REPORT - "Transnational Dialogues on Bollywood" by Amit Sarwal (Conference held 30 Nov 2006; Melbourne)

On Thursday 30th November 2006, The Australian National University and Monash University jointly organised a one-day conference titled “Transnational Dialogues on Bollywood: Australian Perspectives” at the Monash Law Chambers, Melbourne.

The convenors of this conference, Debjani Ganguly (ANU) and Andrew Hassam (Monash University) succeeded in bringing together a group of scholars from India (Makarand Paranjape, Anjali Gera Roy, Nagamallika G.) and Australia (Andrew Hassam, Debjani Ganguly, Vijay Mishra, Goldie Osuri) to “explore the transnational impact of Bollywood on public spheres around the globe and to assess its contribution to creative industries in Australia.”

The conference addressed the following themes, with particular reference to the Australian context:

• Transnational circulation of Bollywood as a marker of Indianness
• Bollywood as a shared cultural idiom among the Indian diaspora
• Translation of Bollywood themes, genres, styles into various popular cultural forms around the world (e.g. the Melbourne Commonwealth Games, new media art, intercultural youth films)
• Impact of Bollywood on material culture, such as food, fashion and fitness
• Production, distribution and reception of Bollywood films
• Bollywood’s contribution to creative industries

>>> READ AMIT SARWAL'S FULL REPORT (MS-Word doc).

Please Note:
A follow-up workshop is in the process of being planned for January 2008 at the Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Scholars who are interested in participating can contact Prof. Makarand Paranjape for more information: makarand@mail.jnu.ac.in or makarand.paranjape@gmail.com