Face, Surface, Interface - Ontology of Odia Culture

This is the first explorative book on culture that interprets the rock evidences, tribal and other religious pantheons, politics, theory of architecture, folk arts, mythology and performing arts of Kalinga, Kosala and Utkala, politically reformulated in 1936 as Orissa.

Having exposed and combined the concepts of culture envisaged by Weber, Durkheim and Parson, the study approaches toward post modern discourse: phenomenology, cultural anthropology and structuralism. The book also determines how transmission of knowledge is central to culture and narrates through its five sections how Odiya culture is linked to power in conscious and unconscious ways; how it is insidious, sporadic and ubiquitous; and, of course, how the Odia cultural ideologies, in rare moments, transcend rationale boundaries.

Ramesh P. Panigrahi (b. 1944) was a former reader in English in the post-graduate department of Ravenshaw College, Cuttack and is a Sahitya Akademi Award winner for the year 1984. Besides his forty-three publications in Oriya, his English books/Edited books include: Oddiyan : Six Contemporary Painters from Orissa, Harman Publications, Continuity in the Flux : Orissa, Harman, Perspectives on Odissi Theatre, Sangit Natak Akademy, Kalicharan Pattnayak (A Monography for Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi), Drawing a Full Circle, Sanbun Publications and The Splintered Self : Character and Vision in Sam Shepard's Plays, Abhijit Publication, New Delhi.