Description: Rev. ed. of: The Marriage of Hindu widows. 1976.
Brief description: Brian Hatcher is professor of theology at Tufts University. He is the author of Vidyasagar The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian (Routledge 2014), Bourgeois Hinduism, or Faith of the Modern Vedantists: Rare Discourses from Early Colonial Bengal (Oxford, 2008), Eclecticism and Modern Hindu Discourse (Oxford, 1999), and others.
Review Quotes: Hindu Widow Marriage threw down a major challenge to popular attitudes about the destinies of widows. It was both denounced by traditionalists and embraced by reformers. In his translation of and extensive introduction to Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar's text and context, Brian A. Hatcher brings to life the contentious debates within Calcutta's emerging middle class about how a modern world can be embraced within the framework of an enduring tradition. This book is a masterful contribution to our understanding of how traditional textual authority, prevailing social practices, and the pressures of colonialism collided and brought into being a religious and cultural world that was both in continuity with and a departure from the past.--Paul Courtright, Emory University, coeditor of From the Margins of Hindu Marriage: Essays on Gender, Religion, and Culture