The Cow in the Elevator: An Anthropology of Wonder

Tulasi Srinivas

Published by Duke University Press 2018

The Cow in the Elevator

An Anthropology of Wonder

Tulasi Srinivas

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822371922

Overview
Contents

About this book

Tulasi Srinivas uses the concept of wonder—feelings of amazement at being overcome by the unexpected and sublime—to examine how residents of Banglore, India pursue wonder by practicing Hindu religious rituals as a way to accept and resist neoliberal capitalism.

Author / Editor information

Tulasi Srinivas is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies at Emerson College, author of Winged Faith: Rethinking Globalization and Religious Pluralism through the Sathya Sai Movement, and coeditor of Curried Cultures: Globalization, Food, and South Asia.

Reviews

"[The Cow in the Elevator] teased me into questioning what Srinivas has so beautifully and chillingly thought through for decades—wonder as an ethical practice."

-- Dhruv Ramnath The Citizen

"Srinivas provides a lively lesson in religious originality with applications and implications far beyond Bangalore or India."

-- Jack David Eller Reading Religion

"The central contribution of this book is its presentation of wonder as a new category of anthropological inquiry, and its interdisciplinary approach of parsing wonder from the vantage points of ritual and liturgical lives, socioeconomics, and aesthetic and creative spheres. Srinivas’s deployment of these specific categories by no means limits its readers; on the contrary, the book inspires readers to revisit their own field experiences, and look for the moments of wonder."

-- Arthi Devarajan Anthropology News

"Tulasi Srinivas does us a service in identifying important insights arising from her study of ritual practice that will help us to better understand wonder. Hopefully, her work will prompt other scholars to use an anthropological approach to better understand the dynamics of wonder from the perspective of the interlocutors they study."

-- Steve Derné Asian Anthropology

"The Cow in the Elevator captures in lovely detail and theory-rich rumination, the evolution and dynamism of Hindu ritualism in modern Bangalore, calling attention to the unstable and creative dimensions of ritual, and the ethical possibilities and challenges it opens up within this rapidly changing city. Scholars of Hinduism and South Asian urbanism will find much to ponder in this book, as will anthropologists interested in ritual theory and practice."

-- Andrew C. Willford Pacific Affairs

"I treasure The Cow in the Elevator for its sparkle and its positive news about hope and creativity in often bleak circumstances. Rich in original analytic insights, this book is not a tidy package but a cornucopia from which all kinds of sweet and bitter products may be extracted, tasted, consumed, and transformed: high-powered caloric fuel for interpretive intellectual energies. . . . Daring, insightful, and highly engaging, The Cow in the Elevator offers so much that its capacity to provoke unanswered questions in no way detracts from its invaluable qualities. Certainly, no other book on religion in urban India so effectively conveys the ways that ritual excess works wonders."

-- Ann Grodzins Gold American Ethnologist

"In this intriguing and richly-textured book, Tulasi Srinivas immerses us in the world of contemporary Hindu ritual practice in Malleshwaram, a suburb of the South Indian city of Bangalore. . . . The Cow in the Elevator is a deeply insightful work that offers us a glimpse of the creativity and wonder that sustain Hindu ritual life in the concrete jungles of modern, neoliberal India."

-- Tracy Pintchman Anthropos

"I found much of value in this book. . . . The writing displays a lively sense of wonder. The autoethnography is deft, and the homage to M. N. Srinivas, as father and anthropologist, very moving."

-- Soumhya Venkatesan Anthropological Quarterly

"A stunning and provocative book.… Srinivas's experienced and eloquent prose gives this book a rare combination of provocativeness and accessibility.… The Cow in the Elevator provides an intensely real and nuanced account of urban life in the twenty-first century."

-- Deonni Moodie The Revealer

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
A Note on Translation Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Acknowledgments Tulasi Srinivas Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
O Wonderful! Publicly Available Download PDF	xix
INTRODUCTION. WONDER, CREATIVITY, AND ETHICAL LIFE IN BANGALORE Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
ONE. ADVENTURES IN MODERN DWELLING Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	34
INTERLUDE: INTO THE ABYSS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	58
TWO. PASSIONATE JOURNEYS: FROM AESTHETICS TO ETHICS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	60
INTERLUDE. UP IN THE SKYE Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	95
THREE. IN GOD WE TRUST: ECONOMIES OF WONDER AND PHILOSOPHIES OF DEBT Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
FOUR. TECHNOLOGIES OF WONDER Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	138
FIVE. TIMELESS IMPERATIVES, OBSOLESCENCE, AND SALVAGE Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	172
CONCLUSION. A PLACE FOR RADICAL HOPE Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	206
AFTERWORD: THE TENACITY OF HOPE Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	216
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	219
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	265

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 296
Illustrations
- Other: 29 illustrations

eBook

Published: May 10, 2018
ISBN: 9780822371922