Dialogics of Self, the Mahabharata and Culture

Lakshmi Bandlamudi is Professor of Psychology at LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York. Her research and teaching interests are focused on the area of human development, with a special emphasis on dialogic consciousness. She is also the author of a travelogue.

‘There is a lot in this book, and the discussions succeed in illustrating and exploring the complex relationships between individual history and memory, sense of self, cultural background, contemporary cultural location, and textual interpretation.’ —Simon Brodbeck, ‘Relegere: Studies in Religion and Reception’

• Part I. About Theories and Philosophies; 1. Introduction: So What’s the Story and Why This Story?; Part II. About Self; 2. Telling Tales About Lives; 3. Who Tells What Kind of Stories?; Part III. About Memory; 4. The Cultural Scene: Allure of Tales in the Living; 5. Remembering Mahabharata: The Story Telling Time and the Time of the Story; 6. Gendered Memories: The Heroine's Journey in Time; Part IV. About Interpretation; 7. The Reading Act; 8. Readers, Plots, and Discourses; Part V. About Self, Memory and Interpretation; 9. Tales in Lives and Lives in Tales; 10. Reflections on Real Time in Great Time; Appendix I: Tables; Appendix II. Interview Documents; References