Unveiling Desire: Fallen Women in Literature, Culture, and Films of the East, edited by Devaleena Das and Colette Morrowis (Rutgers University Press, 2018), is a collection of 15 essays by various authors on the so-called "fallen women", namely promiscuous women.
New book: Enrica Garzilli, Il Duce's Explorer. The Adventures of Giuseppe Tucci and Italian Policy in the Orient from Mussolini to Andreotti. With the Correspondence of Giulio Andreotti (Milan: Asiatica Association, Nov. 2015).
The book deals with the life and work of Giuseppe Tucci, the world famous Italian explorer, scholar, book collector, archaelogist, spy, and Mussolini's spokesperson in Asia. This book also reconstructs the Italian policy in Asia from Mussolini to Andreotti (1924-1984).
Tucci was the central protagonist of Fascist cultural policy in Asia: from his first expeditions to the valleys of the Himalayas and the plains of the Ganges, to his diplomatic activity in Japan as Il Duce’s spokesman; from his encounters with scholars and leaders such as Gandhi, Tagore, the Dalai Lama, Subhas Chandra Bose, Mircea Eliade, Julius Evola and Giovanni Gentile – his great protector, along with Giulio Andreotti – to the archaeological excavations in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran in his later years, his is a human and intellectual adventure tied inextricably to the history of modern Italy, which Tucci himself helped to forge.
We tried to retrace his adventure in the pages of this book, where the pace of a thrilling narrative combines with the scientifc rigor of reconstructing the history of Fascist policy in Asia. A history based on eyewitness accounts and historical documents, including the original and unedited correspondence of Tucci and Andreotti, and the unpublished notes of Mussolini.
This volume is the first in a series of nine, which together represent an enlarged translation of the two-volume Italian book, L’esploratore del Duce: le avventure di Giuseppe Tucci e la politica italiana in Oriente da Mussolini a Andreotti. Con la corrispondenza di Giulio Andreotti (1st ed. not for distribution, Milano: Asiatica Association, Roma: Memori, January 29, 2012; 2nd rev. ed., Milano: Asiatica Association, Roma: Memori, August 13, 2012; 3rd rev. ed. Milano: Asiatica Association, April 14, 2014).
We have received the book by Alex Watson, Dominic Goodall, and S. L. P. Anjaneya Sarma (eds. and transl.), An Enquiry into the Nature of Liberation: Bhaṭṭa Rāmakaṇṭha's Paramokṣanirāsakārikāvṛtti, A Commentary on Sadyojyotiḥ's Refutation of Twenty Conceptions of the Liberated State (mokṣa), Institut Français de Pondichéry/Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient, 2013 (Collection Indologie - 122).
This is the first critical edition of a short philosphical treatise in 59 Sanskrit verses on twenty rival teories of librated state (mokṣa) composed by Sadyojyotiḥ's (c. 675-725 AD), its long commentary by Bhaṭṭa Rāmakaṇṭha's (c. 950-1000 AD), along with an annotated translation of both works, and an introduction.
We have just received the book by Amina Jamal, Jamaat-e-Islami Women in Pakistan. Vanguard of a New Modernity? Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2013.
Through an ethnographic and textual study of Jamat women elected to local, provincial, and national bodies in Pakistan (2002-2008), Jamal draws attention to the forces that enabled these women to cover important roles within the party and in the two major centers of Karachi and Lahore.
In the box on your right you can see the cover of a new book on Asia:
The Explorer of the Duce: The Adventures of Giuseppe Tucci and Italian Foreign Policy in the Orient from Mussolini to Andreotti: With the Correspondence of Giulio Andreotti, by Enrica Garzilli, 2 vols., Rome-Milan: Memori editrice and Asiatica Association, Sept. 2012. Vol. 1, pp. LII + 685; Vol. 2, pp. XIV + 726.
It is a biography of the great scholar and explorer of Tibet, Nepal and Ladakh Giuseppe Tucci (1894-1984), and a history book on Foreign Policy in Asia. It is based on original and often unedited documents (archives and fonts), original and often unedited correspondence (Sanskrit, Nepali, English, Romanian, Hindi and Italian letters), original films, original and unedited photos, 9 original maps, and interviews.
