Indian cinema, especially in its dominant Bollywood form, is usually seen as a debased commercial art form, largely derivative of Hollywood and primarily a vehicle of mass entertainment which is anti-political in every way. In spite of a growing body of sophisticated film criticism which recognizes the special and original features of Bollywood cinema, most critics do not regard it as an emancipatory aesthetic form. In this lecture, I argue that in their long history, especially after 1945, Hindi commercial films have been the major popular source for constructing an independent and distinct Indian imaginary of modernity. Elements of this imaginary involve family, territory and nation, while others have to do with crime, corruption and justice. Even apart from these major themes, which narrativize Indian modernity after decolonization, the formal innovations of Hindi commercial cinema, in the areas of song, dialogue and language, have contributed to a complex popular and modernist vocabulary of city, country and nation which reaches far beyond the world of avant garde art, literature and politics.
The Lecture is part of the Annual Conference of the Forum Transregionale Studien and the Max Weber Foundation in cooperation with the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Convened by Art Histories and Aesthetic Practices.
"Global Modernisms: Contiguities, Infrastructures and Aesthetic Practices"
5-7 November 2015
Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
Taking the years between 1905 and 1965 as the temporal frame, this conference seeks to rethink Global Modernisms from a transregional perspective. Current conceptualizations of avantgardism and formal innovation often related to places like Paris, New York, Weimar or Moscow continue to inform Global Modernisms’ intellectual field. Global Modernisms are often presented as a symptom for new Westernism that masquerades as the universal.
Conception of the Conference: Atreyee Gupta (Berlin/Oakland), Hannah Baader (Berlin/Florenz), Patrick Flores (Manila)
Information on participating / attending:
Eintritt frei
Date:
11/05/2015 19:00 - 11/05/2015 21:00
Event venue:
Haus der Kulturen der Welt
John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10
10557 Berlin
Berlin
Germany
Target group:
Scientists and scholars, Students
Email address:
Relevance:
international
Subject areas:
Art / design, Construction / architecture, Cultural sciences, Language / literature, Media and communication sciences
Types of events:
Presentation / colloquium / lecture
Entry:
10/14/2015
Sender/author:
Dr. Stefanie Rentsch
Department:
Öffentlichkeitsarbeit
Event is free:
yes
Language of the text:
English
URL of this event: http://idw-online.de/en/event52273
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