CONFERENCE PROGRAM
Over the past decade we have seen a wide spectrum of research on Indian Cinema. This conference brings together most of the major scholars on Indian Cinema from around the world, as well as new and emerging scholars in the field, in order to take stock of current work and outline directions for future research in the field. The organizers hope this unique gathering of scholars from India, Europe, and North America will initiate new collaborations across disciplines and within specialist subject areas, thus expanding the parameters and boundaries of Indian Film Studies. The goal of the conference is to foster a deeper understanding of the aesthetic, economic, and technological forces that have shaped the history and practice of cinema in India. In particular, the conference is designed to combine existing approaches to Indian film with new perspectives that recognize the transformative power of globalization on the aesthetic, social, and cultural value of cinema, and thereby foster new ways of thinking about the past.
The conference committee wishes to extend special thanks to our conference sponsors Merrill Lynch and Ford Foundation Delhi, and to the institutions at NYU who have supported us: Humanities Council, International Center for Advanced Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Center for Media, Culture and History, Center for Religion and Media, Kevorkian Center, and The Departments of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, English, Social and Cultural Analysis, East Asian Studies, Film and Television, Comparative Literature, Performance Studies, Culture and Communication and the following individuals: Sundaram Tagore, Mira Nair, Suman Mukhopadhyay, Rahul Dholakia, Partha Chatterjee; Raj Voraj, Corinee Chaussepied, Jyoti Chopra at Merrill Lynch; G. Balachander, Charu Gupta, and Tuhina Sunder at Ford Foundation, Dehli; Vikram Chatwal, Deena Howard, Linden Chubin, Dean Mary Schmidt Campbell, Dean David Slocum, Dean Catharine Stimpson, Sharon Peterson, Adrienne Hines, Richard Pierce, Chris Straayer, Ira Bhaskar, Ravi Sundaram, Gyan Prakash, Mrityunjay Chatterjee, Awadhendra Sharan, Abhilasha Kumari, Ravi Vasudevan, Radhika Subramaniam, Nitin Govil, Mai Kiang, Liza Greenfield, Ken Sweeney, Ventura Castro, Ann Harris, and Cathy Holter.
Conference Organizers: Ranjani Mazumdar, Richard Allen, and Aparna John
DAY 1: THURSDAY, APRIL 20th
Juan Carlos Center, 53 Washington Square South
9.00 – 4.00: Conference Registration -
Please note: registered conference attendees must arrive at least 10 minutes before panels begin to ensure seating.
10.00: Opening Remarks: Chris Straayer, Chair, Cinema Studies
10.15: Introduction: Ranjani Mazumdar
10.30 – 12.45:
SESSION 1 - Economies of Production & Control
Chair/Discussant – Robert Sklar
10.30: Priya Jaikumar
“Witness and Evidence: The Investigative Mode of the 1927-28 Cinematograph Interviews”.
11.00: Shohini Ghosh
“Fear of the Queer and All Things Erotic: Censorship Debates and Emergent Narratives”
11.30: Rachel Dwyer
“Falling Stars and Rising Producers: Charisma and Control in the Hindi Film World”
12.00 – 12.45: Response & Discussion
12.45 – 2.00: LUNCH
2.00-5.00:
Session 2 - The Film Industry & the State
Chair/Discussant - Jonathan Kahana
2.00: Ashish Rajadhyaksha
“Surviving the State: The Curious Case of Bombay's Hindi Film Industry”
2.30: Ravi Vasudevan
“A Cinema for the Nation: State Planning and Film Practices in India after Independence”.
3.00: Nitin Govil
“Informality, Industry, and the Permanency of Crisis”
3.30: Tejaswini Ganti
“Blockbusters and Bombs at the Box-Office: The Bombay Film Industry and the Cultural Logics of Commercial Success”
4.00 – 5.00: Response & Discussion
6.00: Keynote Address
Professor Partha Chatterjee
“Film & the Critique of Popular Culture”
Introduced by Dean Mary Schmidt Campbell
Venue: Asia Society, 70th Street & Park Avenue
Reception: 7.30 – 8.30
Dinner for Participants: 9.00
Day 2: FRIDAY, APRIL 21st
19 University Place, Room 101
9.00 – 2.00: Conference Registration -
Please note: registered conference attendees must arrive at least 10 minutes before panels begin to ensure seating.
