"Storti's cultural observations about India are spot on." - Ranjini Manian, CEO, Global Adjustments and author of Doing Business in India for Dummies Westerners and Indians are working more closely together and in greater numbers than ever before. The opportunities are vast, but so is the cultural divide. Misunderstandings and frustration due to cultural differences wreak havoc on success. In this revised edition of Speaking of India, author and intercultural communications expert Craig Storti attempts to ease the frustration, and bring cultural understanding in business and life. With a new foreword by Ranjini Manian, author of Doing Business in India for Dummies, the book also features new content on managing remotely, and the results of a five-year cultural survey. With more than a dozen years of experience working between the two cultures, Storti has identified key cultural flashpoints and the result is a powerful series of Best Practices, which is the basis of Speaking of India.

Winner of the Beatrice Medicine Award In south-central Oklahoma and much of “Indian Country,” using an Indigenous language is colloquially referred to as “talking Indian.” Among older Chickasaw community members, the phrase is used more often than the name of the specific language, Chikashshanompa’ or Chickasaw. As author Jenny L. Davis explains, this colloquialism reflects the strong connections between languages and both individual and communal identities when talking as an Indian is intimately tied up with the heritage language(s) of the community, even as the number of speakers declines. Today a tribe of more than sixty thousand members, the Chickasaw Nation was one of the Native nations removed from their homelands to Oklahoma between 1837 and 1838. According to Davis, the Chickasaw’s dispersion from their lands contributed to their disconnection from their language over time: by 2010 the number of Chickasaw speakers had radically declined to fewer than seventy-five speakers. In Talking Indian, Davis—a member of the Chickasaw Nation—offers the first book-length ethnography of language revitalization in a U.S. tribe removed from its homelands. She shows how in the case of the Chickasaw Nation, language programs are intertwined with economic growth that dramatically reshape the social realities within the tribe. She explains how this economic expansion allows the tribe to fund various language-learning forums, with the additional benefit of creating well-paid and socially significant roles for Chickasaw speakers. Davis also illustrates how language revitalization efforts are impacted by the growing trend of tribal citizens relocating back to the Nation.

Speaking with Pictures offers a path-breaking exploration of visual narratives in folk art. It foregrounds folk art’s engagement with modernity by re-looking at its figurative modes and the ways in which they are embedded in mythic thought. The book discusses folk art as a contemporary phenomenon which is a part of a complex visual culture where the ‘essence’ of tradition is best captured in a ‘new’ form or medium. Each chapter picks up a theme that moves between the local and the global, thereby attempting to problematise the stereotypical view of folk artists as carriers of ‘timeless tradition’. The volume provides an ethnographic account of innovations through a detailed analysis of the scroll painting tradition of the patuas of West Bengal and the Pardhan-Gond style of Madhya Pradesh, highlighting some recent attempts at inter-medium exchange in storytelling. The book will interest those in visual and popular culture in anthropology, sociology, literary criticism and folklore. It will also be of immense value to art historians, museologists, curators and NGOs working in media and communication, apart from those with a general interest in folk art.

Enraged polemic though this book may be, it is also constructive,collected and funny. Where it is angry, it is righteous anger because the evils it condemns if left unchecked are likely to kill English as a truly expressive medium for journalistic and business writing in India. . . . This book may be the last hope for reform.

“Women always face violence from men. Equality is only preached, but not put into practice. Dalit women face more violence every day, and they will continue to do so until society changes and accepts them as equals.” — Bharati from Andra Pradesh The right to equality regardless of gender and caste is a fundamental right in India. However, the Indian government has acknowledged that institutional forces arraigned against this right are powerful and shape people’s mindsets to accept pervasive gender and caste inequality. This is no more apparent than when one visits Dalit women living in their caste-segregated localities. Vulnerably positioned at the bottom of India’s gender, caste and class hierarchies, Dalit women experience the outcome of severely imbalanced social, economic and political power equations in terms of endemic caste-class-gender discrimination and violence. This study presents an analytical overview of the complexities of systemic violence that Dalit women face through an analysis of 500 Dalit women’s narratives across four states. Excerpts of these narratives are utilised to illustrate the wider trends and patterns of different manifestations of violence against Dalit women. Published by Zubaan.

First published in 1919, Star of India tells the story of a young woman yearning for a more exciting life. Feeling trapped by her uptight relatives and their rigid way of life, she marries an officer in the Indian Civil Service in order to escape the doldrums of daily life. Though she is indifferent to romance - and disenchanted with her husband - the allure of adventure in a foreign land, and the appearance of a dashing young Junior officer, force her to think deep about what she wants from her life.