Decoding Bollywood: Films, Fandom, Fantasy and Beyond

The course will explore, analyse and decode the specific languages of cinema of Bollywood or mainstream Hindi cinema within India and beyond. It will do so through various entry points into an analysis – namely through language and literature, through dance forms, through a diaspora lens or through its entanglements with central issues such as gender and identity.

Through these four parts the course will outline the evolution of Hindi cinema and how we can see cinema as prism to understand Indian society in its complexities and with changing socio-political contexts. For example, the course will investigate the relation of Indian and world literature to Bollywood and how Bollywood had been interpreting these texts in an Indian context. It will debate how gender has been portrayed in Bollywood cinema and how its sensitivity had been changing with Indian society and laws. Thus, the course offers students a comprehensive overview of Bollywood cinema and the languages employed.

The course will be using theories relevant to each part of the course such as Linguistic film theory by Stanley Cavem, queer theory etc. In the course methods like text analysis and comparative method will be employed. Besides theorizing and interpreting Bollywood cinema in a wider academic context, the course also offers students a first-hand experience of Bollywood dance through a workshop element. This element provides a platform to experience the rhythm of Bollywood.

Course leader

Vivek Kumar Shukla

Target group

Bachelor's Level

Fee info

EUR 846: EU/EEA citizens
EUR 1400: NON EU/EEA citizens

Scholarships

No scholarships available

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