10.00 – 12.15:
Session 3 - Film in Colonial India
Chair/Discussant – Dana Polan
10.00: Neepa Majumdar
“Film Fragments, Documentary History, and Colonial Indian Cinema"
10.30: Sudhir Mahadevan
“Images and Ownership in Colonial India: A Research Report”
11.00: Manishita Dass
“Outside the Lettered City: Imagining the Mass Audience in 1920s India”
11.30 – 12.15: Response & Discussion
12.15 – 2.00: LUNCH
2.00 – 4.30:
Session 4 - Melodrama & Other Rhetorical Forms of Indian Cinema
Chair/Discussant – Richard Allen
2.00: Moinak Biswas
“Invasion of Reality: Forms and Exposures in the Fifties”
2.30: Corey Creekmur
“Guru Dutt and the Indian Melodramatic Imagination”
3.00: Bhaskar Sarkar
“The National Mise-En-Abyme”
3.30: Ira Bhaskar
“Trauma, Melodrama and the Production of Historical Affect”
4.00 – 5.00: Response & Discussion
7.00: Reception at Sundaram Tagore Gallery
Includes screening of Mira Nair’s documentary short The Laughing Clubs of Bombay (1999).
Day 3: SATURDAY, APRIL 22nd
19 University Place, Room 101
9.30 – 12.30:
Session 5 - Practitioners of the Indian New Wave
Chair/Discussant – Richard Pena
9.30: Suranjan Ganguly
“Adoor Gopalakrishnan and the Rhetoric of Otherness”
10.00: Aparna John
“Dividing the Indian New Wave: Some Reflections on the Avant-Garde Sensibility in Indian Cinema”
10.30: Sumita Chakravarty
“India’s New Cinema: Towards a Genealogy of the Transnational”
11.00: Parag Amladi
“Mani Kaul’s Place in the Indian New Wave”
11.30 – 12.30: Response & Discussion
12.30 – 2.00: LUNCH
SCREENINGS AT ASIA SOCIETY
3.00 Herbert directed by Suman Mukhopdhyay
7.00 Parzania directed by Rahul Dholaki
Day 4: SUNDAY, APRIL 23rd
19 University Place, Room 101
10.00 – 12.30 -
Session 6 - Early Studio Productions
Chair/Discussant – Ashish Rajadhyaksha
10.00: Rashmi Doraiswamy
“The Ontology of the Community Image: The Saint-Poet Films of Prabhat”
10.30: Kaushik Bhaumik
“The Beginnings of the Cultural Holocaust: The Hindu Reformof Bombay Cinema, c.1936”
11.00: Rosie Thomas
“Fearless Nadia and the Wadia Movietone/Basant Pictures”
11.30 – 12.30: Response & Discussion
12.30-2.00: LUNCH
2.00 – 5.00:
Session 7 - Fringe & Other Cinema’s of the Multiplex Era
Chair/Discussant – Anna McCarthy
2.00: Madhava Prasad
“Contemporary Indian Cinema and the Problem of the Culturally Backward Spectator”
2.30: Lalitha Gopalan
“Rethinking the Past at the Multiplexes”
3.00: Ranjani Mazumdar
“The Fringe City at the Multiplex”
3.30 – 4.30: Response & Discussion
4.30 – 5.00: TEA BREAK
5.00 – 7.00: Closing Session
History, Nationhood and the Question of National Cinema
An Interdisciplinary Panel
Chair: Arvind Rajagopal Panelists: Philip Lutgendorf (Literature), Gyan Prakash (Historian), Jyotika Virdi (Film Studies).
Panelists will speak for 20 minutes each and then open out for a discussion
