Landscapes of Urban Memory: The Sacred and the Civic in India's High-Tech City - Smriti Srinivas


A rich analysis of what this Indian city can tell us about the intersections of religion, civic life, and global transformation.
Established in the middle of the sixteenth century, Bangalore has become in our day a center for high-technology research and production, the new "Silicon Valley" of India, with a metropolitan population approaching six million. It is also the site of the very popular annual performance called the "Karaga" dedicated to Draupadi, the polyandrous wife of the heroes of the pan-Indian epic of the Mahabharata.

Through her analysis of this performance and its significance for the sense of the civic in Bangalore, Smitri Srinivas shows how constructions of locality and globality emerge from existing cultural milieus and how articulations of the urban are modes of cultural self-invention tied to historical, spatial, somatic, and ritual practices. The book hightlights cultural practices embedded in urbanization, and moves beyond economistic arguments about globalization or their reliance on the European polis or the American metropolis as models.

Drawing from urban studies, sociology, anthropology, performance studies, religion, and history, Srinivas's work greatly expands our understanding of how the civic is constructed.

Smriti Srinivas is assistant professor of comparative and cultural studies of religion at Ohio State University.


Thomas Fisher, David Salmela, Peter Bastianelli-Kerze “Salmela Architect"

Salmela Architect provides an in-depth look at one of America’s leading “critical regionalist” architects. Salmela’s buildings resolve a central question of our time: how to balance the various extreme positions that characterize contemporary architecture and culture. Salmela accomplishes this by juxtaposing opposites: modernist and traditional forms, open and cellular plans, large and small scales, familiar elements used in unfamiliar ways. His projects range from a small stand-alone sauna to commercial spaces visited by thousands of people, and his buildings, mostly located in the upper Midwest, have become nationally and internationally known.Salmela Architect showcases twenty-six completed buildings and sixteen current projects in lavish color photographs and architectural drawings, enabling readers to get a full sense of the practicality, ethnicity, and playfulness apparent in David Salmela’s work. Architecture critic Thomas Fisher explores Salmela’s propensity to draw from regional roots as he creates designs particular to individual places and cultures yet with universal appeal. Fisher illuminates this synchronicity with buildings as prominent as the Gooseberry Falls Visitors Center and Wild Rice Restaurant as well as residential projects, including the acclaimed Jackson Meadow community and photographer Jim Brandenburg’s Ravenwood Studio.