In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Acknowledgments I owe my primary debts to those who shepherded me through my graduate work several years ago, from which the kernel of the idea of this book was born. Foremost has been Michael C. Shapiro, to whom I am grateful for years of intellectual guidance, professional advice, and good etymological jokes. I thank Sagaree Sengupta for taking me under her wing early on. Due thanks go to Wendy Doniger for approving the inclusion of this book in the series. Thanks also go to the Fulbright Foundation for dissertation research in India, and to the Universities of Virginia and Chicago, for research and travel monies for India and England. I also thank the University of Washington Department of Asian Languages and Literature, which supported the seed of this project with support for graduate study. I also thank the U.S. Department of Education for the Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships I received for many years of my graduate studies. The manuscript has benefited from presentations at the Annual Conference on South Asia (UW–Madison), the American Academy of Religion, the University of Chicago Franke Institute, University of Virginia South Asia Seminar, the European Conference for Modern South Asian Studies, the American Oriental Society, the Association for Asian Studies, the University of Pennsylvania South Asia Seminar, and the University of Florida CHITRA (Center for the Study of Hindu Traditions ) lecture series. I thank Orient Blackswan for permission to reprint, in Chapters 1, 3, and 5, parts of my article “Networks, Patrons, and Genres” in their Hindi and Urdu Before the Divide (F. Orsini, ed., 2010). I thank Permanent Black for permission to reprint, in Chapters 3, 4, and 5, revised and expanded portions of my articles in the anthology Nationalism in the Vernacular (S. Nijhawan, ed., 2010). I thank SUNY Press for reprinting in Chapter 5 parts of my article for their volume Alternative Krishnas (G. xix Beck, ed.; 2005). I thank Johns Hopkins Press for permission to publish an expanded version of my article “The Proper Female Subject” (Copyright © 2010 Johns Hopkins University Press) as Chapter 7, “Women Problems.” This article first appeared in the Journal of Women’s History (22:1, Spring 2010). For their comments, advice, and support in the formulation and execution of this project, and my academic career, I thank Frank Conlon , Alan W. Entwistle, John Stratton Hawley, Naseem Hines, R. S. McGregor, Francesca Orsini, Heidi Pauwels, Frances Pritchett, and Mira Srivastava, as well as the anonymous readers of the book manuscript. For their important practical assistance, I thank the staff at the United States Educational Foundation in India and at the American Institute of Indian Studies. In the vital matter of fonts, I heartily thank Sean Pue and Andrew Glass for their help over the years. For their efforts in the final publication stages, I thank Uday Prakash and Sanjeev and Priti Vidyarthi for their advice in copyright matters. Finally, I heartily thank Louise W. Seiler for painstakingly indexing this work. For their help and insights in locating and analyzing these texts, I thank Dhirendranåth Si¤h, of the Aaj newspaper, and dedicated scholar of early modern Hindi literature; Lak∑m¥datt Vyås of the Bhårat Kalå Bhavan at Banaras Hindu University; and Dayåråm Gupta of the Hind¥ Såhitya Ku†¥r, Varanasi, publisher of Hariaudh’s works since 1940. I also sincerely thank the administrations and staffs of the Någar¥ Pracåriˆ¥ Sabhå Library in Varanasi, the major repository of Hindi poetry before 1910; the Hind¥ Såhitya Sammelan library in Allahabad; the Nehru Memorial Library of New Delhi; and the Banaras Hindu University library, Varanasi. For their suggestions and insights, I thank Vasudha Dalmia, Lindsay Harlan, Janice Leoshko, Gail Minault, and Rupert Snell. For their moral support and camaraderie over the span of years of this project, I thank Amy Bard, Joan Burnside, Erin Douglass, John Farrell, Jason Grunebaum, Timothy Lenz, Pamela Lothspeich, Jason Neelis, Ellen O’Brien, Tracy Pintchman, August and Otto Ritter, Todd Scudiere, and Ravi Singh. I must also thank others more personally. My heartfelt thanks go to Kelly Herrick, who has seen me through it all, and to the inspiring Riley Lemire. Finally, I thank my parents, Kurt and Ellen Ritter, for their support in this unlikeliest of endeavors. xx  Acknowledgments ...

Share