One could also add:

Wilke, Annette, and Oliver. Moebus. Sound and Communication: An Aesthetic Cultural History of Sanskrit Hinduism. Vol. v. 41. Religion and Society,. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011.

Brown, C. Mackenzie. “Purāṇa as Scripture: From Sound to Image of the Holy Word in the Hindu Tradition.” History of Religions 26, no. 1 (August 1, 1986): 68–86. https://doi.org/10.2307/1062388.

Hess, Linda. Bodies of Song: Kabir Oral Traditions and Performative Worlds in North India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Lutgendorf, Philip. The Life of a Text: Performing the Rāmcaritmānas of Tulsidas. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

Orsini, Francesca, and Katherine Butler Schofield. Tellings and Texts: Music, Literature and Performance in North India. Place of publication not identified: Open Book Publishers, 2015. http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=4386697.

A short but thoughtful overview of some of the difficulties of characterizing the relationship between written texts and oral culture has been given by Orsini and Schofield in Tellings... And then of course Pollock compares the relationship between 'literacy' and writing in S. Asia and Europe in Language of the Gods. 

And, at the risk of self-promotion, I discuss these issues in the context of early modern North India in my dissertation, which is available through Columbia U's website.

All best,
Tyler



On Thu, Nov 2, 2017 at 5:21 PM, Mark McLaughlin via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:

Dear Indology mind-hive,

 

I have an undergraduate student who is interested in writing a paper on questions of oral and literary traditions. I would like to solicit your opinions on potential sources for her. Please see her message below for a more detailed delineation of her questioning.

 

Many thanks in advance!

Mark

 

 

Professor McLaughlin,

 

I read through a little more of the Pollock book last night to get a better feel for some questions. I think generally this is what I'm thinking: 

 

What is the difference and relationship between the oral and literary tradition? How has that relationship evolved with the emergence of written texts, vernacularization, and the subsequent privileging of textual sources by the colonial West and the Academy? Who is excluded and/or included by the privileging of one kind of knowledge over the other? For scholars, what kind of nuanced understanding of literacy should be sought or acknowledged given that "to be literate" can mean different things in different cultures? 

 

Let me know if this sounds like what I was talking about the other day! 

 

Best,

Emma


--
Mark McLaughlin
Visiting Assistant Professor of South Asian Religions
Department of Religious Studies
College of William and Mary
Williamsburg, VA

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