Bombay Cinema's Islamicate Histories by Ira Bhaskar India)

Bombay Cinema's Islamicate Histories by Ira Bhaskar India)

Popularly known as Bollywood, Bombay cinema conjures up song, dance and starry-eyed romance. Where do those conventions come from? Many derive from the historical influence of Muslim cultures interacting with other traditions in the Indian subcontinent. Contributions by major scholars of South Asian cultural history and Indian Cinema 105 b&w illus.

'This collection shows how Islamicate cultural forms have been absorbed so fully into Bombay cinema and Bollywood film that it is no longer apparent where certain influences have come fromEach essay unweaves a piece of the complicated tapestry that is Indian society today and it makes a strong and powerful statement: that the history of Islam in India cannot be erased or seen as antithetical to the core identity of the nation without destroying the nation itself.'

-- Aamera Jiwaji, AwaaZ Magazine

'Bombay Cinema’s Islamicate Histories, edited by Ira Bhaskar and Richard Allen, highlights the centrality of Islam, Muslims, and “Islamicate” forms and aesthetics in the history of the film industry in Bombay. In doing so, it not only reveals overlooked cinematic pasts, it also effectively demonstrates that modern Indian history is inextricable from the history of Islam. [...] Its novelty is due to the breadth of the contributions and their varied methodological and disciplinary perspectives. The editors seek to tie these contributions together not as a singular narrative, but as a series of intersecting interventions. [...] It is a significant contribution to the scholarship, not only for the ways that it resists contemporary Hindu nationalist narratives, but also because it highlights the potential intersections in multiple contemporary trends in the study of Islam, Muslims, and the Islamicate in South Asian film.'

-- Amanda Lanzillo, Journal of Religion & Film

'A sense of corrective readings of not just Bombay cinema’s film history but of larger art history of South Asia informs these chapters. Such an exercise in contributing to the larger idea of Indian identity with the help of cinema will largely be welcomed for its weaving together of form and sociopolitical conditions that influence form. This indeed is the way art history can be envisioned to inspire film history – breaking it free from isolated formal-chronological treatment of evolution of cinema while giving it definitive prompts to explore the sociopolitical symptoms and consequences of changes in its form. [...] The volume will be of immense interest to scholars of Bollywood as examples of how to do history of the art of film keeping complex factors such as form and identity at the centre of inquiry.'

-- Soni Wadhwa, Studies in South Asian Film & Media

‘This collection elaborates carefully the waxing and waning of attachment to and detachment from the Islamicate at personal and political levels through the affective register of the cinema. There is no comparable volume that dives so thoroughly into the history, theory and analysis of such a wide array of Islam-derived themes in Bombay cinema’s history, from its inception to the present.

A tour de force in both range and scope. Bombay Cinema’s Islamicate Histories is unfailingly rigorous, lively and groundbreaking.’

-- Anupama Prabhala Kapse, Loyola Marymount University

Richard Allen is chair professor of film and media art and dean of the School of Creative Media at City University Hong Kong

 

Ira Bhaskar is professor of cinema studies at the School of Arts & Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781789383973
ISBN 10	1789383978
Title	Bombay Cinema's Islamicate Histories
Author	Ira Bhaskar India)
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Intellect Books
Year published	2022-04-07
Number of pages	440
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.