This is Volume V out of eleven that form a collection on India, its History, Economy and Society. First published in 1930, this book looks at the origin and development of Bengali Drama and contains matter for historians, as well as direct criticism of what the author considers to be genuinely dramatic in the literature of Bengal, past or present.

Imperialism is a transnational and transhistorical phenomenon; it occurs neither in limited areas nor at one specific moment. In cultures from across the world theatrical performance has long been a site for both the representation and support of imperialism, and resistance and rebellion against it. Imperialism and Theatre is a groundbreaking collection which explores the questions of why and how the theatre was selected within imperial cultures for the representation of the concerns of both the colonizers and the colonized. Gathering together fifteen noted scholars and theatre practitioners, this collection spans global and historical boundaries and presents a uniquely comprehensive study of post-colonial drama. The essays engage in current theoretical issues while shifting the focus from the printed text to theatre as a cultural formation and locus of political force. A compelling and extremely timely work, Imperialism and Theatre reveals fascinating new dimensions to the post-colonial debate. Contributors: Nora Alter; Sudipto Chatterjee; Mary Karen Dahl; Alan Filewood; Donald H. Frischmann; Rhonda Garelick; Helen Gilbert; Michael Hays; Loren Kruger; Josephine Lee; Robert Eric Livingston; Julie S. Peters; Michael Quinn; Edward Said; Elaine Savory.

Sharmistha Gooptu is a founder and managing trustee of the South Asia Research Foundation (SARF), a not-for-profit research body based in India. SARF’s current project SAG (South Asian Gateway) is in partnership with Taylor and Francis, and involves the creation of what will be the largest South Asian digital database of historical materials. She is also the joint editor of the journal South Asian History and Culture (Routledge) and the Routledge South Asian History and Culture book series.

This volume featrues over 250,000 words and more than 125 photographs identifying and defining theatre in more than 30 countries from India to Uzbekistan, from Thailand to New Zealand and featuring extensive documentation on contemporary Chinese, Japanese, Indian and Australian theatre.

This book looks at adaptations, translations and performance of Shakespeare's productions in India from the mid-18th century, when British officers in India staged Shakespeare's plays along with other English playwrights for entertainment, through various Indian adaptations of his plays during the colonial period to post-Independence period. It studies Shakespeare in Bengali and Parsi theatre at length. Other theatre traditions, such as Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi, have been included. The book dwells on the fascinating story of the languages of India that have absorbed Shakespeare's work and have transformed the original educated Indian's Shakespeare into the popular Shakespeare practice of the 19th and 20th centuries, and the unique urban-folkish tradition in postcolonial India.

Emphasizing a performative and stage-centered approach, this book considers early modern European theater as an international phenomenon. Early modern theater was remarkable both in the ways that it represented material and symbolic exchanges across borders but also in the ways that it enacted them. In analyzing theater as a medium of dialogic communication, the volume emphasizes cultural relationships of exchange and reciprocity more than unilateral encounters of hegemony and domination.

Popular Cinema in Bengal marks a decisive turn in studies of Bengali language cinema by shifting the focus from auteur and text-based studies to exhaustive readings of the film industry. The book covers a wide range of themes and issues, including: generic tropes (like comedy and action); iconic figurations (of the detective and the city); (female) stars such as Kanan Bala, Sadhana Bose and Aparna Sen; intensities of public debates (subjects of high and low cultures, taste, viewership, gender and sexuality); print cultures (including posters, magazines and song-booklets); cinematic spaces; and trans-media and trans-cultural traffic. By locating cinema within the crosscurrents of geo-political transformations, the book highlights the new and persuasive research that has materialised over the last decade. The authors raise pertinent questions regarding 'regional' cinema as a category, in relation to 'national' cinema models, and trace the non-linear journey of the popular via multiple (media) trajectories. They address subjects of physicality, sexuality and its representations, industrial change, spaces of consumption, and cinema’s meandering directions through global circuits and low-end networks. Highlighting the ever-changing contours of cinema in Bengal in all its popular forms and proposing a new historiography, Popular Cinema in Bengal will be of great interest to scholars of film studies and South-Asian popular culture. The chapters were originally published in the journal South Asian History and Culture.

