Background
Doniger, Wendy was born on November 20, 1940 in New York City. Daughter of Lester L. and Rita (Roth) Doniger.
(At this time of heightened political sensitivities, it ma...)
At this time of heightened political sensitivities, it may seem impossible to make serious comparisons among different cultures. And at a time when human difference is so relentlessly celebrated, it may even seem impossible to talk about the traditions and experiences that join us across race, religion, and nation. Wendy Doniger offers a powerful antidote to the paralysis of postcolonial intellectual life. In this spirited, enlightening book, she shows just how to make sense of, and learn from, the extraordinary diversity of cultures past and present. Tapping a wealth of traditions, from the Hebrew Bible to the Bhagavad Gita, Doniger crafts a new lens for examining other cultures, and finding in the world's myths--its sacred stories--a way to talk about experiences shared across time and space. "Of all things made with words," Doniger writes, "myths span the widest of human concerns, human paradoxes." Myths, she shows, bridge the cosmic and the familiar, the personal and the abstract, the theological and the political. They encourage us to draw various, even opposed, political meanings from a single text as it travels through different historical contexts. And she demonstrates how studying myths from cultures other than our own can be exhilarating and illuminating. Myth, Doniger shows, provides a near-perfect entree to another culture. Even if scholars such as Freud, Jung, and Joseph Campbell typically overstated the universality of major myths and suppressed the distinctive natures of other cultures, postcolonial critics are wrong to argue that nothing good can come from a systematic comparative study of human cultures. Doniger offers an engaged, expansive critical tool kit for doing just that. She suggests critical and responsible ways in which to compare stories--or texts or myths or traditions--from different cultures by revealing patterns of truth from themes that recur time and again. In this book, Doniger helps expand the arena of meaning we live in, leaping, in her words, "from myth to myth as if they were stepping stones over the gulf that seems to separate cultures." She enables us to see, at last, the "implied spider" that weaves the web of meaning that sustains all human cultures-the fabric of our shared humanity.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0231111711/?tag=2022091-20
(Karma is perhaps the central concept in Indian Philosophy...)
Karma is perhaps the central concept in Indian Philosophy, but there is no comprehensive study of its various meanings or philosophical implications. Leading American Indologists met on several occasions to discuss their ideas about Karma. The result is this useful thought-provoking volume.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/8120816714/?tag=2022091-20
( "Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty . . . weaves a brilliant anal...)
"Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty . . . weaves a brilliant analysis of the complex role of dreams and dreaming in Indian religion, philosophy, literature, and art. . . . In her creative hands, enchanting Indian myths and stories illuminate and are illuminated by authors as different as Aeschylus, Plato, Freud, Jung, Kurl Gödel, Thomas Kuhn, Borges, Picasso, Sir Ernst Gombrich, and many others. This richly suggestive book challenges many of our fundamental assumptions about ourselves and our world."—Mark C. Taylor, New York Times Book Review "Dazzling analysis. . . . The book is firm and convincing once you appreciate its central point, which is that in traditional Hindu thought the dream isn't an accident or byway of experience, but rather the locus of epistemology. In its willful confusion of categories, its teasing readiness to blur the line between the imagined and the real, the dream actually embodies the whole problem of knowledge. . . . O'Flaherty wants to make your mental flesh creep, and she succeeds."—Mark Caldwell, Village Voice
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226618552/?tag=2022091-20
(Many cultures have myths about self-imitation, stories ab...)
Many cultures have myths about self-imitation, stories about people who pretend to be someone else pretending to be them, in effect masquerading as themselves. This great theme, in literature and in life, tells us that people put on masks to discover who they really are under the masks they usually wear, so that the mask reveals rather than conceals the self beneath the self. In this book, noted scholar of Hinduism and mythology Wendy Doniger offers a cross-cultural exploration of the theme of self-impersonation, whose widespread occurrence argues for both its literary power and its human value. The stories she considers range from ancient Indian literature through medieval European courtly literature and Shakespeare to Hollywood and Bollywood. They illuminate a basic human way of negotiating reality, illusion, identity, and authenticity, not to mention memory, amnesia, and the process of aging. Many of them involve marriage and adultery, for tales of sexual betrayal cut to the heart of the crisis of identity. These stories are extreme examples of what we common folk do, unconsciously, every day. Few of us actually put on masks that replicate our faces, but it is not uncommon for us to become travesties of ourselves, particularly as we age and change. We often slip carelessly across the permeable boundary between the un-self-conscious self-indulgence of our most idiosyncratic mannerisms and the conscious attempt to give the people who know us, personally or publicly, the version of ourselves that they expect. Myths of self-imitation open up for us the possibility of multiple selves and the infinite regress of self-discovery. Drawing on a dizzying array of tales-some fact, some fiction-The Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was is a fascinating and learned trip through centuries of culture, guided by a scholar of incomparable wit and erudition.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195160169/?tag=2022091-20
( "Somehow I woke up one day and found myself in bed with...)