It offers 4 unedited Sanskrit letters by Giuseppe Tucci to the Royal Preceptor of Nepal Hem Raj Sharma, 1 unedited English letter to Dr. Dilli R. Regmi, 1 unedited Sanskrit letter by Carlo Formichi (his teacher, and Visiting Professor at Vishvabharati, the university of Tagore, in 1925-26) to Hem Raj, 1 unedited Nepali letter by Kesar Bahadur K. C. to Hem Raj, 1 unedited English letter by the then Prime Minister of Nepal Mohan Shamsher Rana to Tucci, big part of the correspondence between Tucci and the philospher Giovanni Gentile, and the whole unedited correspondence between Tucci and Giulio Andreotti.
Among the others, it includes interviews to Giulio Andreotti, Filippani-Ronconi, Fosco Maraini, Dilli R. Regmi, Rishikesh Shaha, Mahes Pant, Dinesh Pant and other scholars.
Through Tucci's life, I reconstructed the Italian politics in part of Asia (India, Tibet and Nepal, but also partly Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, where Tucci opened the 1st Italian archaeological missions), and the cultural history of Italy in Asia. The book includes documents proving Benito Mussolini's idea of making India a "future dominion" of the Italian Empire. Mussolini wanted to "take possession" of India! He wanted to replace the British Raj. In fact he strongly supported India independence and, as everybody knows, hosted and met several times with Subhas Chandra Bose. The history of Fascism in Asia was stuck at the excellent (but outdated) work of Renzo De Felice.
We are pleased to announce the publication of Gender, Social Change and the Media, eds. by Johannes D. Schmidt and Torsten R. Berg, Delhi: Rawat Publications, 2012. Pp. 240. Rs.695 / US$45 (Hardcover). ISBN: 978-81-316-0513-4
List of Contributors: Lok Raj Baral, Torsten Rødel Berg, Chandra Bhadra, Enrica Garzilli, "The Interplay between Gender, Religion and Politics, and the New Violence against Women in Nepal”, Hanne Lund Jensen, Sunil Pokharel, Sangita Rayamajhi, Shiva Rijal, Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt, Nisha Sharma, Abhi Subedi, Gérard Toffin.
This book is an informative, engaging and critical attempt to contribute to a profound discussion about gender and social change in landlocked Nepal in South Asia. It covers new ground relating to the challenges women face in terms of the enormous changes taking place in the Nepalese society.
On December 31, 2009 has been published a thick issue of Limes, the international magazine of geopolitics directed by Lucio Caracciolo, wholly dedicated to India.
Enrica Garzilli has published a paper titled Gandhi Dynasty, which can be read here.
Editorial by Lucio Caracciolo (titled The good giant); papers by Francesca Marino, Enrica Garzilli, Beniamino Natale, Marco Restelli, Raimondo Bultrini, Meghnad Desai, K. P. S. Gill, Ajai Sahni, Kanchan Lakshman, Daniela Bezzi, Bhikhu Parekh, Chitvan Gill, Luca Muscarà, S. D. Muni, Paola Tavella, Alberto Bracci Testasecca, Parag Khanna, P. R. Chari, Ezio Ferrante, Vijay Prashad, Nirupama Subramanian e Pervez Hoodbhoy, Ayesha Siddiqa e B. Raman, Praveen Swami, John C. Hulsman, Matteo Tacconi, Marco Ansaldo, Raymond Barre. Here the summary of papers.
Posts and short analysis on Indian phenomena, such as the history of the Naxalites by Marino, can be read here.
Enjoy!
The Power of Tantra. Religion, Sexuality and the Politics of South Asian Studies, by Hugh B. Urban, paperback, London, I. B. Tauris, 2009, pp. XI+250.
The book is scholarly treatment of Tantra traditions in South Asia, based on reasearch made by the author between 2000 and 2008 in Assam, Bengal, Orissa, Tripura, and Meghalaya. It is notheworthy the complete absence of the Italian scholarship on Tantrism, which started with the famous scholar Giuseppe Tucci and is still well represented.