This book analyses Rabindranath Tagore’s contribution to Bengali drama and theatre. Throughout this book, Abhijit Sen locates and studies Rabindranath’s experiments with drama/theatre in the context of the theatre available in nineteenth-century Bengal, and explores the innovative strategies he adopted to promote his ‘brand’ of theatre. This approach finds validation in the fact that Rabindranath combined in himself the roles of author-actor-producer, who always felt that, without performance, his dramatic compositions fell short of the desired completeness. Various facets of his plays as theatre and his own role as a theatre-practitioner are the prime focus of this book. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in Theatre and Performance Studies and most notably, those focusing on Indian Theatre and Postcolonial Theatre.

'Knit India Through Literature...' is a mega literary project, first of its kind in Indian literature, is the result of the penance-yagna done for 16 years by Sivasankari, noted Tamil writer. ‘Knit India Through Literature' has inolved intense sourcing, research and translation of literature from 18 Indian languages. The project she says aims to introduce Indians to other Indians through literature and culture and help knit them together. The interviews of stalwart writers from all 18 languages approved by the eighth schedule of Indian Constitution, accompanied by a creative work of the respective writer are published with her travelogues of different regions, along with an indepth article by a scholar on the cultural and literary heritage of each of the language, in four volumes - South, East, West and North respectively. Her travelogues, her interviews and the overview of each literature she has sought, all reveal one important unity... the concern our writers and poets express in their works for the problems that beset our country today. Through her project Sivasankari feels writers can make an invaluable contribution with their writings to change the thinking of the people and help eliminate those problems. In this volume she deals with Bengali one of the languages spoken in eastern region of India.

West Bengal is one of the eastern states in India. Bengal is known as Gauda or Vanga an ancient Sanskrit Literature also it’s a land of worshipping God. West Bengal is India’s 6 th largest state in terms of economic size further it has 12 growth Centers for medium and large scale industries. West Bengal is the 2 nd largest tea growing in India. General knowledge of West Bengal is essential for various competitive examinations and especially for the students who are appearing for West Bengal Public Service commission (WBPSC) and other state level examinations The current edition of ‘Know Your State – West Bengal’ gives the detailed study of History, Geography, Economy, Polity, Art & Culture, Center and State government welfare schemes and Current Affairs of West Bengal. A systematic Chapter wise study will mark improvement in the performance of the students, moreover Tables, boxes and figures gives better representation for memorizing the main points. MCQs have been provided at the end of each chapter that helps in understanding and preparing the subject at the exam point-of-view level. This book comes a quick, relevant and easy route for achieving in the examination. TABLE OF CONTENT West Bengal : Basic Information, Ancient History of West Bengal, Medieval History of West Bengal, Modern History and Popular Movements in West Bengal, Geographical Features and Climate of West Bengal, Climate and Soils of West Bengal, Drainage System of West Bengal, Natural Vegetation of West Bengal, National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries, Agriculture and Irrigation in West Bengal, Animal Husbandry in West Bengal, Industries of West Bengal, Minerals and Energy Resources in West Bengal, Transport System of West Bengal, Communication in West Bengal, Administrative Set-Up of West Bengal, West Bengal Judiciary, Local Self Government in West Bengal, District Profile of West Bengal, Tourism in West Bengal, Music and Dance of West Bengal, Bengali Cinema, Bengali Theatre, Language and Literature of West Bengal, Fairs and Festivals of West Bengal, Education and Health in West Bengal, Castes and Tribes of West Bengal, Sports of West Bengal, Awards and Honours of West Bengal, Great Personalities of West Bengal, Social and Welfare Schemes of West Bengal, Demographic Profile of West Bengal, Current Affairs