Encountering kali : in the margins, at the center, in the west

PART I. KALI IN THE TEXTS AND CONTEXTS OF SOUTH ASIA
1. Kali
2. Kali the Terrific and Her Tests: The Sakta Devotionalism of the Mahabhagavata Purana
3. The Domestication of a Goddess: Carana-tirtha Kalighat, the Mahapitha of Kali
4. Dominating Kali: Hindu Family Values and Tantric Power
5. Kali in a Context of Terror: The Tasks of a Goddess in Sri Lanka's Civil War
6. Kali Mayi: Myth and Reality in a Banaras Ghetto

PART II. KALI IN WESTERN SETTINGS, WESTERN DISCOURSES
7. Wrestling with Kali: South Asian and British Constructions of the Dark Goddess
8. "India's Darkest Heart": Kali in the Colonial Imagination
9. Why the Tantrika Is a Hero: Kali in the Psychoanalytic Tradition
10. Doing the Mother's Caribbean Work: On Shakti and Society in Contemporary Trinidad
11. Margins at the Center: Tracing Kali through Time, Space, and Culture
12. Kali's New Frontiers: A Hindu Goddess on the Internet
Appendix: Documentary Film and Video Resources for Teaching on Kali and Fierce Goddesses
Sarah Caldwell
Contributors
Select Bibliography
Index

An exploration of the Hindu goddess Kālī, this text uses scriptural history, temple architecture, political violence, feminist and psychoanalytic criticism, autobiographical reflection and the Internet to illuminate the problems and promises inherent in every act of cross-cultural understanding