initiatives in the Member States. This effort is led by the Program on Noncommunicable Diseases (HCN), which advises and assists the countries in the adoption of policies, strategies, and feasible and cost-effective pr…
Songs Lodged in Some Hearts
How Native Is a "Native" Anthropologist
Peer-reviewed
Alive in the Writing
Creativity/Anthropology
Creativity and play erupt in the most solemn of everyday worlds as individuals reshape traditional forms in the light of changing historical circumstances. In this lively volume, fourteen distinguished anthropologists explore the life of creativity in social life across the globe and within the study of ethnography itself. Contributors include Barbara A. Babcock, Edward M. Bruner, James W. Fernandez, Don Handelman, Smadar Lavie, José E. Limon, Ba…
Ethnography and Fiction
This article seeks to identify writing practices that indicate the presence of a border between ethnography and fiction. I trace a short history of anthropologists writing fiction and draw on a short extract from a novel I am writing that was inspired byfieldwork. Writing ethnographic texts and writing fiction, I argue, involves different perspectives on (1) the disclosure of process, (2) generalization, (3) representations of subjectivity, and (…
Refractions of the Field at Home
December, 1985: A man squats on a bed of nails. Head turned sideways, he grins out of the smudged greys and blacks of the newspaper page. His matted hair is wound like a turban above his bearded face, and his bare limbs are smeared with ash. "Some people could care less about the cushioning in the 735," proclaims a caption above his head. Beside him, positioned at the same angle as his bare feet, is a running shoe identified as the New Balance 73…
Birds on a Branch
Friendship is a recurrent theme in women's wedding songs of Kangra, \na valley at the base of the Himalayas in northwest India. Unmarried \ngirlfriends are bonded through the performance of these \nsongs and are celebrated in the texts. This essay addresses the intersection \nof friendship, a folklore genre, and a life cycle transition \nfor women in Kangra. Centering my discussion around images of \nfriends in suhāg wedding songs, I will focus o…
The Practice of Oral Literary Criticism
Des 1966, A. Dundes affirmait la necessite de considerer la critique litteraire orale, les sens attribues aux textes folkloriques par les personnes les utilisant. L'A. evalue la formulation originale de Dundes a la lumiere des contributions qui l'ont suivie, en les appliquant a la recherche sur les chants des femmes a Kangra au Nord de l'Inde. Honorer les propres interpretations des personnes interessees sur leur culture entraine d'importantes im…
Banana Republics and V. I. Degrees
In the history of scholarship on folklore in India, little attention has been directed \ntowards the relationship between folklore and social change. This paper reviews \nBritish-based folklore studies in India, identifying a paradigm of self-contained \npeasant authenticity that viewed references to changing social realities as adulterations \nthat must be edited out. It then contrasts such suppressions of change with \nthe conscious revamping o…
The Ethnographic I
The Ethnographic I:. Methodological Novel about Autoethnography. Carolyn Ellis. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2004. 448 pp
Priceless Enthusiasm
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 …
Tools and world-making in the worship of Vishwakarma
Across India, and much of the rest of South and Southeast Asia as well, \ntools, machines, and other instruments are periodically set down or \nstilled to become the focus of worship. This worship is associated often \n– though not always – with the Hindu deity Vishwakarma, or ‘Maker of \nthe Universe.’ Our essay, based on preliminary ethnographic and archival \nresearch in India, gathers together myths about tools as well as anthropological \nac…
Technophany and Its Publics
The worship of Vishwakarma, a god long associated with India's hereditary artisans and their tools, has achieved new relevance with the rise of industrial capitalism in South Asia. No longer moored solely to artisanal caste interests, worship of the god heralds a range of publics in whichtechnē(crafting, fabricating, or making) is an exalted activity and public concern. Using "technophany" as a conceptual framework, we argue that deifications of …
Culture
Gender and Power in South Asian Expressive Traditions
Gender and Power in South Asian Expressive Traditions. Arjun Appadurai. Frank J. Korom. and Margaret A. Mills. eds. South Asia Seminar Series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991. 486 pp
Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels
Black American Street Life
Birds on a Branch
