Wimal Dissanayake

Cinema is a dominant force in the lives of many people living in Asia, a continent that has a number of distinguished national film industries. A concept central to much of Asian film production is melodrama. This path-breaking study examines the importance of melodrama in the film traditions of Japan, India, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Australia. Exploring the various ways that melodrama operates with theoretical sophistication, the various essays contained in this volume shed light on the different traditions of Asian cinema, as well as on the wider cultural discourse in which they participate.

Melodrama and Asian Cinema

Anthony Guneratne

This important anthology addresses established notions about Third Cinema theory, and the cinema practice of developing and postcolonial nations. The 'Third Cinema' movement called for a politicised film-making practice in Africa, Asia and Latin America, one which would take on board issues of race, class, religion, and national integrity. The films which resulted from the movement, from directors such as Ousmane Sembene, Satyajit Ray and Nelson Pereira dos Santos, are among the most culturally signficant, politically sophisticated and frequently studied films of the 1960s and 1970s. However, despite the contemporary popularity and critical attention enjoyed by films from Asia and Latin America in particular, Third Cinema and Third Cinema theory appears to have lost its momentum. Rethinking Third Cinema seeks to bring Third Cinema and Third Cinema theory back into the critical spotlight. The contributors address the most difficult and challenging questions Third Cinema poses, suggesting new methodologies and redirections of existing ones. Crucially, they also re-examine the entire phenomenon of film-making in a fast-vanishing 'Third World', with case studies of the cinemas of India, Iran and Hong Kong, among others.

Rethinking Third Cinema

Thomas P. Kasulis

Roger T. Ames

This book is a sequel to Self as Body in Asian Theory and Practice (SUNY, 1992) and anticipates a third book, Self as Image in Asian Theory and Practice. In order to address issues as diverse as the promotion of human rights or the resolution of sexism in ways that avoid inadvertent lapses into cultural chauvinism, alternative cultural perspectives that begin from differing conceptions of self and self-realization must be articulated and respected. This book explores the articulation of personal character within the disparate cultural experiences of Japan, China, and South Asia.

Self as Person in Asian Theory and Practice

This multidisciplinary collection underlines the importance of understanding the operations of human agency - defined here as the ability to exert power, specifically in resistance to ideological pressure. In particular, the contributors emphasize the historical and cultural conditions that facilitate the production of agency in an effort to gain a deeper understanding of the cultures of China, India, and Japan. The contributors argue that traditional Western approaches to the study of these cultures have unduly focused on the pervasive influence of family and clan (China), caste and fatalism (India), and groupism (Japan), reminding us that members of a community have to make personal choices, struggle and interact with others, and confront new challenges, all of which involve intentionality and human agency.

Self-making in China, India, and Japan

Narratives of Agency

Dorothy Wong

This book presents the nature and significance of Ashes of Time, and the reasons for its being regarded as a landmark in Hong Kong cinema.

Wong Kar-Wai's Ashes of Time

Ackbar Abbas

John Nguyet Erni

Internationalizing Cultural Studies is an unprecedented resource that introduces and consolidates existing key and important writings in cultural studies literature from different regions of the world. The editors have designed the readings to challenge practitioners in the West and beyond to redefine cultural studies as a truly global movement. Contains 44 contemporary essays that introduce diverse intellectual traditions of cultural studies Includes lively and accessible introductions from an international panel of expert editors Features worldwide coverage, including Asia, Europe, and Africa Organizes material around key themes to aid disciplinary discussion – including race and ethnicity, transnationalism, gender and sexual cultures, media production and consumption, urban life, popular practices, technocultures, and visual cultures Offers shape – for the first time in one volume – to this complex and diverse field

An Anthology

Internationalizing Cultural Studies

Adjunct Fellow East-West Center Hawaii Scholar in Residence Wimal Dissanayake

. . . an important collective work for communication practitioners, students, and scholars who want to have a deeper understanding of film making in Asia and of the promotion of nationalism through communication. --Media Asia . . . a momentous contribution to the study of colonialism and postcoloniality in Asia . . . --The Journal of Asian Studies This is an excellent model for studies in how the popular, art, and experimental cinemas function in the consideration of nationhood as a configuration of symbols. . . . This anthology provides an interesting discussion by offering a theoretical framework from which to examine the complex topics of nation, state, identity formation, and collective history in the realm of cinema. It becomes an even more effective tool by playing itself out within a diverse Asian context. --Afterimage Essays examine the representation of the interlocking discourses of nationhood and history in Asian cinema, dealing with film traditions in Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, and Australia.

Colonialism and Nationalism in Asian Cinema

K. Moti Gokulsing

As India celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of its independence, much praise was lavished on its emergence as a major player on the global stage. Its economic transformation and geopolitical significance as a nuclear power are matched by its globally resonant cultural resources. This book explores India’s rich popular culture. Chapters provide illuminating insights into various aspects of the social, cultural, economic and political realities of contemporary globalised India. Structured thematically and drawing on a broad range of academic disciplines, the book deals with critical issues including: - Film, television and TV soaps - Folk theatre, Mahabharata-Ramayana ,myths, performance, ideology and religious nationalism - Music, dance and fashion - Comics, cartoons, photographs, posters and advertising - Cyberculture and the software industry - Indian feminisms - Sports and tourism - Food culture Offering comprehensive coverage of the emerging discipline of popular culture in India, this book is essential reading for courses on Indian popular culture and a useful resource for more general courses in the field of cultural studies, media studies, history, literary studies and communication studies.

