{"product_id":"tantra-sex-secrecy-politics-and-power-in-the-study-of-religion","title":"Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics, And Power In The Study Of Religion","description":"A complex body of religious practices that spread throughout the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions; a form of spirituality that seemingly combines sexuality, sensual pleasure, and the full range of physical experience with the religious life―Tantra has held a central yet conflicted role within the Western imagination ever since the first \"discovery\" of Indian religions by European scholars. Always radical, always extremely Other, Tantra has proven a key factor in the imagining of India. This book offers a critical account of how the phenomenon has come to be.\n\nTracing the complex genealogy of Tantra as a category within the history of religions, Hugh B. Urban reveals how it has been formed through the interplay of popular and scholarly imaginations. Tantra emerges as a product of mirroring and misrepresentation at work between East and West--a dialectical category born out of the ongoing play between Western and Indian minds. Combining historical detail, textual analysis, popular cultural phenomena, and critical theory, this book shows Tantra as a shifting amalgam of fantasies, fears, and wish-fulfillment, at once native and Other, that strikes at the very heart of our constructions of the exotic Orient and the contemporary West.\u003cbr\u003eASIN: 0520236564\u003cbr\u003eVSKU: DBV.0520236564.G\u003cbr\u003eCondition: Good\u003cbr\u003eAuthor\/Artist:Urban, Hugh B. B.\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eNote:\u003c\/b\u003e Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition Notes\u003c\/b\u003e: Gently used with minimal wear on the corners and cover. A few pages may contain light highlighting or writing, but the text remains fully legible. Dust jacket may be missing, and supplemental materials like CDs or codes may not be included. May be ex-library with library markings. Ships promptly!  \u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Dream Books Co.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41605618565178,"sku":"DBV.0520236564.G","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0555\/6011\/0138\/files\/0520236564-0.jpg?v=1787286507","url":"https:\/\/shop.dreambooksco.com\/products\/tantra-sex-secrecy-politics-and-power-in-the-study-of-religion","provider":"Dream Books Co.","version":"1.0","type":"link"}