Originally denoting a genre of popular films produced in Bombay
(Mumbai) and made in Hindi, Bollywood today circulates globally
as an aesthetic and cultural marker of Indianness. As a cultural
idea and product that has spun off from its base in film making
to create an array of new culture industries across the globe
- food, fashion, music, performance and dance fitness schools,
to name only a few - Bollywood today is one of India’s
most successful exports to the world. It has been aptly marked
as one of the key conduits of India’s “soft”
global power in the twenty-first century.
Aims of the Workshop:
a) to explore the impact of non-western visual genres on global
popular culture through analyzing the emergence of Bollywood as
a global film and culture industry since the 1980s.
b) to examine new ways of theorizing the impact of vernacular/non-western
visual cultures on film and material culture studies.
Given the global popularity of this film form and its impact
on visual and material cultures in Australia and across the globe,
we are intent on offering a film appreciation workshop for the
public and for scholars interested in the form and history of
Bollywood cinema and culture industry. Lectures, discussions and
presentations will be offered in the following areas:
1. The cosmopolitan and the vernacular in visual culture in the
era of globalization
2. Analysis of Bollywood as a genre of Asian film melodrama and
spectacle
3. Extra-cinematic visuality: Bollywood as culture and creative
industry
As conveners we will lead the sessions, but we propose to invite
several international experts and professional practitioners in
the field to give special presentations.
Confirmed speakers include:
M. Madhava Prasad (CIEFL, India, author The Ideology of the
Hindi Film)
Vijay Mishra (Murdoch University, author, Bollywood Cinema)
Carol Cains (National Gallery of Victoria, Curator, 'Cinema India:
The Art of Bollywood’)
Laurie Benson (National Gallery of Victoria, Curator, 'Cinema
India: The Art of Bollywood', and Curator of International Art
at NGV)
Rebecca Bower (Powerhouse Museum, Curator of upcoming Bollywood
exhibition in Sydney)
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