Books published by University of Illinois Press

A passionate and celebrated pioneer in her own words

An important modern exponent of Asian dance, Pandit Chitresh Das brought kathak to the United States in 1970. The North Indian classical dance has since become an important art form within the greater Indian diaspora. Yet its adoption outside of India raises questions about what happens to artistic practices when we separate them from their broader cultural contexts. A Guru's Journey provides an ethnographic study of the dance form in the San Francisco Bay Area community formed by Das. Sarah Morelli, a kathak dancer and one of Das's former students, investigates issues in teaching, learning, and performance that developed around Das during his time in the United States. In modifying kathak's form and teaching for Western students, Das negotiates questions of Indianness and non-Indianness, gender, identity, and race. Morelli lays out these issues for readers with the goal of deepening their knowledge of kathak aesthetics, technique, and theory. She also shares the intricacies of footwork, facial expression in storytelling, and other aspects of kathak while tying them to the cultural issues that inform the dance.

William Brooks is a professor of music at the University of York and an associate professor emeritus of composition at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Christina Bashford is an associate professor of musicology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and the author of The Pursuit of High Culture: John Ella and Chamber Music in Victorian London. Gayle Sherwood Magee is a professor of musicology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and the author of Charles Ives Reconsidered.

The biography of the collector of sexual folklore, cataloger of erotica, and tireless social critic Gershon Legman, whose singular, disreputable resume made him a counter-cultural touchstone.