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9781478029304 Academic Inspection Copy

The Goddess in the Mirror

An Anthropology of Beauty
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In The Goddess in the Mirror, Tulasi Srinivas offers a pathbreaking ethnography of contemporary Indian beauty parlors in Bangalore. Exploring the gendered world of beauty in the intimate spaces of the salon, whose popularity has exploded amid an urban tech revolution, Srinivas invites us to consider what beauty is and what it does. Visiting diverse salons that cater to various classes, castes, and queer sexualities, she tracks the relationships between clients and workers, revealing the beauty industry's painful political, religious, and economic stakes. Embodiment, religion, and narrative intersect as clients and beauticians tell well-known stories of beautiful Hindu goddesses, heroines, queens, and apsaras, thereby weaving their own ethical subjectivities every day. Following the goddess' allure, radiance, woundedness, fluidity, and fertility, Srinivas situates ideas of beauty within a larger moral and political context where beauty is both a fleeting pursuit and a rich resource for navigating a patriarchal present.
Tulasi Srinivas is Professor of Anthropology at Emerson College and author of The Cow in the Elevator: An Anthropology of Wonder, also published by Duke University Press.
A Note on Translation ix Acknowledgments xi Prelude: Reverie xv Introduction: Beauty, Myth, Recognition 1 1. Alluring 31 2. Radiant 63 3. Hot 94 Interlude: Nightmare 120 4. Wounded 124 5. Fortunate 151 6. Fluid 179 Conclusion: Mirrors and Masks: An Anthropology of Beauty 214 Postlude: Dream 225 Notes 228 References 241 Index 267
"Beautifully written and creatively argued, The Goddess in the Mirror presents an original perspective on beauty work that takes us beyond predictable and reductionist framings of the subject. Tulasi Srinivas's moving ethnography innovatively tracks how Hindu myths and stories that customers and workers narrate offer paths to becoming." - Purnima Mankekar, coauthor of The Future of Futurity: Affective Capitalism and Potentiality in a Global City
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