[INDOLOGY] Fwd: New Book on Food Culture in Mumbai

[Rosane Rocher]

Hi Whitney!

I don't know anything about this book, but I know that an eminent 
scholar in German literature is publishing with Open Book, and that they 
seem to have a distinguished editorial board.  So, all power to them for 
working for Open Access publishing.

A little bird told me that congratulations to you may be in order. Here 
are mine and Ludo's.

All best wishes to you and your family,
Rosane

On 5/3/13 11:05 AM, Whitney Cox wrote:
> I forward this to the list not only owing to its subject 
> matter--perhaps of interest to several members--but also for its 
> publication model, in light of the recent discussions of Open Access 
> publishing.  This is the first contact I've ever had from this 
> publisher, and I know nothing about the author or her work: caveat lector.
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: *Open Book Publishers* <general at openbookpublishers.com 
> <mailto:general at openbookpublishers.com>>
> Date: 1 May 2013 08:46
> Subject: New Book on Food Culture in Mumbai
> To: wc3 at soas.ac.uk <mailto:wc3 at soas.ac.uk>
>
>
> Dear Dr. Cox,
>
> Open Book Publishers, a Cambridge-based non-profit publisher, is 
> currently running a campaign to make our new book, /Feeding the City: 
> Work and Food Culture of the Mumbai Dabbawalas/ by Sara Roncaglia 
> (details below) freely available to all. /Feeding the City/ is an 
> ethnographic study of the fascinating inner workings of Mumbai's 
> dabbawalas, and I am contacting you as I thought the book and campaign 
> might be of interest to you.  If it is, I hope that you might be 
> willing to raise its profile by spreading the word among your colleagues.
>
> We are seeking funding for this publication through a crowd-sourcing 
> website called unglue.it <http://unglue.it>, which enables people to 
> pledge anything from $1 upwards to help make this book freely 
> available to all.  You can view our campaign here:
>
> http://bit.ly/13qqv4S
>
> Last summer we made /Oral Literature in Africa/ by Ruth Finnegan 
> available for free forever, with donations from supporters reaching 
> our target of $7,500 in only a few weeks.  Since that book was 
> published just over 7 months ago the free on-line edition has received 
> over 7,000 visitors and the free e-book has been downloaded over 4,000 
> times, with the work being accessed more in Africa than on any other 
> continent.
>
> This spring we are hoping to have a similar impact with this new work 
> on the dabbawalas in Mumbai which, if our campaign is successful, will 
> be both free to read on-line and free to download in digital e-book 
> formats, particularly to people in India.  Our campaign is already 
> well underway -- to date 59 people have pledged over $1,700 -- but as 
> we enter our final month of fundraising we are still looking to raise 
> the profile of this book, and of our campaign to finance a 
> freely-available edition.
>
> We would love your support and assistance with spreading the word.  
> Further details of Sara's book are below, and if you would like any 
> further information about the book, the campaign, or how you can help, 
> please don't hesitate to get in touch
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Catherine
>
> Every day in Mumbai 5,000 dabbawalas distribute a staggering 200,000 
> home-cooked lunchboxes to the city's workers and students. Giving 
> employment and status to thousands of largely illiterate villagers 
> from Mumbai's hinterland, this co-operative has been in operation 
> since the late nineteenth century. It provides one of the most 
> efficient delivery networks in the world: only one lunch in six 
> million goes astray.
>
> Cultural anthropologist Sara Roncaglia explains how they cater to the 
> various dietary requirements of a diverse and increasingly global 
> city, where the preparation and consumption of food is pervaded with 
> religious and cultural significance. Developing the idea of 
> "gastrosemantics" - a language with which to discuss the broader 
> implications of cooking and eating - Roncaglia's study helps us to 
> rethink our relationship to food at a local and global level. /Feeding 
> the City/was originally published in Italian and we have translated, 
> revised and updated it.
>
>
>
>
> -- 
>
>
> Dr. Whitney Cox
> Senior Lecturer in Sanskrit
> Department of the Languages and Cultures of South Asia,
> SOAS, University of London
> Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square
> London WC1H 0XG
>
>
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