Deep Cosmopolitanism

Kutiyattam, Dynamic Tradition, and Globalizing Heritage in Kerala, India

Leah Lowthorp (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

364 Seiten

2025
Indiana University Press (Verlag)
9780253073594 (ISBN)

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Deep Cosmopolitanism explores the extraordinary past and present of Kutiyattam Sanskrit theater, the world's oldest continuously performed theater. Recognized as India's first UNESCO intangible cultural heritage of humanity, the matrilineal temple art of Kutiyattam has been performed by men and women in Kerala, India, since the tenth century C.E.

Deep Cosmopolitanism illustrates how Kutiyattam Sanskrit theater has encountered multiple forms of cosmopolitanism over the course of its thousand-year history. Exploring how Kutiyattam artists create meaning out of their deep past through everyday narratives and reflections, author Leah Lowthorp traces the art's cosmopolitan encounters over time, from the premodern Sanskrit cosmopolis to Muslim sultans, British colonialists, Communist politics, and UNESCO intangible cultural heritage. In so doing, Lowthorp fundamentally rethinks the notion of cosmopolitanism from a non-Western perspective with premodern roots and offers a critique of the colonialist undertones of how international heritage organizations like UNESCO conceptualize peoples and traditions around the world.

Diving into an ethnographic exploration that considers Kutiyattam's multiple cosmopolitanisms over a period of one thousand years, Deep Cosmopolitanism offers a model for decolonizing modernity and challenges us to rethink what it means to be cosmopolitan, traditional, and modern in the world today.

Leah Lowthorp is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Folklore at the University of Oregon. She is editor (with Frank J. Korom) of South Asian Folklore in Transition: Crafting New Horizons (Routledge, 2019).

Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Getting into the Kutiyattam Body
2. Contemporary Kutiyattam
3. The Sanskrit Cosmopolis and Embodied Cosmopolitanism
4. Kings, Sultans, and Colonialists: Legendary Circulation and Encounters with the Other
5. Kerala, Communism, and Heritage: Reinventing Tradition at Kerala Kalamandalam
6. Claiming a Cosmopolis: Sanskritic Culture and Indian National Heritage
7. Kutiyattam as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage: Politics, Aftermath, and Community Perspectives
Epilogue
Glossary
Bibliography
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	30.07.2025
Reihe/Serie	Activist Encounters in Folklore and Ethnomusicology
Zusatzinfo	50 color illus.
Verlagsort	Bloomington, IN
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Hilfswissenschaften
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-13	9780253073594 / 9780253073594
Zustand	Neuware