Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

Years later as an adult, Narayan turned research skills acquired as an anthropologist and folklorist towards these intriguing family stories. Though her father was no longer alive, his elderly cousin shared materials relating to Vishwakarma and Ellora gathered across seven decades. Circles of extended relatives shared a complex mythology about the transmission of artisans’ skills and tools at Ellora. 

While family stories may lay claim to a place, other perspectives offer different frames. Narayan's quest took her through libraries, archives and museums around the world, and across the borders of scholarly disciplines. In this talk she shares the making of her book, Cave of My Ancestors. 

Kirin Narayan is the author of seven books, scholarly works on South Asian anthropology and folklore as well as a family memoir, a novel, and a “how about” book on ethnographic writing with exercises and prompts. Her first book, Storytellers, Saints and Scoundrels: Folk Narrative in Hindu Religious Teaching (Pennsylvania, 1989) won the inaugural Victor Turner Prize for ethnographic writing. Her most recent book, Cave of My Ancestors: Vishwakarma and the Artisans of Ellora (Chicago, 2024), a “questography” recounts the quest to understand a family legend through the multidisciplinary tools of scholarship. 

Having earned a PhD in Cultural Anthropology at the University of California-Berkeley, Narayan has taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Australian National University. Her research has been supported by the American Institute of Indian Studies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Social Science Research Council, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Australian Research Council.