Deities and devotees : cinema, religion, and politics in South India / Uma Maheswari Bhrugubanda.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bhrugubanda, Uma Maheswari, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Motion pictures--India--Religious aspects.

Motion pictures.

Motion pictures--Political aspects--India.

Religion in motion pictures.

Motion pictures--Political aspects.

Motion pictures--Religious aspects.

India.

Physical Description:

xx, 246 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Other Title:

Deities & devotees

Place of Publication:

New Delhi : Oxford University Press, 2018.

Summary:

How have cinema and popular religion shaped each other? Is the display of devotion in the cinema hall the same as devotion in a temple? If cinema has a power to persuade people to believe in the image, to mesmerize or even possess them, how do we understand that compelling power? 0Through engaging with these questions, this book presents a genealogical study of the intersections between cinema, religion and politics in South India. Through a study of Telugu mythological and devotional films, this book combines a history of these genres with an anthropology of film making and viewership practices. In the decades from the 1940s to the 2000s, it examines film texts, as well as methods of film making and publicity, modes of film criticism as well as practices of viewership.0The book draws on film and media theory to foreground the specificity of new technologies and the new kind of publics they create. Anthropological theories of religion, secularism, embodiment and affect are combined with political theories of citizenship to complicate our understanding of the overlapping formations of film spectators, citizens and devotees. It argues that the cinema offers a unique opportunity to explore the affective dimensions of citizenship and the formation of citizen-devotees.

Contents:

Part I Genealogies of Telugu Mythological and Devotional Films

1 From Representing Gods to Representing the Telugu People: N.T. Rama Rao, Mythologicals, and Populism p. 43

2 The Exemplary Citizen-Devotee and the Other: Negotiating History and Religious Difference in the Saint Film p. 86

3 The Good Wife and the Goddess: Scripting Roles for the Female Citizen in the Devotional Film p. 117

Part II Anthropology of Film-Making and Viewing Practices

4 Embodied Engagements: Viewership Practices and the Habitus of Telugu Cinema p. 157

5 Performing Deities and Devotees: Debating Film-Making Practices p. 188.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780199487356

0199487359

OCLC:

1079179346