Hawley - Böcker

Coined to describe a conservative Protestant Christian movement, the word "fundamentalist" is increasingly applied to a wide range of traditionalist religious movements which stand in reaction against the secularizing forces of modernity. These groups, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Hindu, tend to share an emphasis on "family values" and to denounce those societal trends which lead to increased independence for women. The papers collected in this volume, all previously unpublished, focus on fundamentalist attitudes toward women. Together they reveal that control over women, in terms of sexuality, reproduction, and social and economic roles, is in fact central to the fundamentalist project. Looking in detail at attitudes within four representative groups, the authors suggest that fundamentalist movements are concerned with establishing islands of certainty and control against what is experienced as social and cultural chaos. Control of women becomes the primary "territory" on which this project is acted out. Bringing together the work of such well-known authors as Wayne Proudfoot, Randall Balmer, Peter Awn, and Helen Hardacre, this groundbreaking collection will appeal to those interested in women's issues and comparative fundamentalism.

Surdas is unarguably the best known poet in Vrajbhasha, the most widely understood of the medieval Hindi literary dialects. He is the foremost Hindi poet of Krishna devotion and his verses are canonical in the Krishnaite tradition, which today is particularly vital in Western India. The verses are sung popularly throughout the Hindi-speaking regions. As with most legendary poet-singers in Indian oral tradition, Surdas's authorship has been attributed to a great many verses. In his case, these constitute a very large corpus of devotional lyrics to Krishna, known in Hindi as the Sur Sagar, "Sur's Ocean." In this volume, Jack Hawley offers a selection of his charming translations of the most appealing of these poems, arranged according to such themes as "Krishna growing up," "the pangs and politics of love," and "The Ramayana." Hawley's monumental annotated translation and commentary on the full corpus of lyrics attributed to Surdas, accompanied by Kenneth Bryant's edition of the complete Vrajbhasha text, will be published within the next few years in our South Asia Research series. In the meantime, this abridged edition will appeal to a wide range of scholars and students of Hinduism and Indian culture.