Dilemmas of Womanhood: Recent South Indian Short Stories Based on the Ramayana
Monday, Nov. 13, 2006 @ 7:30 p.m.
Gallery Theatre Paula Richman
Oberlin CollegePaula Richman is the William Danforth Professor of South Asian Religions at Oberlin College, where she teaches courses on Hinduism, South Asian epic literature, and modern India. Her monographs include Women, Branch Stories, and Religious Rhetoric in a Tamil Buddhist Text and Extraordinary Child: Poems from a South Indian Devotional Genre. She has edited and contributed to two volumes on the Ramayana
tradition: Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition and Questioning Ramayanas: A South Asian Tradition. In addition, she has published many articles on the living Ramayana tradition. Forthcoming in 2007 is Transforming Ramayanas in Modern South Asia. Abstract: Recent short stories about Sita, Shurpanakha, and Ahalya reveal that writers in South India continue to rethink the nature of epic characters. Dr. Richman’s talk will explore three topics: (1) How do modern writers in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam create a character recognizable as Sita but relevant enough to the lives of today’s readers for them to care about her? (2) How do today’s authors re-evaluate the opposition between virtuous Sita and demonic Shurpanakha? (3) How does the story of Ahalya provide an opportunity to delve into usually suppressed issues of sexuality and blame?
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