Conference on Indian Cinema

Indian Cinema Circuits: Diasporas, Peripheries and Beyond
Co-hosted by SOAS and University of Westminster

Thursday 25th and Friday 26th June, 9.30am - 6pm
The Old Cinema, Regent Campus, University of Westminster,
309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW

Keynote speakers:
Brian Larkin (Barnard College, Columbia University)
Ravi Vasudevan (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi)

For full programme and to register: http://www.wmin.ac.uk/mad/page-2104 <
https://webmail.wmin.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.wmin.ac.uk/mad/page-2104
>

The Indian film industry's importance for audiences worldwide has been
celebrated by an
increasing number of edited collections and papers boasting of Bollywood's
globally
expanding territories. However, questions about the nature of Indian cinema
circulation
remain to be explored: what enables Indian cinema to circulate? How does
circulation of
the films themselves sit within a broader set of flows - of film technology,
personnel,
music, posters, stars? What theoretical and methodological tools are
appropriate to this
multi-sited field? And whilst the South Asian diasporic formations of
Britain and North
America have been undoubtedly important, much less analyzed are the Indian
diasporas
associated with nineteenth century plantation capital in the Caribbean, Fiji
and South
Africa, as well as those non-Indian audiences that consume Indian films in
Turkey, Nepal,
Austria, Kenya, Russia and elsewhere. These cinema contexts offer additional
positions
from which to develop analyses of Indian cinema: for example, the plantation
diasporas'
historical trajectories are distinctively different from other diasporas.
Moreover, exploring
Indian cinema within diverse national agendas, whose history and
socio-political realities
are not overtly Indian-orientated, opens up debate on alternative
appropriations of India,
as well as questions about the nature of film circulation itself.

Organized by SOAS and the Centre for Research and Education in Arts and
Media (CREAM)
at the University of Westminster, Indian Cinema Circuits: Diasporas,
Peripheries and
Beyond, will focus on questions of circulation, with particular reference to
these
'peripheral' sites, where, in many cases, Indian films have been watched
since the 1930s,
and aims to complicate accounts that position Bollywood as a recent global
phenomenon.

The conference organizers are Atticus Narain an5@soas.ac.uk and Ranita
Chatterjee
R.Chatterjee@westminster.ac.uk

Conference fee: Waged: £75 for two days (£40 one day)
Students, unwaged and concessions: £15
Staff and students of SOAS and UOW: free




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The University of Westminster is a charity and a company limited by
guarantee. Registration number: 977818 England. Registered Office:
309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW, UK.