Workshop I: Engaging the Nation
The workshop deals with contemporary hegemonic imaginings of nation through formations/practices of fundamentalist masculinities in the context of a sharp right-wing swing in India. At the same time, it will also address alternative mappings of nation from non-hegemonic locations. Amar Kanwar’s documentary film Nights of Prophecy – that deterritorialises and remaps the nation from the fringes – will be screened to initiate and frame discussions about resistance movements on the terrain of culture.

Workshop II: Engaging the National-Popular
This workshop will take up the peculiar phenomenon of the Hindi film (increasingly referred to as ‘Bollywood’) and look at some issues of nation, state, genre and gender/caste/class. It aims to challenge non-Indian/Asian assumptions about issues of spectation, spectatorial practices, realism, melodrama, pleasure and cultural politics on specific sites.