Synopses & Reviews
This book addresses aspects of popular/public culture in a manner that connects with contemporary political controversy i.e. liberalization, Hinduvata, etc. This volume concentrates mainly on film and mass media, and includes contributions by Ravi Vasudevan, Patricia Uberoi, Sara Dickey, Nicholas Dirks and a number of first-rate South Asian scholars.
Synopsis
Breaking new ground, this volume explores the relationship between popular pleasure and the construction of the nation of India. Subjects covered in this volume range from nineteenth-century popular mythological tracts to Hindi and Tamil films and the fan clubs and gossip magazines that sustain this hugely important aspect of Indian life.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 347-351) and index.
Table of Contents
Introduction : public, popular, and other cultures / Christopher Pinney -- Visions of the nation : theorizing the nexus between creation, consumption, and participation in the public sphere / Sandria B. Freitag -- The Indar Sabha phenomenon : public theatre and consumption in greater India (1853-1956) / Kathryn Hansen -- The tale of the book : storytelling and print in nineteenth-century Tamil / Stuart Blackburn -- Invitation to an antique death : the journey of Pramathesh Barua as the origin of the terribly effeminate, Maudlin, self-destructive heroes of Indian cinema / Ashis Nandy -- The home and the nation : consuming culture and politics in Roja / Nicholas B. Dirks -- Bombay and its public / Ravi S. Vasudevan -- Opposing faces : film star fan clubs and the construction of class identities in South India / Sara Dickey -- Shooting stars : the Indian film magazine, Stardust / Rachel Dwyer -- Hidden pleasures: negotiating the myth of the female ideal in popular Hindi cinema / Asha Kasbekar -- Imagining the family : an ethnography of viewing Hum Aapke Hain Koun...! / Patricia Uberoi.