Books
Her first book Structure and Cognition: Aspects of Hindu Caste and Ritual (Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1977) brought the textual practices of 13th to 17th century in relation to self representation of caste groups in focus. Her identification of the structure of Hindu thought in terms of the tripartite division between priesthood, kinship and renunciation proved to be an extremely important structuralist interpretation of the important poles within which innovations and claims to new status by caste groups took place.
Veena Das's most recent book is Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary, California University Press, 2006. As the title implies, Das sees violence not as an interruption of ordinary life but as something that is implicated in the ordinary. The philosopher Stanley Cavell has written a memorable foreword to the book in which he says that one way of reading it is as a companion to Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. One of the chapters in the book deals with the state of abducted women in the post-independence time period and has been the interest of various legal historians.
Read more about this topic: Veena Das
Famous quotes containing the word books:
“Only my books anoint me,
and a few friends,
those who reach into my veins.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“All books are either dreams or swords,
You can cut, or you can drug, with words.”
—Amy Lowell (1874–1925)
“Translate a book a dozen times from one language to another, and what becomes of its style? Most books would be worn out and disappear in this ordeal. The pen which wrote it is soon destroyed, but the poem survives.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)