Uses the principles of psychoanalysis to examine Romeo and Juliet, Oedipus, Tristan and Isolde, Hamlet, and Phaedra and Hippolytus

Tales of love, sex & danger

Kakar, Sudhir

Literature & Fiction

Unwin Paperbacks

Plumbing the hearts of women and men in India and exploring the relations they engage in, Sudhir Kakar gives us the first full-length study of Indian sexuality. His groundbreaking work explores India's sexual fantasies and ideals, the "unlit stage of desire where so much of our inner theater takes place." Kakar's sources are primarily textual, celebrating the primacy of the story in Indian life. He practices a cultural psychology that distills the psyches of individuals from the literary products and social institutions of Indian culture. These include examples of lurid contemporary Hindi novels; folktales; Sanskrit, Tamil, and Hindi proverbs; hits of the Indian cinema; Gandhi's autobiography; interviews with women from the slums of Delhi; and case studies from his own psychoanalytic practice. His attentive readings of these varied narratives from a vivid portrait of sexual fantasies and realities, reflecting the universality of sexuality as well as cultural nuances specific to India.

Intimate Relations

Children's Books

PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE INDIA PVT.LTD.

The Kamasutra is the oldest extant textbook of erotic love. But it is more than a book about sex. It is about the art of living--about finding a partner, maintaining power in a marriage, committing adultery, living as or with a courtesan, using drugs--and also, of course, about the many and varied positions available to lovers in sexual intercourse and the pleasures to be derived from each. The Kamasutra was composed in Sanskrit, the literary language of ancient India, sometime in the third century, probably in North India. It combines an encyclopedic coverage of all imaginable aspects of sex with a closely observed sexual psychology and a dramatic, novelistic narrative of seduction, consummation, and disentanglement. Best known in English through the highly mannered, padded, and inaccurate nineteenth-century translation by Sir Richard Burton, the text is newly translated here into clear, vivid, sexually frank English. This edition also includes a section of vivid Indian color illustrations along with three uniquely important commentaries: translated excerpts from the earliest and most famous Sanskrit commentary (thirteenth century) and from a twentieth-century Hindi commentary, and explanatory notes by the two translators. The lively and entertaining introduction by translator Wendy Doniger, one of the world's foremost Sanskrit scholars, discusses the history of The Kamasutra and its reception in India and Europe, analyses its attitudes toward gender and sexual violence, and sets it in the context of ancient Indian social theory, scientific method, and sexual ethics.

Kamasutra

Vatsyáyána, Mallanaga

Doniger, Wendy

History & Criticism

Oxford University Press

The Kamasutra is the oldest extant textbook of erotic love. But it is more than a book about sex. It is about the art of living--about finding a partner, maintaining power in a marriage, committing adultery, living as or with a courtesan, using drugs--and also, of course, about the many and varied positions available to lovers in sexual intercourse and the pleasures to be derived from each. The Kamasutra was composed in Sanskrit, the literary language of ancient India, sometime in the third century, probably in North India. It combines an encyclopedic coverage of all imaginable aspects of sex with a closely observed sexual psychology and a dramatic, novelistic narrative of seduction, consummation, and disentanglement. Best known in English through the highly mannered, padded, and inaccurate nineteenth-century translation by Sir Richard Burton, the text is newly translated here into clear, vivid, sexually frank English. This edition also includes a section of vivid Indian color illustrations along with three uniquely important commentaries: translated excerpts from the earliest and most famous Sanskrit commentary (thirteenth century) and from a twentieth-century Hindi commentary, and explanatory notes by the two translators. The lively and entertaining introduction by translator Wendy Doniger, one of the world's foremost Sanskrit scholars, discusses the history of The Kamasutra and its reception in India and Europe, analyses its attitudes toward gender and sexual violence, and sets it in the context of ancient Indian social theory, scientific method, and sexual ethics. "[This] new translation is fascinating, thought-provoking and occasionally even amusing."--Salon.com

Kamasutra (Oxford World's Classics)

Self-Help

Inner World: A Psycho-analytic Study of Childhood and Society in India

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Psychology & Counseling

Inner World: A Psycho-Analytic Study of Childhood and Society in India

Mental Health

Oxford Univ. Pr.

In this fascinating psycho-analytic study of Hindu childhood and society, Sudhir Kakar uses anthropological evidence, clinical data, mythology and folklore to open the door on to the daily lives of the Hindu family and the shadowy world of collective fantasy. It explores the developmental significance of Hindu infancy and childhood, and its influence on identity formation. It will be of interest to all who are interested in Indian society and its myths, rituals, fables and arts, but will be particularly rewarding for anyone concerned with the psychological study of societies and the relevance and validity of psycho-analytic concepts in Indian culture and society.

The Inner World: A Psycho-analytic Study of Childhood and Society in India (Oxford India Paperbacks)

Feelings, impulses, wishes, and fantasties -- the dynamic content of the inner world -- occupy the deepest recesses of the psyche. It is through introspection and empathy, essential to psychotherapy, that the outside observer can grasp the meaning of the inner world of an individual.  This thought-provoking book examines the network of social roles, traditional values, customs, and kinship rules with which the threads of Indian psychological development are interwoven. In doing so, it reveals important aspects of Indian society, myth, rituals, fables, and arts. It looks at Hindu infancy and childhood in order to show how these are shaped within a specific cultural context.  Hailed by critics from all over the world as the best application of psychoanalysis to Indian culture, the third edition of The Inner World includes a new Afterword by the author, and will equally appeal to scholars of social psychology, cultural studies, and sociology, as well as general readers interested in psychology.

The Inner World: A Psycho-analytical study of Hindu Childhood and Society

Culture and Psyche is a collection of Sudhir Kakar's essays on cultural psychology, which analyses various facets of Indian identity and sexuality through sources as diverse as case studies, Indian myths and legends, and popular cinema. The second edition of this classic includes a new introduction and three additional essays which explore issues like riots, the psychology of Islamist terrorism, among others.

Culture and Psyche: Selected Essays

This volume includes some of the path-breaking essays by well-known psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar on themes ranging from Hindu childhood, modern mysticism, and India's healing traditions to male-female relations and Hindu-Muslim violence. The seven new, previously unpublished essays focus on the Indian mind and sexuality and the role of empathy in psychoanalysis and spiritual healing. The volume includes a comprehensive Introduction by Manasi Kumar to Sudhir Kakar's large corpus of work and an interview that seeks to unravel the making of India's most well-known psychoanalyst.

The Essential Sudhir Kakar

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Books by Kakar, Sudhir