Featuring case studies, essays, and conversation pieces by scholars and practitioners, this volume explores how Indian cinematic adaptations outside the geopolitical and cultural boundaries of India are revitalizing the broader landscape of Shakespeare research, performance, and pedagogy.
Chapters in this volume address practical and thematic concerns and opportunities that are specific to studying Indian cinematic Shakespeares in the West. For instance, how have intercultural encounters between Indian Shakespeare films and American students inspired new pedagogic methodologies? How has the presence and popularity of Indian Shakespeare films affected policy change at British cultural institutions? How can disagreement between eastern and western perspectives on the politics of a Shakespeare film become the site for productive cross-cultural dialogue? This is the first book to explore such complex interactions between Indian Shakespeare films and Western audiences to contribute to the assessment of the new networks that have emerged as a result of Global Shakespeare studies and practices.
The volume argues that by tracking critical currents from India towards the West new insights are afforded on the wider field of Shakespeare Studies - including feminist Shakespeares, translation in Shakespeare, or the study of music in Shakespeare - and are shaping debates on the ownership and meaning of Shakespeare itself. Contributing to the current studies in Global Shakespeare, this book marks a discursive shift in the way Shakespeare on Indian screen is predominantly theorised and offers an alternative methodology for examining non-Anglophone cinematic Shakespeares as a whole.
List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Foreword: On Reading the Indian Shakespeare Film
Poonam Trivedi (Indraprastha College, University of Delhi, India)
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Indian Shakespeare Cinema in the West: Past, Present and Future Directions
A Conversation between Varsha Panjwani (NYU London, UK) and Koel Chatterjee (Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Dance and Music, UK)
PART ONE: Dismantling the Familiar
1. Re-generation: Remapping the Screenscape in Fractious Times
Diana E. Henderson (MIT, USA)
2. Two Indian Film Offshoots of Twelfth Night
Robert White (University of Western Australia, Australia)
3. 'For never was a story of more woe': Dialogic Telling and Global Interchange in Qayamat se Qayamat Tak, a 'Bollywood' Film Adaptation of Romeo and Juliet
Mark Thornton Burnett (Queen's University Belfast, UK)
4. 'Indian' Independent Cinema and Shakespeare: Conversations with Sharat Katariya and Vandana Kataria
Tula Goenka (Syracuse University, USA)
5. Vandana Kataria's Noblemen: Global Frames of Interpretation
Taarini Mookherjee (Columbia University, USA)
6. Chutzpah: The Politics of Bollywood Shakespeare Subtitles
Varsha Panjwani (NYU London, UK)
PART TWO: Re-contextualizing the Strangers
7. Curating Indian Shakespeares at the BFI in 2016
Helen deWitt in conversation with Anne Sophie Refskou (Aarhus University, Denmark)
8. "Traveling" with Shakespeare through Bhardwaj's Haider: Some Challenges in Teaching Global Shakespearean Adaptations in US University Classrooms: The Global Shakespeare Movement
Jyotsna Singh (Michigan State University, USA)
9. Understanding Nimmi: Tracing Interpretations of Vishal Bhardwaj's Maqbool
Ana Laura Magis Weinberg (National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico)
10. 'Naina thag lenge': Visual Uncertainty in Othello and Vishal Bhardwaj's Omkara
Shani Bans (University College London, UK)
11. A Pair Of Homotextual Lovers: Bhansali's Ram-Leela and Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet
Amritesh Singh (University of St Andrews, UK)
12. 'All the world's a stage': The Participatory Indian Cinema Audience and its Impact on Indian Shakespeare Films
Koel Chatterjee (Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Dance and Music, UK)
Afterword: Sonia Massai (King's College London, UK)
Index
