Syllabus
***New class added on November 10th!***
Course Outline
Week 1, September 27 Introduction to the Course, briefly to Indian history and society, and to Indian cinema/Bollywood
Films: “Beginnings” The Story of India with Michael Wood BBC/PBS, 2008, 60 minutes
Larger than Life: India’s Bollywood Film Culture Films for the Humanities & Sciences, 2005, 57 minutes
Readings
DeVotta & Ganguly, “Introducing India,” pp. 1-19; “A Geographic Preference,” pp. 23-51
Mehta, “Introduction: Indian Cinema against the Currents of History,” pp. 1-18
For further reading
Twenty-first century Bollywood Routledge, 2015
Joshi, Priya Bollywood’s India: a Public Fantasy Columbia University Press, 2015
Week 2, October 4 Revisiting Indian History and Society
Brief Historical Overview
Film: Jodhaa Akbar directed by Ashutosh Gowariker, 2008 (213 minutes)
Recommended films:
Ashoka the Great directed by Santosh Sivan, 2001
Devdas directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, 2002
Mohenjo Daro directe by Ashutosh Gowarkar, 2016, 155 minutes
Panipat directed by Ashutosh Gowarkar, 2019, 170 minutes
Readings
DeVotta & Ganguly, “The Historical Context,” pp. 53-90
Week 3, October 11 History from Within and Views of ‘the Other’: Partition and its Relevance Today
Special notes on Indian society, Hinduism and caste
Film: Lagaan (Once Upon a Time in India) directed by Ashutosh Gowariker, produced by Aamir Khan Productions, 2001 (224 minutes)
Recommended films:
Gandhi directed by Richard Attenborough, 1982
Garam Hava (Hot Winds) directed by M.S. Sathyu, 1973
Ghare Baire (The Home and the World) directed by Satyajit Ray, 1984
Lage Raho Munna Bhai directed by Rajkumar Hirani, 2006
A Passage to India directed by David Lean, 1984
Rang de Basanti directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, 2006
The Rising: Ballad of Mangal Pandey directed by Ketan Mehta, 2005
Readings
DeVotta & Ganguly, “The Political System,” pp.91-115; “Economies and Development,” pp. 117-140; “The Politics of Caste,” pp. 161-184
Mehta,”Colonial Indian Cinema,” pp. 19-60
For further reading
Nicholas Dirks “The Home and the World: the Invention of Modernity in Colonial India” in Robert A. Rosenstone (ed.) Revisioning History: Film and the Construction of a New Past Princeton University Press, 1995, pp. 44-63
Lindley, Arthur “Raj as Romance/Raj as Parody: Lean’s and Foster’s Passage to India” Literature/Film Quarterly, 20, No. 1, 1992, pp. 61-66
Film: 2 States directed by Abhishek Varman, produced by Karan Johar and Sajid Nadiadwala, 2014 (149 minutes)
SPECIAL EVENT!
Recommended films:
Baghban (The Gardener) directed by Ravi Chopra, 2003
Bareilly ki Barfi (Sweets of Bareilly, a hill station) directed by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, 2017, 116 minutes
Hum Tum (You and I) directed by Kunal Khohli 2004
Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna directed by Karan Johar, 2006
Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (Sometimes Happiness, Sometimes Sadness) directed by Yash Johar, 2001
Lajja (Propriety) directed by Raj Kumar Santoshi, 2002
Mirch Masala (Hot Spices) directed by Ketan Mehta, 1987
Salaam Namaste directed by Siddharth Anand, 2005
Readings
Anwer & Arora, “Introduction,” pp. 1-21; “Mompreneur in the Multiplex,” pp. 27-38
DeVotta & Ganguly, “The Status of Women,” pp. 221-248
Mehta,”Shadow Nationalism,” pp. 61-10
Week 5, October 25 Gender Norms, Prostitution and Homosexuality in India
Film: Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga (This Happened when I saw a Girl) directed by Shelly Chopra Dhar, 2019 (120 minutes)
Recommended films:
Badhaai Do (Congratulations) directed by Harshavardhan Kulkarni, 2022
Gangubai Kathiawadi directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, 2022
(See Aljazeera’s article on the impact of this film “Thailand gets Bollywood fever as sex worker biopic strikes chord“)
Kapoor & Sons directed by Shakun Batra, 2016
Laaga Chunari Mein Daag (Journey of a Woman, or There Seems to be a Stain on her Shirt) directed by Pradeep Sarkar, 2007
Lipstick under my Burkha directed by Alankrita Shrivastava, 2016
Mirch Masala (Hot Spices) directed by Ketan Mehta, 1987
Readings
Anwer & Arora, “Beyond the Couple Form,” pp. 54-64; “Mera Saaya,” pp. 66-75; New Womanhood and #Lipstick Rebellion,” pp. 79-90; “Out of India,” pp. 133-143
Mehta, “Culture Wars and Catharses,” pp. 101-140
Week 6, November 1 Religion in Flux
Film: PK directed by Rajkumar Hirani, 2014, 155 minutes
The controversy around PK
Recommended films:
Bombay directed by Mani Ratnam, 1995
My Name is Khan directed by Karan Johar, 2010
OMG: Oh my God! directed by Umesh Shukla, 2012
