Bollywood and Its Other(s) ― Towards New Configurations

How do we define the globalized cinema and media cultures of Bollywood in an age when it has become part of the cultural diplomacy of an emerging superpower? Is it still an 'other' industry in a world dominated by Hollywood? Bollywood and Its Other(s) aims to compensate for the lack of scholarly literature on Indian film by opening up hitherto unexplored sites or sites that are in formation. It focuses on the aesthetic-philosophical questions of the other, Indian diaspora's negotiations with national identity, alternative reading strategies/research methods, marginal genres (sci-fi, horror), marginal characters (flaneuse, vamps), marginal gender (non-normative sexualities), marginal cinema (Hindi avant-garde), marginal language (Hinglish), and marginal regions (the Kashmir valley). It intends to address film scholars, South Asian studies researchers, cinephiles and lay readers alike.

Vikrant Kishore is an academic, filmmaker, journalist and photographer. He works at the University of Newcastle, Australia, as Lecturer in Communication and Media Production. His doctoral research was on 'Bollywood Cinema and Dance'. He worked as a researcher on an Australian Research Council funded project on 'Mapping Lifestyle Television in Asia' at RMIT University under the leadership of Tania Lewis. Kishore has more than 25 documentaries and corporate films to his credit and his area of expertise are Bollywood Films, the folk and tribal cultures of Eastern India, and the issues of caste politics in India. His documentaries on Chhau Dance have been screened at various international film festivals.

Amit Sarwal is Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University, Australia, and also the Founding Convenor of Australia-India Interdisciplinary Research Network (AIIRN). He has taught as Assistant Professor in the Department of English at SGND Khalsa College and Rajdhani College, University of Delhi, India. He was an Honorary Visiting Scholar (2006-2007) at Monash University as an Endeavour Asia Award winner. His areas of interest include South Asian Diaspora Literature, Australian Literature and Popular Fiction on which he has organised and presented in many conferences and published in various journals and books. He has co-edited a number of books on Australian studies such as Creative Nation: Australian Cinema and Cultural Studies Reader (2009); Wanderings in India: Australian Perceptions (2012); and Enriched Relations: Public Diplomacy in Australia-Indian Relations (2013).

Parichay Patra is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Film and Television Studies, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Patra studied English Literature and Film Studies at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. He has published in reputed film journals such as the Journal of the Moving Image and in a number of edited volumes. Patra has presented papers in various conferences, seminars and symposia in India, Taiwan and Australia. His area of interest is the history of the Indian New Wave cinema of the 1970s. His article on Ritwik Ghatak's Subarnarekha (1962) is about to be published in a collection of essays.