Description: The essays investigate the images of women and femininity found in the traditions of the Marathi language region of India, Maharashtra, and how these images contradict the actualities of women's lives.
Brief description: Anne Feldhaus is Professor of Religious Studies at Arizona State University. She has published several books, including Water and Womanhood: Religious Meanings of Rivers in Maharashtra.
Review Quotes:
"Many fine and illuminating never-before published translations from the Marathi (especially the poetry and folk epics) are provided in this book. Among South Asia scholars, Maharashtra is well-known to be one of India's most significant 'culture-producing' areas. That is to say, many influential movements and leaders have had their roots in this region. It is moreover a region of special significance to many of India's Hindus, because of its long resistance to Moghul and then to British rule during the seventeenth and earlier eighteenth centuries. Despite this significance, it has until recently been a surprisingly under-studied region, especially in Western countries." -- Nancy Auer Falk, Western Michigan University
"While focusing on one geographical and linguistic area of India, the book covers a range of approaches. The contributors cite either sound literary evidence or sociological facts to back their arguments. I do not read Marathi myself, but I found the translations of verses fresh and pleasant." -- Nalini Devdas, Carleton University
"We lack any sustained treatment of images of women in Maharashtra. The book will join other region-based studies on women that have already appeared (on Rajasthan, Tamilnadu, Bengal, etc.) to provide a more nuanced understanding of literary images, women's rites and lore, and gender ideology in South Asia." -- Kathryn Hansen, National Endowment for the Humanities