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Narratives of Gendered Dissent in South Asian Cinemas Alka Kurian

Narratives of Gendered Dissent in South Asian Cinemas By Alka Kurian

Narratives of Gendered Dissent in South Asian Cinemas by Alka Kurian


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Summary

Using the lenses of post-colonial and feminist theory, Kurian examines politically engaged, women-centered South Asian films.

Narratives of Gendered Dissent in South Asian Cinemas Summary

Narratives of Gendered Dissent in South Asian Cinemas by Alka Kurian

This book conducts a post-colonial, gendered investigation of women-centred South Asian films. In these films, the narrative becomes an act of political engagement and a site of feminist struggle: a map that weaves together multiple strands of subjectivitygender, caste, race, class, religion, and colonialism. The book explores the cinematic construction of an oppositional narrative of feminist dissent with a view to elaborate a historical understanding and theorisation of the materiality and politics of the everyday struggle of Indian women. The book analyzes the ways that cultural workers have tended to use subversive narratives as a tool of resistance. Narratives that are political, ideological, classed, raced and gendered offer the focus of this exploration. Through strategies of disclosure and documentation of memory, personal experiences, and imaginary events shaped by the larger historical, political, and cultural contexts, these discursive texts engage in the processes of struggle against a plethora of oppression: caste, class, religion, patriarchal, sexual, and (neo)colonial. The study looks at the manner in which, through their creative and aesthetic interventions, South Asian film makers enable the articulation of an alternative gendered subjectivity as well as constitute the ground for personal and collective empowerment. Films discussed include Shyam Benegals Nishaant, Nandita Das Firaaq, Beate Arnestads My Daughter the Terrorist, and Sarah Gavrons Brick Lane.

Narratives of Gendered Dissent in South Asian Cinemas Reviews

'Unmistakably, Kurian argues with passion, does not flinch before thorny political issues, stakes out the literature, voices dis/agreements with other critics with clarity and a certainty that leaves no room for doubt...Yet the true strength of the work lies in the creative selection of representative films etching violent postcolonial struggles that draw together Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Even more impressive is how Kurian demonstrates inflections in local politics interlinked with and susceptible to global geopolitical pressure points...No single argument exclusively explains the complex politics behind these struggles, but Kurian does a valiant job in drawing together the layered forces at play in seemingly isolated Southasian political conflict and events.' Jyotika Virdi, Himal Southasian

'What makes Kurians work particularly noteworthy is its emphasis on what she calls feminist cinema a cinema committed to recovering and expressing gendered struggle against various modes of oppression along the lines of class, caste, religion, sexuality, imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism and racism. Further, the books scope includes not only works from India but also Pakistan and Sri Lanka as well as the Indian and Bangladeshi diasporas in the United Kingdom...Written with clarity and vigour, each chapter in this book provides helpful contextual material as well as a varied critical apparatus for the readings of individual films. Moreover, by bringing together such a diverse array of films, the book provides a pedagogically useful overview of the topic. While taking primarily a feminist and cultural studies approach, the book nonetheless suggests new questions that historians of Indian cinema might want to further investigate from a film studies perspective.' Sangita Gopal, South Asian History and Culture

About Alka Kurian

Alka Kurian is a Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington, Bothell.

Table of Contents

Part 1: Class, Caste and Social Exclusion 1. Subalterneity and Resistance in Shyam Benegals Nishaant and Manthan 2. Radical Politics and Gender in Govind Nihalanis Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Ma, Sudhir Mishras Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, and Sanjiv Karambelkars Lal Salaam Part 2: Nationalism, Religion, and Identity 3. The Politics of Hindutva in Nandita Das Firaaq, Rahul Dholakias Parzania, and Rakesh Sharmas Final Solution 4. Gender, Home, and Displacement in Sabiha Sumars Khamosh Pani Part 3: Nationalism and Ethnic Struggle 5. Subjectivity, Choice, and Feminist Agency in Santosh Sivans The Terrorist and Beate Arnestads My Daughter the Terrorist Part 4: Heteronormativity, Difference, and the Construction of a Subversive Femininity 6. Gender, Identity, and the Diaspora in Gurinder Chadhas Bhaji on the Beach and Sarah Gavrons Brick Lane

Additional information

NPB9780415961172
9780415961172
0415961173
Narratives of Gendered Dissent in South Asian Cinemas by Alka Kurian
New
Hardback
Taylor & Francis Ltd
2012-07-05
210
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
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