Gender and Genre in the Folklore of Middle India

Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger is Professor of Religion and Director of the Graduate Division of Religion at Emory University. She is the author of books including When the World Becomes Female: Possibilities of a South Indian Goddess and Everyday Hinduism.

In this superbly crafted, absorbing book, Flueckiger explores the relationships among folklore genres in the Chattisgarh region of north India, achieving a pioneering model of the study of a 'folklore system' in its entirety. This is ethnographic scholarship at its best. The multigenre approach is a major contribution, and this rich book should be read by all students of folklore, literature, performance, and South Asia.(Choice) Based on fifteen months of original research at the boundary between the states of Madhya Pradesh and Orissa, as well as on many return visits over the course of fifteen years, this book is one of the most wide-ranging, meticulous, and insightful monographs on Indian folklore ever published.- Gloria Goodwin Raheja (American Ethnologist)