{"product_id":"tantra-hugh-b-urban-9780520236561","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. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTracing 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\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Hugh B. Urban\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0520236564\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780520236561\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of California Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 10\/14\/2003\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 388\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.16lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.02h x 5.88w x 0.97d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 06\/01\/2004 pg. 1901","brand":"Hugh B. Urban","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44119761879295,"sku":"9780520236561","price":34.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_4b1b4807-fd2c-4093-ab11-85e95f501dae.jpg?v=1687410812","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/tantra-hugh-b-urban-9780520236561","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}