"Somehow I woke up one day and found myself in bed with a stranger." Meant literally or figuratively, this statement describes one of the best-known plots in world mythology and popular storytelling. In a tour that runs from Shakespeare to Hollywood and from Abraham Lincoln to Casanova, the erudite and irrepressible Wendy Doniger shows us the variety, danger, and allure of the "bedtrick," or what it means to wake up with a stranger. The Bedtrick brings together hundreds of stories from all over the world, from the earliest recorded Hindu and Hebrew texts to the latest item in the Weekly World News, to show the hilariously convoluted sexual scrapes that people manage to get themselves into and out of. Here you will find wives who accidentally commit adultery with their own husbands. You will read Lincoln's truly terrible poem about a bedtrick. You will learn that in Hong Kong the film The Crying Game was retitled Oh No! My Girlfriend Has a Penis. And that President Clinton was not the first man to be identified by an idiosyncratic organ. At the bottom of these wonderful stories, ancient myths, and historical anecdotes lie the dynamics of sex and gender, power and identity. Why can't people tell the difference in the dark? Can love always tell the difference between one lover and another? And what kind of truth does sex tell? Funny, sexy, and engaging, The Bedtrick is a masterful work of energetic storytelling and dazzling scholarship. Give it to your spouse and your lover.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226156427/?tag=2022091-20
( "While focusing on the central problem of evil, O'Fiahe...)
"While focusing on the central problem of evil, O'Fiaherty illuminates every aspect of Hindu thought." --Choice "This is Dr. O'Flaherty's third book on Indian mythology, and the best yet. The range and number of myths handled is dazzling .... Moreover, her fluent and lucid style make reading a pleasure .... a major contribution to the study of religion in general and Hinduism in particular." --Times Literary Supplement "This scholarly work is a welcome and valuable addition to Hindu studies because it corrects the widespread belief that Hindu thought does not recognize the problem of evil. The author shows conclusively that the mythology of tribal societies and the Puranas deal with this question extensively. She traces certain conceptual attitudes towards evil from the Vedic period to the present day." --Library Journal "O'Flaherty has accomplished an important double task. She has reoriented our thinking on the Indian experience of evil as it has been given literary expression in the mythological texts of the Sanskrit tradition and to a lesser extent in the Tamil and tribal traditions as well. She has also provided, in this rich and exquisitely crafted book, a new set of vantage points from which to re-read familiar Indian myths and encounter new ones. . . Origins is both a superb piece of scholarship and a lively, witty and engagingly written book." --South Asia in Review "The author performs a brilliant feat in her textually exegetical and hermeneutical handling of the numerous and many-faceted myths. The study is highly pertinent and valuable . . . The authorial translations from the Hindu and Pali texts are refreshing ... and her comments are illuminating. Thus the Hindu view of evil comes out as something not simplistic and arbitrary but as an approach which is careful, complex, and richly eclectic. . . . This is a highly readable volume written with verve, sparkle and occasional light touches of decent humor." --Asian Student "For serious students of mythology, theology and Hinduism, this book is must reading." --Religious Studies Review
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520040988/?tag=2022091-20
("Don't miss this equivalent of a brilliant graduate cours...)
"Don't miss this equivalent of a brilliant graduate course froma feisty and exhilarating teacher." -The Washington Post An engrossing and definitive narrative account of history and myth, The Hindus offers a new way of understanding one of the world's oldest major religions. Hinduism does not lend itself easily to a strictly chronological account. Many of its central texts cannot be reliably dated within a century; its central tenets arise at particular moments in Indian history and often differ according to gender or caste; and the differences between groups of Hindus far outnumber the commonalities. Yet the greatness of Hinduism lies precisely in many of these idiosyncratic qualities that continues to inspire debate today. This groundbreaking work elucidates the relationship between recorded history and imaginary worlds, the inner life and the social history of Hindus.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014311669X/?tag=2022091-20
( "An important, provocative and original work, of great ...)