Om Shanti Om directed by Farah Khan, 2007
Readings
DeVotta & Ganguly, “Religion,” pp. 185-220
Mehta, “India’s Long Globalization and the Rise of Bollywood,”
pp. 141-177
Samirah Majumdar “5 facts about religion in India” Pew Research Center, 28 June 2018
Pew Research Center “Population Growth and Religious Composition” September 11, 2021
“Religion in India: Statistics and Facts” (November 17, 2020)
For further reading
Brass, Paul The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India University of Washington Press, 2005
Doniger, Wendy The Hindus: an Alternative History Penguin Press, 2009
Week 7, November 8 India, Pakistan and the Kashmir Conflict
Film: Bajrangi Bhaijaan directed by Kabir Khan, 2015, 163 minutes
Recommended films:
Fanaa directed by Kunal Kohli, 2006
Henna directed by Randhir Kapoor, 1991
Khamosh Pani (Silent Waters) directed by Sabiha Sumar (Pakistan), 2003
Major directed by Sashi Kiran Tikka, 2022
Parmanu: the Story of Pokhran directed by Abhishek Sharma, 2018 (this tells the story of India’s development of nuclear weapons, is on Netflix, but is also very biased)
Veer Zaara directed by Yash Chopra, Yashraj Studios, 2004
Readings
DeVotta & Ganguly, “International Relations,” pp. 143-154
AFP “One Year of India’s clampdown in Occupied Kashmir” Dawn, August 13, 2020
BBC News “Article 370: What happened with Kashmir and why it matters” August 6, 2019
BBC News “Indian PM Modi lays foundation for Ayodhya Ram temple amid Covid Surge“
Goldman, Russell “India-China Border Dispute: a Conflict Explained” New York Times June 18, 2020
Kabir, Ananya Jahanara “The Kashmiri as Muslim in Bollywood’s ‘New Kashmir films’”Contemporary South Asia Vol. 18, No. 4, December 2010, 373–385
For further reading
Hiro, Dilip The Longest August: The Unflinching Rivalry Between India and Pakistan Nation Books, 2015
Margolis, Eric S. War at the Top of the World: the Struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir and Tibet Routledge, 2000, pp. 54-85, 101-118
Schofield, Victoria Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unending War 3rd edition, B. Tauris, 2010
From here on, the class topics are adjusted as we have added a class on November 10
Week 7 – 2nd class, November 10 India’s Changing Cities and the Growing Fear of Terrorism
This class meets 3:45 – 6:30 pm in 117 Education
Film: A Wednesday directed by Neeraj Pandey, 2008 (104 minutes)
Recommended films:
Dhobi Ghat (Mumbai Dairies) directed by Kiran Rao, 2010
Khuda Kay Liye (In the Name of God) directed by Shoaib Mansoor (Pakistan), 2007
My Name is Khan directed by Karan Johar, 2010
Newton directed by Amit Masurkar, 2017
Readings
DeVotta & Ganguly, “Population, Urbanization and Environmental Challenges,” pp. 251-273
List of the world’s largest cities (India has 3 in the top 15)
Timeline of terrorist attacks in India, 2022 (SATP)
Datasheet India: yearly fatalities (SATP)
India conflict map 2019 (from SATP)
Week 8, November 15 Social Pressure and the New Economy
Film: Three Idiots directed by Rajkumar Hirani, 2009, 170 minutes
Recommended films:
Guru directed by Mani Ratnam, 2007
Jai Bhim directed by T.J. Gnanavel, 2021
Salaam Bombay! directed by Mira Nair, 1988
Youngistaan directed by Syed Ahmed Afzal, 2014
Readings
Anwer & Arora, “Reshaping ‘Bollywood’,” pp. 191-201
DeVotta & Ganguly, “Looking Ahead,” pp. 275-284
Mehta, “Cinema, Media and Global Capital in an Unruly Democracy,” pp. 179-185
Tejaswini Ganti “From Slumdogs to Millionaires” in Producing Bollywood: Inside the
Contemporary Hindi Film Industry Duke University Press, 2012, pp. 77-118
Rumki Majumdar “India Economic Outlook, October 2002” Deloitte Insights, 21 October 2022
Week 9, November 22 Bollywood!
This is our last class meeting of the term.
Film: We’ll screen a quintessential Bollywood ‘masala’ film. I’ve reviewed so many of them now, and based on what I’ve seen as your preferences, we’ll screen this:
Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani (literally “This Youth is Crazy”) directed by Ayan Mukherjee, 2013 (160 minutes)
Recommended films:
Bareilly ki Barfi directed by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, 2017 [very cute]
Dangal directed by Nitesh Tiwari, 2016
Dear Zindagi directed by Gauri Shinde, 2016
Jhund directed by Nagraj Manjule, 2022 (stars Amitabh Bachchan!)
Khoobsurat directed by Shashanka Ghosh, 2014 (130 minutes) [my original choice for this class]
Readings (just skim, no need for extensive reading)
Bollywood Hungama (News of Bollywood)
BollywoodMDB.com (Bollywood Movie Database)
Planet Bollywood
New article added: Samanth Subramanian “Screen Test: When the Hindu right came for Bollywood” The New Yorker, October 17, 2022, pp. 20-27