Theorizing Tradition

Theorizing Tradition: Critical Essays on Indian Folklore, presents the timeless voices of India's folk traditions, revisited through the lens of contemporary scholarship. This anthology gathers critical essays that illuminate how oral tales, songs, proverbs, and performances continue to shape cultural memory, ecological ethics, and collective consciousness in the modern world through literature. From the wrinkled grandmother's lantern-lit storytelling to the vibrant echoes of puppet shows, ballads, and ritual ceremonies, folk literature emerges here not as a relic of nostalgia but as a dynamic force negotiating identity, sustainability, and global interconnectedness. Contributors engage with diverse theoretical frameworks—structuralism, postcolonialism, eco-criticism—to reveal how folk narratives resist homogenization, empower marginalized voices, and sustain human–nature kinship. The essays traverse India's linguistic and regional diversity, exploring tribal mythologies, women's songs, and cinematic reimaginings, while probing the challenges of translation and the resilience of dialects. Together, they demonstrate that folk traditions are not peripheral artefacts but integral to pedagogy, cultural values, and national imagination. This collection offers readers a rich amalgamation of tradition and modernity, oral and textual, local and global. It affirms that folk literature is not a fading echo of the past, but a reverberating voice shaping sustainable futures. About the Editors Dr Gunjan Saxena (M. A. Ph D) holds the office of Assistant Professor at the department of English, Bareilly College affiliated to MJP Rohilkhand University, Bareilly. Dr. Gurpreet Kaur is an educationist, author, translator, editor, awardee, working as an Assistant Professor in English and Head, at Sri Guru Teg Bahadur Khalsa College, Sri Anandpur Sahib, affiliated to Punjabi University, Patiala, Punjab, India.