"An important, provocative and original work, of great interest to Indian scholars, historians of religions, psychologists and historians of ideas, but accessible also to the cultivated reader. Even if one does not always agree with the author's interpretation, one cannot but admire her vast and precise learning, her splendid translations and exegesis of so many, and so different, Sanskrit texts, and her uninhibited, brilliant, and witty prose."—Mircea Eliade, University of Chicago "This is . . . a book which is as rich in detail as the carvings of the great Hindu temples. It shares with them a delight in the interplay of myth and mundane experience, and above all an empathy with the Hindu preoccupation with the meaning of human existence in all its complexity."—G. M. Carstairs, Times Literary Supplement
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226618501/?tag=2022091-20
(The hindus is a book which provide clarity about which in...)
The hindus is a book which provide clarity about which incidents can be classified as actual historical facts of hinduism, and which ones are the figments of people's imagination there is no chronology of events or texts that form a part of hinduism some of them cannot even be traced back to an accurate era some of the core beliefs which are the pillars of hinduism, like karma and dharma, are often found to express different views in each era, among different castes, and between gendersthis book highlights that the various vernacular and sanskrit sources display sympathy and compassion towards the lower castes and women it shows the debate that ensues in these sources which revolve around violence, religion, and tolerance this book also explains the contribution of animals in the shaping of attitudes of humans towards different social classesthe hindus throws light on the ways in which the religion of hinduism is kept alive this book was published by penguin india in 2011, and is available in paperback key features: the hindus held the first place as a bestseller in the hindustan times' non-fiction category for a week in the year 2009it was a finalist in the book awards of the national book critics circlethis book has also received positive reviews from the hindu, the new york review of books, the times literary supplement, the library journal, and the new york times
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143415344/?tag=2022091-20
mythology and religion professor
Doniger, Wendy was born on November 20, 1940 in New York City. Daughter of Lester L. and Rita (Roth) Doniger.
Bachelor summa cum laude, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1962. Master of Arts, Harvard University, 1963. Doctor of Philosophy in Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University, 1968.
Doctor of Letters (honorary), Harvard University, 2009. Doctor of Philosophy in Oriental Studies, Oxford University, England, 1973. Doctor of Letters (honorary), Kalamazoo College, 1985.
Doctor of Letters (honorary), Bard College, New York, 1997. Doctor of Letters (honorary), Washington & Lee University, 1997. Doctor of Letters (honorary), Northwestern University, 1999.
Doctor of Letters (honorary), Lehigh University, 2009.
Teaching fellow Harvard College, 1964—1965. Language/religion teacher Oxford University Oriental Institute, 1966—1968. Lecturer University London School Oriental & African Studies, 1968-1975.
Visiting lecturer department South & Southeast Asian Studies, University California, Berkeley, 1975-1977. Lecturer Wright Institute, 1976—1977, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, 1976—1977, associate professor history & phenomenology of religions, 1977—1978. Professor history of religions & Indian studies, department South Asian languages & civilizations and Committee on Social Thought, University Chicago Division School, 1978—1986, Mircea Eliade distinguished service professor history of religions, since 1986, director Martin Marty Center, 2004—2007, chair department South Asian languages & civilizations, 2005—2006.
A. D. White professor-at-large Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 1989.
(The hindus is a book which provide clarity about which in...)
( "An important, provocative and original work, of great ...)
(Many cultures have myths about self-imitation, stories ab...)
(Karma is perhaps the central concept in Indian Philosophy...)
(At this time of heightened political sensitivities, it ma...)
( "While focusing on the central problem of evil, O'Fiahe...)
("Don't miss this equivalent of a brilliant graduate cours...)
( "Somehow I woke up one day and found myself in bed with...)
(The Hindus: An Alternative History by Wendy Doniger. Peng...)
( "Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty . . . weaves a brilliant anal...)
(Will be shipped from US. Used books may not include compa...)
(Will be shipped from US. Used books may not include compa...)
(indian mythology)
Fellow: Society Arts, Religion & Culture, American Academy Arts & Sciences, American Philosophical Society. Member: Society Tantric Studies, Society Asian & Comparative Philosophy, International Association Historians of Religion, American Oriental Society, American Society Study of Religion (board directors 1983), Association Asian Studies 1981-1983, (vice president 1997, president 1998), American Academy Religion (vice president 1982, president 1984, Martin E. Marty award 2008), Phi Beta Kappa.
Married Dennis M. O'Flaherty, March 31, 1964. 1 child, Michael Lester O'Flaherty.