Popular Culture in a Globalised India

India is the largest film producing country in the world and its output has a global reach. After years of marginalisation by academics in the Western world, Indian cinemas have moved from the periphery to the centre of the world cinema in a comparatively short space of time. Bringing together contributions from leading scholars in the field, this Handbook looks at the complex reasons for this remarkable journey. Combining a historical and thematic approach, the Handbook discusses how Indian cinemas need to be understood in their historical unfolding as well as their complex relationships to social, economic, cultural, political, ideological, aesthetic, technical and institutional discourses. The thematic section provides an up-to-date critical narrative on diverse topics such as audience, censorship, film distribution, film industry, diaspora, sexuality, film music and nationalism. The Handbook provides a comprehensive and cutting edge survey of Indian cinemas, discussing Popular, Parallel/New Wave and Regional cinemas as well as the spectacular rise of Bollywood. It is an invaluable resource for students and academics of South Asian Studies, Film Studies and Cultural Studies.

Routledge Handbook of Indian Cinemas

Robert Stam

Karen Kelsky

Jonathan Beller

Ella Shohat

Rob Wilson

Hamid Naficy

Christopher Connery

This groundbreaking collection focuses on what may be, for cultural studies, the most intriguing aspect of contemporary globalization—the ways in which the postnational restructuring of the world in an era of transnational capitalism has altered how we must think about cultural production. Mapping a "new world space" that is simultaneously more globalized and localized than before, these essays examine the dynamic between the movement of capital, images, and technologies without regard to national borders and the tendency toward fragmentation of the world into increasingly contentious enclaves of difference, ethnicity, and resistance. Ranging across issues involving film, literature, and theory, as well as history, politics, economics, sociology, and anthropology, these deeply interdisciplinary essays explore the interwoven forces of globalism and localism in a variety of cultural settings, with a particular emphasis on the Asia-Pacific region. Powerful readings of the new image culture, transnational film genre, and the politics of spectacle are offered as is a critique of globalization as the latest guise of colonization. Articles that unravel the complex links between the global and local in terms of the unfolding narrative of capital are joined by work that illuminates phenomena as diverse as "yellow cab" interracial sex in Japan, machinic desire in Robocop movies, and the Pacific Rim city. An interview with Fredric Jameson by Paik Nak-Chung on globalization and Pacific Rim responses is also featured, as is a critical afterword by Paul Bové. Positioned at the crossroads of an altered global terrain, this volume, the first of its kind, analyzes the evolving transnational imaginary—the full scope of contemporary cultural production by which national identities of political allegiance and economic regulation are being undone, and in which imagined communities are being reshaped at both the global and local levels of everyday existence.

Cultural Production and the Transnational Imaginary

Global/Local

Dudley Andrew

William Rothman

This unique study examines the importance of melodrama in the film traditions of Japan, India, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Australia.

Ashes of Time, by the internationally acclaimed director Wong Kar-wai, has been considered to be one of the most complex and self-reflexive of Hong Kong films. Loosely based on the stories by renowned martial arts novelist Jin Yong, Wong Kar-wai has created a very different kind of martial arts film, which invites close and sustained study.This book presents the nature and significance of Ashes of Time, and the reasons for its being regarded as a landmark in Hong Kong cinema. Placing the film in historical and cultural context, Dissanayake discusses its vision, imagery, visual style, and narrative structure. In particular, he focuses on the themes of mourning, confession, fantasy, and kung fu movies, which enable the reader to gain a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the film.

Wong Kar-wai's Ashes of Time

At a time when the world of Sinhala arts and letters has been ignored or misrepresented in the West, it is timely that this insightful book has been published. Professor Wimal Dissanayake has selected four of the leading cultural intellectuals in the country (Munidasa Cumaratunga, Martin Wickramasinghe, Ederiweera Sarachchandra and Gunadasa Amarasekera) to examine critically. He explains their innovative work in terms of the interplay between tradition and modernity in light of contemporary thinking on culture, history, language, and agency.

Four Sinhala Cultural Intellectuals

Enabling Traditions

Distinguished scholars discuss the problem of self-deception, or rather, self and deception.

A Cross-Cultural Philosophical Enquiry

Self and Deception

Anthony R. Guneratne

The 'Third Cinema' movement called for a politicized film-making in Africa, Asia and Latin America which would address issues of race, class, religion, and national integrity. This anthology addresses notions about Third Cinema theory, and the cinema practice of developing and postcolonial nations.

Explores, from a cross-cultural viewpoint and in terms of symbolic expression, the self's problematic relationship to language and art and to the culture embedding the language and art.

Self as Image in Asian Theory and Practice

This is the third in a series dealing with the concept of self and its importance in understanding Chinese, Japanese, and Indian cultures. The authors examine the relationship between self and image and its significance in attaining a deeper knowledge of Chinese, Japanese, and Indian cultures. The relationship between self and image is as complex as it is fascinating. It takes on different meanings and significances in diverse cultures. In this volume, the focus of attention is largely on representational practices and symbolic media, such as literature, cinema, art, and dance. By examining both classical and contemporary works associated with China, India, and Japan, the authors seek, on the one hand, to demonstrate the intricate relationship between self and image and, on the other, to make use of that relationship to further our understanding of these cultures.

Wimal Dissanayake

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