E. Valentine Daniel
Fluid Signs
Being a Person the Tamil Way
$26.95, £15.95 paperback
978-0-520-06167-5
Available Now
215 pages, 5-1/2 x 8-1/4 inches,
September 1987, Available worldwide
Categories: Anthropology; Anthropology
September 1987, Available worldwide
Categories: Anthropology; Anthropology
"Daniel is brilliant, and this work is the product of all his powers of imagination and expression. He is also a flawless scholar: bilingual, so that his translations are accurate; gifted, so that they are charming; well-read, so that his discussions are set in the full context of previous scholarship; and very, very funny, so that his depictions of the quandaries of his informants, as well as himself, are a joy to read."—Wendy O'Flaherty
Fluid Signs is the product of anthropological fieldwork carried out among Tamil-speaking villagers in a Hindu village in Southern India. Combining a richness of ethnographic detail with a challenging and innovative theoretical analysis, Daniel argues that symbolic anthropologists have yet to appreciate the multifaceted function of the sign and its role in the creation of culture. This provocative study underscores the need for Western intellectual traditions in general and anthropology in particular to deepen its discourse with South Asian cultural and religious thought.
Culture/Contexture: Explorations in Anthropology and Literary Studies, by E. Valentine Daniel and Jeffrey M. Peck, editors
Mistrusting Refugees, by E. Valentine Daniel and John Chr. Knudsen, editors
Passions of the Tongue: Language Devotion in Tamil India, 1891–1970, by Sumathi Ramaswamy
Notes on Love in a Tamil Family, by Margaret Trawick
Mistrusting Refugees, by E. Valentine Daniel and John Chr. Knudsen, editors
Passions of the Tongue: Language Devotion in Tamil India, 1891–1970, by Sumathi Ramaswamy
Notes on Love in a Tamil Family, by Margaret Trawick