Friendship is a recurrent theme in women's wedding songs of Kangra, \na valley at the base of the Himalayas in northwest India. Unmarried \ngirlfriends are bonded through the performance of these \nsongs and are celebrated in the texts. This essay addresses the intersection \nof friendship, a folklore genre, and a life cycle transition \nfor women in Kangra. Centering my discussion around images of \nfriends in suhāg wedding songs, I will focus o…
Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels
Black American Street Life
Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels
Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels
Divine Passions
Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels
Banana Republics and V. I. Degrees
In the history of scholarship on folklore in India, little attention has been directed \ntowards the relationship between folklore and social change. This paper reviews \nBritish-based folklore studies in India, identifying a paradigm of self-contained \npeasant authenticity that viewed references to changing social realities as adulterations \nthat must be edited out. It then contrasts such suppressions of change with \nthe conscious revamping o…
Net of Magic. Wonders and Deceptions in India
Refractions of the Field at Home
December, 1985: A man squats on a bed of nails. Head turned sideways, he grins out of the smudged greys and blacks of the newspaper page. His matted hair is wound like a turban above his bearded face, and his bare limbs are smeared with ash. "Some people could care less about the cushioning in the 735," proclaims a caption above his head. Beside him, positioned at the same angle as his bare feet, is a running shoe identified as the New Balance 73…
How Native Is a "Native" Anthropologist
Peer-reviewed
Creativity/Anthropology
Gender and Power in South Asian Expressive Traditions
Gender and Power in South Asian Expressive Traditions. Arjun Appadurai. Frank J. Korom. and Margaret A. Mills. eds. South Asia Seminar Series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991. 486 pp
The Assembly of Listeners
Vanishing Ethnographers
Photo Wallahs. 1992. 60 minutes, color. A film by David and Judith MacDougall. For information contact the University of California Extension Center for Media and Independent Learning, 2000 Center Street, Fourth Floor, Berkeley, CA 94704, 510-642-0460
Come Out and Serve
Peer-reviewed
Cassette Culture
The Practice of Oral Literary Criticism
Des 1966, A. Dundes affirmait la necessite de considerer la critique litteraire orale, les sens attribues aux textes folkloriques par les personnes les utilisant. L'A. evalue la formulation originale de Dundes a la lumiere des contributions qui l'ont suivie, en les appliquant a la recherche sur les chants des femmes a Kangra au Nord de l'Inde. Honorer les propres interpretations des personnes interessees sur leur culture entraine d'importantes im…
Overlapping Endeavors
Alma Gottlieb and Philip Graham. Parallel Worlds: An Anthropologist and. Writer Discover Africa. New York: Crown, 1993. xix. 324 pp
Songs Lodged in Some Hearts
La actividad de la OPS en el campo de las enfermedades no transmisibles
Mindful of the increasing predominance of noncommunicable diseases in Latin America and the Caribbean, PAHO's activities in this area are geared toward strengthening the ability of the Organization to support prevention and control initiatives in the Member States. This effort is led by the Program on Noncommunicable Diseases (HCN), which advises and assists the countries in the adoption of policies, strategies, and feasible and cost-effective pr…
Love, Stars and All That
Love, Stars and All That. By K i r i n Narayan. New York: Pocket Books, 1994. 311 pages. $20.00 paper. Love, Stars and All That. Kirin Narayan. New York: Pocket Books,, 1994.311 pages. $20.00 paper. John Muthyala John Muthyala Loyola University, Chicago Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar MELUS, Volume 23, Issue 2, June 1998, Pages 205–206, https://doi.org/10.2307/468021 Published: 01 June 1998
Ethnography and Fiction
This article seeks to identify writing practices that indicate the presence of a border between ethnography and fiction. I trace a short history of anthropologists writing fiction and draw on a short extract from a novel I am writing that was inspired byfieldwork. Writing ethnographic texts and writing fiction, I argue, involves different perspectives on (1) the disclosure of process, (2) generalization, (3) representations of subjectivity, and (…
Personal and Folk Narrative as Cultural Representation
Eight Words for the Study of Expressive Culture
Art (26 works) · Sociology (25 works) · History (20 works) · Philosophy (16 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (12 works) · Anthropology (10 works) · Literature (10 works) · Art history (9 works) · History (9 works) · Political science (9 works)