The Magic of Bollywood: At Home and Abroad First Edition
Author(s): Anjali Gera Roy
Publisher: SAGE
Publication Date: 27 Jun. 2012
Edition: First Edition
Language: English
Print length: 356 pages
ISBN-10: 8132107322
ISBN-13: 9788132107323
Book Description
Few would deny that the most significant weapon in India′s cultural and artistic armory is its avowedly commercial cinema, now known as Bollywood. This anthology aims to portray the “soft” power of Bollywood, which makes it a unique and powerful disseminator of Indian culture and values abroad. The essays in the book examine Bollywood′s popularity within and outside South Asia, focusing on its role in international relations and diplomacy.
In addition to contributions that directly engage with the notion of soft power, a number of essays in the volume testify to the attractiveness of Bollywood cinema for ethnically diverse groups across the world, probe the reasons for its appeal, and explore its audiences′ identification with cinematic narratives.
Established and emerging scholars in literature, theater, film, dance, music, media, cultural studies, and sociology from different parts of the world present their views from multidisciplinary perspectives based on case studies from Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Germany, Russia, the US, Senegal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Canada, in addition to India.
Editorial Reviews
Review
The Magic of Bollywood: At Home and Abroad First Edition explores the wide ranging dimensions of Bollywood as an effective element of India’s soft power. Such academic endeavours are rare in the existing scholarship in Indian Cinema…. The critical analysis on the acceptance of certain kinds of films among the Indian diaspora and the natives of various lands are illuminating. The link between the neo-liberal regime and Bollywood is profoundly analysed…very few books have highlighted the relation between the film production scenario and the narratives and style of the films made in India like this one. — The Sunday Standard Published On: 2013-12-23
A joy to read…brings together a collection of very insightful and authoritative essays probing the multifarious research and impact of bollywood movies within and outside India, also sets the stage for scholarly appreciation of the relationship between culture, Politics, International relations and the power games that such relationships entail…. It is fascinating to see such rigorous research being expended on something that we, in our country, consume as given…even a skim- through is rewarding.
— The Asian Age, 25 September 2012
From the Back Cover
Aims to portray the “soft” power of Bollywood as it offers a kaleidoscopic prism that filters the Indian cultural reality in a globalized world. This book examines Bollywood’s popularity within and outside South Asia, focusing on its role in international relations.
About the Author
Anjali Gera Roy is a Professor of English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, West Bengal, India. She has carried out extensive research on various aspects of Bollywood, as part of a Senior Research Fellowship of the Indo-Canadian Shastri Institute in 2007, as well as on Bollywood’s transnational flows at the Asia Research Institute National University of Singapore in 2008–2009.
She has published essays in literary, film, and cultural studies and has also authored and edited several books. She has co-edited with Nandi Bhatia a volume of essays, Partitioned Lives: Narratives of Home,
Displacement and Resettlement (2008), on the Indian Partition of 1947; and with Chua Beng Huat another volume Travels of Bollywood Cinema: From Bombay to LA (2012). Her book on Bhangra’s global flows, Bhangra Moves: From Ludhiana to London and Beyond was published in 2010.
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