Given to the Goddess

South Indian Devadasis and the Sexuality of Religion

Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, Eastern Religions, Hinduism, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Anthropology, Gender Studies
Cover of the book Given to the Goddess by Lucinda Ramberg, Duke University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Lucinda Ramberg ISBN: 9780822376415
Publisher: Duke University Press Publication: September 17, 2014
Imprint: Duke University Press Books Language: English
Author: Lucinda Ramberg
ISBN: 9780822376415
Publisher: Duke University Press
Publication: September 17, 2014
Imprint: Duke University Press Books
Language: English

Who and what are marriage and sex for? Whose practices and which ways of talking to god can count as religion? Lucinda Ramberg considers these questions based upon two years of ethnographic research on an ongoing South Indian practice of dedication in which girls, and sometimes boys, are married to a goddess. Called devadasis, or jogatis, those dedicated become female and male women who conduct the rites of the goddess outside the walls of her main temple and transact in sex outside the bounds of conjugal matrimony. Marriage to the goddess, as well as the rites that the dedication ceremony authorizes jogatis to perform, have long been seen as illegitimate and criminalized. Kinship with the goddess is productive for the families who dedicate their children, Ramberg argues, and yet it cannot conform to modern conceptions of gender, family, or religion. This nonconformity, she suggests, speaks to the limitations of modern categories, as well as to the possibilities of relations—between and among humans and deities—that exceed such categories.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Who and what are marriage and sex for? Whose practices and which ways of talking to god can count as religion? Lucinda Ramberg considers these questions based upon two years of ethnographic research on an ongoing South Indian practice of dedication in which girls, and sometimes boys, are married to a goddess. Called devadasis, or jogatis, those dedicated become female and male women who conduct the rites of the goddess outside the walls of her main temple and transact in sex outside the bounds of conjugal matrimony. Marriage to the goddess, as well as the rites that the dedication ceremony authorizes jogatis to perform, have long been seen as illegitimate and criminalized. Kinship with the goddess is productive for the families who dedicate their children, Ramberg argues, and yet it cannot conform to modern conceptions of gender, family, or religion. This nonconformity, she suggests, speaks to the limitations of modern categories, as well as to the possibilities of relations—between and among humans and deities—that exceed such categories.

More books from Duke University Press

Cover of the book Cosmopolitanism by Lucinda Ramberg
Cover of the book Jameson on Jameson by Lucinda Ramberg
Cover of the book Working Like a Homosexual by Lucinda Ramberg
Cover of the book Metroimperial Intimacies by Lucinda Ramberg
Cover of the book Lessons of Romanticism by Lucinda Ramberg
Cover of the book The Revolution Has Come by Lucinda Ramberg
Cover of the book High Tech and High Heels in the Global Economy by Lucinda Ramberg
Cover of the book Che's Travels by Lucinda Ramberg
Cover of the book Image Matters by Lucinda Ramberg
Cover of the book Undoing Monogamy by Lucinda Ramberg
Cover of the book Undead TV by Lucinda Ramberg
Cover of the book Blacktino Queer Performance by Lucinda Ramberg
Cover of the book The Borders of Dominicanidad by Lucinda Ramberg
Cover of the book Writing Without Words by Lucinda Ramberg
Cover of the book Anthropology and Social Theory by Lucinda Ramberg
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy