000			02870nam a22002297a 4500
005			20250902164606.0
008			250902b |||||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a9789354479595
028			_aRaghav Books Pvt. Ltd _bA-184, A, Nand Gram, Ghaziabad _c871 _d21/08/2025
082			_a301.09 KAR
100			_aKarve, Irawati.
245			_aIru _b: The Remarkable Life of Irawati Karve. _c/ Irawati Karve.
260			_a, New Delhi _b: Tiger _c, 2024.
300			_axiii, 261p. _c: 24cm.
365			_b489
520			_aIn 1927, when Irawati Karve, aged twenty-two, arrived in Berlin to do her doctoral studies at the Friedrich Wilhelm University, she was faced with a dilemma. As a woman of colour, the subject of her thesis was to prove her supervisor Dr Eugen Fischer’s theory of the superiority of the European race over people of colour, based on the measurement of their skulls. After examining 149 ‘white’ skulls from Germany and ‘non-white’ skulls from German colonies in East Africa, Irawati came to the opposite conclusion: the shape of the human skull did not prove racial superiority. Fischer’s theory was later discredited, but at the time, it took courage to present the paper to him and it nearly cost Irawati her PhD. Courage and a pioneering spirit continued to be her hallmarks on her return to India. At a time when such field trips were difficult if not dangerous, she travelled to the Adivasi areas in Coorg, Western Maharashtra, Assam, Kerala and Bihar. Her research resulted in two seminal works, Kinship Organisation in India and Hindu Society. In 1968, she won the Sahitya Akademi Award for her book of essays on the Mahabharata, Yuganta. Irawati’s belief that the Mahabharata was not just an epic, but a historical record, earned her some criticism from her peers at the time, but Yuganta remains a classic to this day. As the daughter-in-law of the reformist and feminist thinker, Maharshi Dhondo Karve, adored wife of Dinkar Karve, and privileged daughter of two families— her own parents, Ganesh and Bhagirathi Karmarkar, and her adoptive family, R.P. Paranjpye and his wife, Saitai—Irawati’s personal life was as rich and colourful as her professional one. In this biography like none other, writer Urmilla Deshpande, Irawati’s granddaughter, and academic researcher Thiago Pinto Barbosa, have created an intimate, captivating portrait of Irawati Karve, the anthropologist and philosopher, and Irawati, the woman, wife and mother. As author and Joint Director, JLF, Namita Gokhale says, ‘Irawati Karve stood tall with the tallest of her generation. This biography is a beacon for those who want to understand the Indian way—an inspirational story of an iconic figure.’
650			_aRemarkable Life
650			_aIru
650			_a Irawati Karve
700			_aUrmilla Deshpande.
942			_cBOOK
999			_c66065 _d66065