Landscapes of Urban Memory

The Sacred and the Civic in India's High-Tech City

Smriti Srinivas author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:University of Minnesota Press

Published:10th Aug '01

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Landscapes of Urban Memory cover

A rich analysis of religion, civic life, and global transformation in India.

Established in the middle of the sixteenth century, Bangalore has today become a center for high-technology research and production, the new “Silicon Valley” of India, with a metropolitan population approaching six million. It is also the site of the very popular annual performance called the “Karaga” dedicated to Draupadi, the polyandrous wife of the heroes of the pan-Indian epic of the Mahabharata.

Through her analysis of this performance and its significance for the sense of the civic in Bangalore, Smriti Srinivas shows how constructions of locality and globality emerge from existing cultural milieus and how articulations of the urban are modes of cultural self-invention tied to historical, spatial, somatic, and ritual practices. The book highlights cultural practices embedded in urbanization, and moves beyond economistic arguments about globalization or their reliance on the European polis or the American metropolis as models.

Drawing from urban studies, sociology, anthropology, performance studies, religion, and history, Landscapes of Urban Memory greatly expands our understanding of how the civic is constructed.

ISBN: 9780816636167

Dimensions: 229mm x 149mm x 23mm

Weight: unknown

360 pages