Book Reviews:

Summary

(1) Behind the Mask: Vernacular Culture in the Time of COVID offers a profound reminder that the pandemic was not merely a medical or logistical crisis but also a deeply cultural one. The book underscores how communities adapted, coped, and ultimately persevered through vernacular creativity and collective resilience in a social way. (2) Anna Morcom’s Illicit Worlds of Indian Dance: Culture of Exclusions (2014) explores the profound cultural shifts that occurred with the advent of British colonialism in India, particularly, focusing on the hereditary female dancers—once the most esteemed artists in precolonial India. With the onset of colonization, their status shifted drastically.