Professor Kirin Narayan
Research interests
social life of narrative; ethnographic writing; ethnographic genres; expressive culture; oral traditions, folklore; gender; life stories; anthropology of religion; anthropology of creativity; South Asia; South Asian diaspora
Biography
Kirin Narayan was born in India to an American mother and Indian father, and moved to the United States to attend college in 1976. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California—Berkeley. Her first book, Storytellers, Saints and Scoundrels: Folk Narrative in Hindu Religious Teaching (1989), won the first Victor Turner Prize for Ethnographic Writing from the American Anthropological Association and was co-winner of the Elsie Clews Prize for Folklore from the American Folklore Society. She then published a novel, Love, Stars and All That (1994). In the course of researching women’s oral traditions in Kangra, Northwest Himalayas, she collaborated with Urmila Devi Sood to bring together a book of tales with discussions of their meaning and ethnographic context in Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon: Himalayan Foothill Folktales (1997). An interest in family stories and diasporic experience inspired My Family and Other Saints (2007). Teaching ethnographic writing led her to compose Alive in the Writing: Crafting Ethnography in the Company of Chekhov (2012), that includes galvanizing extracts, prompts and writing exercises. Her latest book, Everyday Creativity: Singing Goddesses of the Himalayan Foothills (2016) emerges from a long association with women singers in Kangra.
Kirin Narayan has received support from the Australian Research Council, National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Institute of Indian Studies, the School of American Research, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the University of Wisconsin Institute for Research in the Humanities, and the University of Wisconsin Graduate School. She received a Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of Wisconsin in 2011. Since 2001, she has served as an editor for the Series in Contemporary Ethnography at the University of Pennsylvania Press. She currently serves on the Committee of Selection for the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
Researcher's projects
BOOKS AND EDITED VOLUMES
2016 Everyday Creativity: Singing Godddesses of the Himalayan Foothills. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
2015 guest editor Transmissions and Transitions in Indian Oral Traditions Special issue, Oral Tradition 29 (2)
2012 Alive in the Writing: Crafting Ethnography in the Company of Chekhov.Chicago University of Chicago Press.
2007 My Family and Other Saints. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (2008 My Family and Other Saints. New Delhi: Harper Collins]
2002 Old Deccan Days or Hindoo Fairy Legends by Mary Frere. Edited with an introduction by Kirin Narayan. (reprint of Old Deccan Days or Hindoo Fairy Legends Current in South India, fifth ed. 1898). Series in Classic Folk and Fairy Tales, Jack Zipes, Series Editor. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio.
1997 Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon: Himalayan Foothill Folktales in collaboration with Urmila Devi Sood. New York: Oxford University Press.
1994 Love, Stars and All That. New York: Pocket Books. New Delhi: Penguin India. London:Piatkus Books.
1993 Creativity/Anthropology. Smadar Lavie, Kirin Narayan and Renato Rosaldo, eds.Ithaca:Cornell University Press.
1989 Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels: Folk Narrative in Hindu Religious Teaching. Series in Contemporary Ethnography, and Publication of the American Folklore Society, New Series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas. (Winner of Victor Turner Prize for Ethnographic Writing and co-winner of Elsie Clews Parsons Prize for Folklore)
Publications
- Narayan, K 2016, 'The Ethnographic Voice of Ann Grodzins Gold', Religion and Society: Advances in Research, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 32-36.
- Narayan, K 2016, Everyday Creativity: Singing Goddesses in the Himalayan Foothills, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, USA.
- Narayan, K 2016, 'Chekhov as Ethnographic Muse', in Helena Wulff (ed.), The Anthropologist as Writer, Berghahn Books, Oxford, pp. 143-158.
- Narayan, K, ed., 2015, Transmissions and Transitions in Indian Oral Traditions. Special Issue, Oral Traditions 29 (2)
- Narayan, K, ed., 2015, Transmissions and Transitions in Indian Oral Traditions: An Introduction [DUPLICATE].
- Narayan, K 2015, 'The Social Life of Transcriptions: Interactions around Women's Songs in Kangra', Oral Tradition, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 225-244.
- Narayan, K 2015, 'Collaborative ethnography and a grandfather's stories', Postcolonial Studies, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 234-236.
- Narayan, K 2015, 'Review of Unearthing Gender: Folksongs of North India by Smita Tewari Jassal', Journal of Folklore Research.
- Narayan, K 2014, 'Narrating Creative Process', Narrative Culture, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 109-123.
- Narayan, K 2014, 'Ethnographic Writing with Kirin Narayan: An Interview'. Savage Minds: Notes and Queries in Anthropology. http://savageminds.org/2014/02/03/ethnographic-writing-with-kirin-narayan-an-interview/
- Narayan, K 2013, 'Pahari Paintings and Kangra Women's Songs', in Mahesh Sharma and Padma Kaimal (ed.), Indian Painting: Themes, Histories, Interpretations | Essays in Honour of B. N. Goswamy, Mapin Publishing, India, pp. 296-307.
- Narayan, K & George, K 2012, 'Stories About Getting Stories: Interactional Dimensions in Folk and Personal Narrative Research', in Jaber F Gubrim, James A Holstein, Amir B. Marvasti, Karyn D. McKinney (ed.), The SAGE Handbook of Interview Research, SAGE Publications Inc., California, pp. 511-524.
- Narayan, K 2012, 'Local Boons: The Many Lives of Family Stories', in Maureen Perkins (ed.), Locating Life Stories: Beyond East-West binaries in (auto)biographical studies, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, USA, pp. 239-258.
- Narayan, K 2012, Alive in the Writing: Crafting Ethnography in the Company of Chekhov, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London.
- Narayan, K 2011, The Moon Pearl, Namaste XXI: (1) pp. 66-70.
- Narayan, K 2010, 'Placing Lives through Stories: Second Generation South Asian Americans', in Diane P Mines and Sarah Lamb (ed.), Everyday Life in South Asia, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, USA, pp. 472-486.
- Narayan, K 2009, 'Stirring up Ethnography: Beyond the Finished Text', Etnofoor, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 61-78.
- Narayan, K 2008, 'Showers of Flowers: A.K. Ramanujan and an Indian Folktale', Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 5-23.
- Narayan, K 2008, '"Or in Other Words": Recasting Grand Theory', Journal of Folklore Research, vol. 45, no. 1, pp. 83-90.
- Narayan, K 2008, 'The Ascetic Practice of Eating Sweets: Transcribing Oral Narrative', Intervalles, vol. II2-III1, pp. 597-606.
- Narayan, K 2008, 'Stella Stories', in Frank De Caro (ed.), The Folklore Muse: Poetry, Fiction and Other Reflections by Folklorists, Utah State University Press, Utah, p. 244.
- Narayan, K 2008, 'Singing and Retelling the Past', in William Schneider (ed.), Living with Stories: Telling, Retelling and Remembering, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, pp. 74-94.
- Narayan, K 2007, 'Moving Stories: Beyond the Local in Ethnography and Fiction', in K Robinson (ed.), Asian and Pacific Cosmopolitans: Self and Subject in Motion, Palgrave Macmillan Ltd, Basingstoke UK, pp. 60-77.
Projects and Grants
Grants information is drawn from ARIES. To add or update Projects or Grants information please contact your College Research Office.
- Building India: Religion, Craft and Infrastructure in Contemporary Asia (Primary Investigator)