The book attempts to trace ecological insights embedded in two major folk epics of Rajasthan – Epic of Pabuji and Epic of Devnarayan. The first chapter explores man’s relation with nature in past and attempts to locate the genesis of our attitudes towards nature in ancient myths as well as its portrayal in literature. It tries to define ecology and summarises the ideas about ecological literary criticism given by various critics. It highlights the tradition and types of oral epics in Rajasthan. The second chapter named “Cultural Ecology” focuses on the mutuality and interdependence of nature and culture. It reflects upon what effects human culture has on nature and vice versa in context of the epics of Pabuji and Devnarayan. The chapter focuses on literary ecology which explores the ecological dimensions of literary texts and also puts forth the artistic capability of the text as an agency of ecological awareness. The third chapter named “History, Aesthetics and Phad” explores how painters make phad and to what purpose these phads are made, what purposes of bhopas and commercial consumers it fulfils and in what ways bhopas inspire the process. It also discusses the history of visual narratives and locates the place of phad in it. It delves deep into the history of phad tradition of painting as well as its aesthetics. The discussion of aesthetics of phad foregrounds how phad helps bhopa in devising as well as improvising the narrative. The fourth chapter named “Performance and Ecology” focuses on how performances of folk epics of Pabuji and Devnarayan further an ecological vision in which natural surroundings play a contributory role in formation of meanings. An interconnection between the ecology of the region and the performance of phad has been evaluated which contributes in comprehending the full ecological implications of phad. An analysis of both the epics from an ecological literary perspective substantiates the excellence and contribution of the epics in enriching the literary genre with different aspects of ecological connections between man and other natural elements on earth. The book establishes that the literary ecology of phad is as diverse as an ecosystem. The ecology of phad thrives on cultural diversity, including people from all fields, such as phad painters, phad performers, and the audience/followers of the deities. This correlation is based not only on their economic relations or transactions, but they also depend upon each other for their exclusive identity.

Chris Pinney demonstrates how printed images were pivotal to India's struggle for national and religious independence. He also provides a history of printing in India.

It is unknown, of course, who wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey, since, in general, no reliable contemporary description of how these two epics came into being is to be found. Such sources as there are - first and foremost, the two poems themselves - must be interpreted in a comparative framework built on experience from societies in the modern world that are in some respects similar to archaic Greece in order to reach a coherent picture of the process. The oral-formulaic theory, formed by Milman Parry (1902-1935) and Albert B. Lord (1912-1991), not only revolutionized Homeric studies, but also had an impact on anthropology and folklore. This led to an increased interest in oral epic traditions, and fieldworkers changed their methods towards a focus on composition in performance. The individual singer and his handling of the tradition gained importance. When possible, more than one performance of the "same" song was recorded - by the same singer on different occasions or by different singers - and interaction with the audience was documented. Traditions of the oral epic still exist in many parts of the world, and, during recent decades, quite a few of them have been documented and analyzed by innovative fieldworkers, leading to an overwhelming expansion of accessible knowledge of how oral epic works. Writing Homer explores what this means to the Parry-Lord-theory in general and the 'Homeric Question' in particular. The relationship between the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Homeric Hymns, with the tradition of which they are part, can now be described with much more precision than before. It turns out that there is nothing unusual in very long oral epics; what is unusual is that such poems are recorded in writing. The process by which this must have taken place is discussed in detail. Old problems, such as the fact that neither illustrations of Trojan stories nor early 'quotations' agree with the written poems, can be solved. Writing Homer achieves a deeper understanding of the methods at work in the oral epic for building a likely social context of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and especially for speculating on the circumstances of the writing of the two great poems. Long oral narratives are flexible, and accordingly, the dictation to scribes that must be at the origin of the texts, which have been preserved in writing to this day, was a process of the utmost importance as was the composition in performance of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Writing Homer is directed at classical scholars, but will also be of interest to a much broader readership: folklorists, anthropologists, and whoever enjoys reading Homer in Greek, as well as in translation.

Providing an ethnographic account of the everyday life of a household of artisans in the Telangana state of southern India, Chandan Bose engages with craft practice beyond the material (in this case, the region's characteristic murals, narrative cloth scrolls, and ritual masks and figurines). In situating the voice of the artisans themselves as the central focus of study, simultaneous and juxtaposing histories of craft practice emerge, through which artisans assemble narratives about work, home, and identity through multiple lenses. These perspectives include: the language artisans use to articulate their experience of materials, materiality, and the physical process of making; the shared and collective memory of practitioners through which they recount the genealogy of the practice; the everyday life of the household and its kinship practices, given the integration of the studio-space and the home-space; the negotiations between practitioners and the nation-state over matters of patronage; and the capacities of artisans to both conform to and affect the practices of the neo-liberal market.