About this episode
The episode explores the intersection of gender, culture, and spirituality through the lens of goddesses and their influence in society.
How do you look at women? Do Goddesses follow Gods? Is the ultimate Reality an ‘It’? What’s the relationship between matter and energy? Are dualities necessarily conflictual? Is Eve inferior to Adam? Where do the Cosmos and the Body intersect? How did the sacred geography of the subcontinent evolve? Do Goddesses have an influence on the lives of men (& kings) & women? Where/how did patriarchy exist? How did Ramabai become Pandita Ramabai? What did the colonial encounter do to the archetypes of Goddesses? How did the early literary women appropriate the Goddesses? Is (only) education responsible for empowerment? Is Vishnu’s primal inner energy essentially female? Who is capable of hedonistic bloodlust? What invoked the wrath of Nanda Devi? Are male and female in a union like speech and meaning? What is evil? Or, dirty? Did women have a voice in pre-Colonial ‘India’? What are your models for feminism? How do courtesans become poet saints and Goddesses? How did the tribal women of India ‘transform a priest’? What might indigenous feminism look like? &, what is the future of the several goddesses & the little (folk) traditions? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas…
People in this episode
Guests: Dr. Bihani Sarkar, Prof. Sachidananda Mohanty, Dr. M.D. Muthukumaraswamy
Topics covered
- feminism
- goddesses
- patriarchy
- cultural studies
- literature
Keywords
- sacred geography
- colonial encounter
- indigenous feminism
- empowerment
- courtesans
Mentioned in this episode
Places: India, Shimla, Chennai, Lancaster
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