Time Schedule:
Alka Kurian
BIS 339
Bothell Campus
Examination of various topics and approaches to the study of culture in a global context. May include the study art, literature, theater, cultural history, music history/ethnomusicology, and/or cultural anthropology/geography. Topics and approaches may vary with instructor.
Class description
As one of the most powerful media institutions in the country, Bollywood, or Bombay cinema, plays a central role in shaping India’s ‘national’ culture. Politics of Bollywood examines this popular-commercial cinema as a major cultural site that produces, perpetuates, and circulates dominant ideology. The course will examine film as a political document in the way it reinforces a specific type of national, gendered, class, and sectarian identity both at ‘home’ and within the South Asian diaspora.
Student learning goals
1. An overview of the history of Indian cinema and its present-day global reach.
2. A critical understanding of the relationship between cinema, politics, society, and culture.
3. An insight into postcolonial politics in the Indian subcontinent.
4. The language and tools of analysis of cinema as an aesthetic construct.
5. Interdisciplinary skills in learning, researching, and writing.
General method of instruction
The class will use a combination of lectures, student-led discussions and seminars, group work, oral presentations, and film screenings.
Recommended preparation
None
Class assignments and grading
Oral presentation, take-home midterm paper, take-home final paper.
- Class attendance, participation and preparation: 25% - Oral presentation: 15% - Midterm paper: 30% - Final paper: 30%
