Department of Anthropology Colloquium

About the event

Arabian Nights Magic: Orientalism and the Islamicate fantasy film in Indian cinema history

Dr. Rosie Thomas
University of Westminster, London

The Arabian Nights were a major force in the transnational popular culture circuits of the early 20th century. Focusing on Aladdin and Alibaba, both successfully remade throughout Indian cinema history, this talk will explore the complex series of appropriations involved in bringing these curiously hybrid, transnational tales to Indian popular audiences. How did the imaginary worlds of the fantasy films relate to internationally fashionable orientalist forms? What might these films have meant to their subaltern Indian audiences? The presentation will remind us that, alongside nationalist orthodoxies, a significant stream of Bombay cinema has always reveled in cultural hybridity, borrowing voraciously from global popular culture and engaging with transcultural flows of cosmopolitan modernity and postmodernity, largely beneath the radar of India’s nationalist elite.

Rosie Thomas is Professor of Film at the Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM) and Director of the India Media Centre at the University of Westminster, London. Her early research as a social anthropologist was on the Bombay film industry and, since 1985, she has published widely on Indian cinema, with a special focus on pre- and early post-independence films. Her monograph Bombay Before Bollywood: Film City Fantasies was published by SUNY Press in 2015.

*Note: This talk will be broadcast from the WSU Vancouver Campus

All are welcome to attend!