This book offers the reader an in-depth understanding of Utpal Dutt’s entire career in drama. Covering Dutt’s career in proscenium, street theatre and Jatra, it analyzes the interesting exchange of dramatic art with politics in his theatre. Owing to a plethora of unsubstantiated opinions, Dutt is either revered by his followers or dismissed by his opponents, but hardly ever studied with necessary objectivity and intellectual rigour. The book attempts to bust the myth that Dutt was primarily a political propagandist who used theatre only as a means to achieve his political end. The remarkable range of Dutt’s subject matter makes him as internationally significant as he is loved by Indian theatre enthusiasts. His work has been discussed on various reputed international platforms. Yet there is a stark lacuna when it comes to intellectual attention devoted to Dutt’s theatre. This is the first book which attempts to introduce Dutt’s theatre comprehensively to an international readership. The book looks briefly at Dutt’s life, the impact of his politics on his theatre, the art of his characterization, his dramaturgy and stage technique, and the legacy of his work in theatre. It also offers the reader with a chronological list of the first performances of his original theatrical works and an exhaustive bibliography, which, it is hoped, shall prove especially useful for researchers. The book is designed for lay theatre enthusiasts as well as advanced students of theatre.

Among the most significant playwrights and theatre-makers of postcolonial India, Utpal Dutt (1929-1993), was an early exponent of rethinking colonial history through political theatre. Dutt envisaged political theatre as part of the larger Marxist project, and his incorporation of new developments in Marxist thinking, including the contributions of Antonio Gramsci, makes it possible to conceptualise his protagonists as insurgent subalterns. A decolonial approach to staging history remained a significant element in Dutt's artistic project. This Element examines Dutt's passionate engagement with Marxism and explores how this sense of urgency was actioned through the writing and producing of plays about the peasant revolts and armed anti-colonial movements which took place during the period of British rule. Drawing on contemporary debates in political theatre regarding the autonomy of the spectator and the performance of history, the author locates Dutt's political theatre in a historical frame.

The largest film industry in the world after Hollywood is celebrated in this updated and expanded edition of a now classic work of reference. Covering the full range of Indian film, this new revised edition of the Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema includes vastly expanded coverage of mainstream productions from the 1970s to the 1990s and, for the first time, a comprehensive name index. Illustrated throughout, there is no comparable guide to the incredible vitality and diversity of historical and contemporary Indian film.

This book examines the global circulation of Marxism seen from one of its most highly charged sites: Calcutta in India. Building on but also revising existing approaches to global intellectual history, the book presents the circulation of Marxism through Calcutta as a historically-sited problem of mass mediation. Using tools from media studies, the book explores the way that Marxism was presented to the public, the technologies used, and the meanings of Marxism in twentieth-century Calcutta. Demonstrating how the Popular Front was split between the so-called 'people's group' and those whom were called 'intellectuals', the book argues that the people's group generally identified themselves as Marxists and preferred audio-visual media such as theatre, while the so-called intellectuals privileged academic rigour and print media, usually referring to themselves as Marxians. Thus, the author reveals a polyphony of Marxisms in the Popular Front. Tracing Marxism back to the Bengal Renaissance and the Swadeshi and Naxal movements, this book shows how debate around the meaning of 'Marxism' continued throughout the 1970s in Calcutta, and eventually engendered the historiographical movement that has come to be known as Subaltern Studies.

Interrogates the explosive potential of revolutionary anti-colonial 'afterlives' in contemporary Indian politics and society.

The over-the-top musicals of Bollywood may be the most familiar aspect of Indian popular culture, but there are many more, all explored in this fascinating volume. Pop Culture India! Media, Arts, and Lifestyle follows the rise of modern India's pop culture world, especially since the 1980s, when relaxed censorship and economic liberalization led to an explosion in movies, music, mass media, consumerism, spiritual practices, and more. It is a captivating introduction to a diverse nation whose appetite for entertainment has led to some surprising twists and turns in recent history. How did a popular Indian television series spark a change in government and the rise of Hindu nationalism? Are some Bollywood film companies laundering money for organized crime, or even al Qaeda? What accounts for the overwhelming popularity of that quaint vestige of colonialism, cricket? The answers, and many more intriguing insights, await the reader in Pop Culture India!

Routledge Handbook of Asian Theatre is an advanced level reference guide which surveys the rich and diverse traditions of classical and contemporary performing arts in Asia, showcasing significant scholarship in recent years. An international team of over 50 contributors provide authoritative overviews on a variety of topics across Asia, including dance, music, puppetry, make-up and costume, architecture, colonialism, modernity, gender, musicals, and intercultural Shakespeare. This volume is divided into four sections covering: Representative Theatrical Traditions in Asia. Cross-Regional Aspects of Classical and Folk Theatres. Modern and Contemporary Theatres in Asian Countries. Modernity, Gender Performance, Intercultural and Musical Theatre in Asia. Offering a cutting edge overview of Asian theatre and performance, the Handbook is an invaluable resource for academics, researchers and students studying this ever-evolving field.

This book is the first of its kind offering a materialistic semiotic analysis of a non-Western theatre culture: Bengali group theatre. Arnab Banerji fills two lacunas in contemporary theatre scholarship. First, the materialist semiotic approach to studying a non-Western theatre event allows Banerji to critically examine the material conditions in which theatre is created and seen outside the Euro-American context. And second, by shifting the critical lens onto a contemporary urban theatre phenomenon from India, the book attempts to even out the scholastic imbalance in Indian theatre scholarship which has largely focused on folk and classical traditions. The book shows a refreshing new perspective toward a theatre culture that frequently escapes the critical lens in spite of being one of the largest urban theatre cultures in the world. Theatre events are a sum total of the conditions in which they are built and the conditions in which they are viewed. Studying the event separate from its materialistic beginnings and semiotic effects allow only a partial insight into the performance phenomenon. The materialist semiotic critical framework of this book locates the Bengali group theatre within its performative context and offers a heretofore unexplored insight into this vibrant theatre culture.

My First, Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth Books of Social Studies- a complete set of 5 books. The Books are well Informative and entirely based on NCERT/CBSE syllabus.

This work discusses why so many western theatre workers have come to India and what they were looking for. It identifies Indian theatre as a site of reappraisal and renewal both in India and in the world of performance.