ARTH 295 - Special Topics in Art History

Credits: 3 in fall or winter, 4 in spring
Selected topics in art history with written and oral reports. May be repeated for degree credit with permission and if the topics are different.
 

Topic for Spring 2011:

ARTH 295: Spring-Term Topics in Art History:  Bollywood! (4): This course is an exploration of contemporary Indian film as narratives of cultural discourse. with specific attention paid to the unprecedented success of “Bollywood,” India’s film and television industry and the largest film producers in the world (more than 300 annually). Focusing on constructions of gender and identity, the class analyzes nationalism and globalization that emerge from within depictions of Indian cultural and social environments. Through films and readings, we examine ways in which Indian cinema addresses issues of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, caste, class, and modernization as a cultural dialogue. Questions of hybridity, transnationalism, and “Indian-ness” within the South Asian diaspora are also considered. We view films by Satyajit Ray, Shyam Senegal, and Mani Rathnam, and films directed by women of the region such as Deepa Mehta, Mira Nair, and Gurinder Chadha. (HA). Holt.