Global Secularisms addresses the state of and prospects for secularism globally. Drawing from multiple fields, it brings together theoretical discussion and empirical case studies that illustrate "on-the-ground," extant secularisms as they interact with various religious, political, social, and economic contexts. Its point of departure is the fact that secularism is plural and that various secularisms have developed in various contexts and from various traditions around the world. Secularism takes on different social meanings and political valences wherever it is expressed. The essays collected here provide numerous points of contact between empirical case studies and theoretical reflection. This multiplicity informs and challenges the conceptual theorization of secularism as a universal doctrine. Analyses of different regions enrich our understanding of the meanings of secularism, providing comparative range to our notions of secularity. Theoretical treatments help to inform our understanding of secularism in context, enabling readers to discern what is at stake in the various regional expressions of secularity globally. While the bulk of the essays are case-based research, the current thinking of leading theorists and scholars is also included.

Global Secularisms addresses the state of and prospects for secularism globally. Drawing from multiple fields, it brings together theoretical discussion and empirical case studies that illustrate "on-the-ground," extant secularisms as they interact with various religious, political, social, and economic contexts. Its point of departure is the fact that secularism is plural and that various secularisms have developed in various contexts and from various traditions around the world. Secularism takes on different social meanings and political valences wherever it is expressed. The essays collected here provide numerous points of contact between empirical case studies and theoretical reflection. This multiplicity informs and challenges the conceptual theorization of secularism as a universal doctrine. Analyses of different regions enrich our understanding of the meanings of secularism, providing comparative range to our notions of secularity. Theoretical treatments help to inform our understanding of secularism in context, enabling readers to discern what is at stake in the various regional expressions of secularity globally. While the bulk of the essays are case-based research, the current thinking of leading theorists and scholars is also included.

What happens when a pre-menopausal matron, afflicted with Anglophilia, leaves home and hearth to spend time working in her dream location, London, the same year she hits a chronological half-century? Bizarre encounters and hair-raising adventures come flying at her…that’s what! This fast-paced memoir chronicles an unusual year spent by an Indian-born professor from an American university who undertook field-research in the United Kingdom. In the process, she dodged a global fiscal crisis, was impacted by terrorist activity in her native Bombay, faced sudden homelessness, and coped with debilitating physical constraints caused by an excruciating foot ailment called plantar fasciitis. While she scours Europe during weekends as a footloose solo backpacker accumulating hilarious experiences among a motley lot in youth hostels, stalks royalty in their favorite stomping grounds, and becomes a coconspirator in helping an American friend find Mr. Right, the author provides a page-turning narrative about resilience and tenacity in the face of unexpected odds.

Anglo-Indians form the human legacy created and left behind on the Indian subcontinent by European imperialism. When Independence was achieved from the British Raj in 1947, an exodus numbering an estimated 50,000 emigrated to Great Britain between 1948-62, under the terms of the British Nationality Act of 1948. But sixty odd years after their resettlement in Britain, the "First Wave" Anglo-Indian immigrant community continues to remain obscure among India's global diaspora. This book examines and critiques the convoluted routes of adaptation and assimilation employed by immigrant Anglo-Indians in the process of finding their niche within the context of globalization in contemporary multi-cultural Britain. As they progressed from immigrants to settlers, they underwent a cultural metamorphosis. The homogenizing labyrinth of ethnic cultures through which they negotiated their way-Indian, Anglo-Indian, then Anglo-Saxon-effaced difference but created yet another hybrid identity: British Anglo-Indianness. Through meticulous ethnographic field research conducted amidst the community in Britain over a decade, Rochelle Almeida provides evidence that immigrant Anglo-Indians remain on the cultural periphery despite more than half a century. Indeed, it might be argued that they have attained virtual invisibility-in having created an altogether interesting new amalgamated sub-culture in the UK, this Christian minority has ceased to be counted: both, among South Asia's diaspora and within mainstream Britain. Through a critical scrutiny of multi-ethnic Anglophone literature and cinema, the modes and methods they employed in seeking integration and the reasons for their near-invisibility in Britain as an immigrant South Asian community are closely examined in this much-needed volume.

"This critical study of the work of Kamala Markandaya is a comprehensive assessment of her entire canon an output that spans ten novels produced over a period of three decades. With emphasis upon the presence or absence of the quality of Indianness in her fiction, this analysis examines those aspects of her writing that reflect dependence upon western genres and styles of literary creativity as well as those that reveal indigenously Indian sources of inspiration. In particular, this critique dissects the influence of her upbringing and early experiences in India together with those gleaned following her emigration to England. Drawing liberally upon Markandaya s own comments on her life and work gathered from personal conversations with the novelist, this book explores every facet of Markandaya s creativity from theme and character to language and setting. Using a form of close textual analysis, the author discovers that where Markandaya utilizes her imagination to flesh out her novels, she often distorts reality; where, however, she relies on personal observation and individual experience, she both enlightens and delights. Invaluable to both the causal reader and the serious scholar of early Indo-English literature, this book makes an original and important contribution to Kamala Markandaya scholarship, in particular, and to the body of Indian post-colonial literary criticism, in general."