The Hegemony of Heritage - (South Asia Across the Disciplines) by Deborah L Stein (Paperback)

About the Book

"The Hegemony of Heritage makes an original and significant contribution to our understanding of how architectural objects and societies' relationship to the built environment change over time. Using the pairing of two living medieval monuments in Southern Rajasthan--the Ambika Temple in Jagat, Rajasthan, and the âEkalingji Temple Complex in Kailaspuri--the author underscores many aspects of practice and avoids focusing simply on their divergent sectarian affiliations or patronage structures. This book offers new and extremely valuable questions about these important monuments, such as the entangled politics of antiquity and whether a monument's ritual record is affirmed as continuous and hence hoary, or dismissed as discontinuous or reinvented through various strategies. The Hegemony of Heritage engages theoretical constructs with the richness of ethnographic description and asks us to rethink notions such as archive and text through the filter of sculpture and mantra."--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.

The Hegemony of Heritage makes an original and significant contribution to our understanding of how the relationship of architectural objects and societies to the built environment changes over time. Studying two surviving medieval monuments in southern Rajasthan--the Ambika Temple in Jagat and the Ékalingji Temple Complex in Kailaspuri--the author looks beyond their divergent sectarian affiliations and patronage structures to underscore many aspects of common practice. This book offers new and extremely valuable insights into these important monuments, illuminating the entangled politics of antiquity and revealing whether a monument's ritual record is affirmed as continuous and hence hoary or dismissed as discontinuous or reinvented through various strategies. The Hegemony of Heritage enriches theoretical constructs with ethnographic description and asks us to reexamine notions such as archive and text through the filter of sculpture and mantra.

From the Back Cover

"The Hegemony of Heritage makes visible the multiple methodologies that can be mobilized to write nuanced histories of Hindu temple architecture. The author's approach is both refreshing and new. Skillfully weaving in postcolonial theory, object ontologies, and affect theory, among other approaches, the book opens up an exciting new paradigm in the study of South Asian art and architecture."--Sugata Ray, Assistant Professor of South Asian Art and Architecture, University of California, Berkeley

About the Author

Deborah L. Stein holds a PhD from UC Berkeley and has taught at Mills College, UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, UC Santa Cruz, and San Francisco State University. Currently Senior Lecturer at California College of Arts, she is the author of several peer-reviewed articles.