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Overview"Why would love for their language lead several men in southern India to burn themselves alive in its name? Passions of the Tongue analyzes the discourses of love, labor, and life that transformed Tamil into an object of such passionate attachment, producing in the process one of modern India's most intense movements for linguistic revival and separatism. Sumathi Ramaswamy suggests that these discourses cannot be contained within a singular metanarrative of linguistic nationalism and instead proposes a new analytic, ""language devotion."" She uses this concept to track the many ways in which Tamil was imagined by its speakers and connects these multiple imaginings to their experience of colonial and post-colonial modernity. Focusing in particular on the transformation of the language into a goddess, mother, and maiden, Ramaswamy explores the pious, filial, and erotic aspects of Tamil devotion. She considers why, as its speakers sought political and social empowerment, metaphors of motherhood eventually came to dominate representations of the language." Full Product DetailsAuthor: Sumathi RamaswamyPublisher: University of California Press Imprint: University of California Press Volume: 29 Dimensions: Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.30cm , Length: 22.90cm Weight: 0.499kg ISBN: 9780520208056ISBN 10: 0520208056 Pages: 343 Publication Date: 20 November 1997 Audience: Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Out of stock The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available. Table of ContentsReviewsAuthor InformationSumathi Ramaswamy is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |