Writing Identities: Folklore and Performative Arts of Purulia, Bengal
Chatterji, Roma
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PRODUCT DETAILS
Book ID : 35083
ISBN-10 : 81-7305-378-2 / 8173053782
ISBN-13 : 978-81-7305-378-8 / 9788173053788
Place
of Publication :
Delhi
Year
of Publication :
2009
Edition : (First Edition)
Language : English
xxii, 125p., Figs., Plates, Illus., App., Bib., Index, 23 cm.
CONTENTS
CONTENTS:- Preface. Acknowledgements. Note on transliteration. 1. The Chho dance and the public sphere. 2. Between myth and history: the making of a Goddess tradition. 3. Jhumur and the aesthetics of folk poetry. 4. Feminine figures in narrative forms. 5. Conclusion: folklore and border crossings.
DESCRIPTION
This work attempts a historiography exploration of Bengali folkloristic through some of the per formative traditions of Purulia. Positioned outside the mainstream of Bengal's culture and society, Purulia has traditionally been characterized as her 'primitive' alter. Folklorists have played no small part in reinforcing this image by selecting precisely those genres for analysis that best conform to this image. An unintended consequence of such selective representation is that the forms come to mirror scholarly descriptions about them over time. Thus the chho dance, described as a 'tribal war dance' by Ashutosh Bhattacharya, the doyen of Bengali folkloristic, has come to acquire this image losing some of its subtlety and local nuance in the process. But as a 'tribal dance' it has also acquired greater visibility than some of the other dance forms in this region. Folklorists are sensitive to the changes that the introduction of new media bring to traditional forms of performance. However, they are less conscious about the changes wrought by their own writings. By describing' the different representations of community and society in the writings on folk culture and in tracking some of the trajectories of their circulation in the public sphere the author shows how Purulia is re-constituted as a folkloric region.
