Roman Sieler

Lethal Spots, Vital Secrets

Medicine and Martial Arts in South India

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

This book provides an ethnographic study of varmakkalai, or 'the art of the vital spots,' a South Indian esoteric tradition that combines medical practice and martial arts.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Oxford University Press, USA
• Seitenzahl: 322
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. Juni 2015
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 228mm x 156mm x 25mm
• Gewicht: 460g
• ISBN-13: 9780190243869
• ISBN-10: 0190243864
• Artikelnr.: 42483707

Autorenporträt

Roman Sieler has a PhD in cultural anthropology from South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University (2011) as well as experience in development cooperation with regard to health issues in South Asia. His research interests include siddha medicine and the transmission and practice of non-institutionalized forms of health care in India, especially bonesetting and other forms of manual medicine. Currently, Sieler is Assistant Professor of anthropology at the South Asia Institute, where he coordinates the MA program "Health and Society in South Asia." He is also an affiliate postdoctoral researcher at the French Institute of Pondicherry, India.

Inhaltsangabe

* Introduction: The vital spots
* Chapter 1. Vital manifestations: marman, marmmam, and varmam spots
* Chapter 2. The vital spots: Heterogeneous theories, consistent
traditions
* Chapter 3. Dispensary and training ground: Medicine and Martial Arts
Intertwined
* Chapter 4. Healing the Hidden: Somatic Modes of Attending to Bodies
* Chapter 5. Virtue and Liability: The vital spots between concealment
and revelation
* Chapter 6. Embodying secrecy: A moral economy of learning and the
transmission of tacit knowledge
* Epilogue: From Tactility to Textuality, from Kanyakumari to the World
* Bibliography
* Index